TV #17 of 2023: Abbott Elementary, season 2 Another fine year of this workplace mockumentary set at an underfunded, majority-Black public school in inner-city Philadelphia. The strengths of its humor and character specificity remain, and my biggest concern from before, that season one‘s core romantic tension was too similar to Jim and Pam from The …
Author Archives: Joe Kessler
Book Review: Paradise by Toni Morrison
Book #59 of 2023: Paradise by Toni Morrison A complex work that weaves back and forward in time and around a large cast of people associated with the fictional all-Black rural township of Ruby, Oklahoma. The structure of this book reminds me somewhat of Catch-22, but with less of a central protagonist, a more difficult …
TV Review: The Mandalorian, season 3
TV #16 of 2023: The Mandalorian, season 3 A very uneven installment, and one that probably seems even weaker for being the first live-action Star Wars property to follow the franchise-high achievements of Andor’s debut year. While not awful, this is certainly the worst (or more generously, the most inconsistent) the Mando show has ever …
Book Review: I Know Who You Are: How an Amateur DNA Sleuth Unmasked the Golden State Killer and Changed Crime Fighting Forever by Barbara Rae-Venter
Book #58 of 2023: I Know Who You Are: How an Amateur DNA Sleuth Unmasked the Golden State Killer and Changed Crime Fighting Forever by Barbara Rae-Venter Author Barbara Rae-Venter is a retired patent lawyer who in recent years has found a new career in the burgeoning field of genetic genealogical research, and specifically its …
Book Review: Midwinterblood by Marcus Sedgwick
Book #57 of 2023: Midwinterblood by Marcus Sedgwick A journalist in the late 21st century visits a secluded island where he instantly feels a sense of mutual romantic attraction and familiarity with a local woman. In the next section of the text, set decades earlier, there are two other people there who share their names, …
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Book Review: Abhorsen by Garth Nix
Book #56 of 2023: Abhorsen by Garth Nix (The Old Kingdom #3) This 2003 sequel is a thrilling end to the fantasy coming-of-age tale begun in 2001’s Lirael. (Although described upon release as the conclusion to the Abhorsen / Old Kingdom trilogy, these two volumes are really pretty separate from the original 1995 title Sabriel …
Book Review: The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding and a Selection of Entrées by Agatha Christie
Book #55 of 2023: The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding and a Selection of Entrées by Agatha Christie The criteria for inclusion in author Agatha Christie’s short story collections is often somewhat haphazard, and in the case of this 1960 publication, it turns out that I’ve read four of the six entries elsewhere already (or …
Book Review: The Killing God by Stephen R. Donaldson
Book #54 of 2023: The Killing God by Stephen R. Donaldson (The Great God’s War #3) If book 1 of this fantasy trilogy offered an allegorical fable, and the sequel delivered a stream of complicating intrigues amid some thankfully deepened worldbuilding, this closing volume brings everything together for an action-packed finale as the threatened war …
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TV Review: Six Feet Under, season 3
TV #15 of 2023: Six Feet Under, season 3 This HBO drama about a family who run an independent funeral home has been steadily growing on me, but even in this third season I still don’t think the series is consistently strong enough to deserve a rating higher than three-out-of-five stars. The first episode of …
Book Review: The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England by Brandon Sanderson
Book #53 of 2023: The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England by Brandon Sanderson [Disclaimer: I am Facebook friends with this author.] This is the second of author Brandon Sanderson’s four “Secret Project” novels, which he wrote over the pandemic lockdowns of 2020-2021 in the time he’d normally spend traveling and making public appearances …
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