Book #117 of 2021: Blood Work by Michael Connelly This 1998 novel is one of those Michael Connelly crime thrillers that’s not technically a Harry Bosch story, but still takes place in that same L.A. setting with a few shared characters. It also introduces protagonist Terry McCaleb, a former FBI agent who later features in …
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Book #116 of 2021: Anxious People by Fredrik Backman This latest novel from international bestseller Fredrik Backman has been getting his usual rave reviews, but it’s a bit of a misfire for me. Although the author often aims for profound observations on the human condition, too many of them here feel either overly broad or …
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TV #41 of 2021: Broadchurch, season 1 Like any good mystery, this series derives its power not from the hook of its whodunnit alone — the case of a young boy found murdered on the shore of a quiet British beach town — and all the ensuing twists, but from the rich character histories that …
Book #115 of 2021: Pax by Sara Pennypacker (Pax #1) Largely a Homeward Bound / The Incredible Journey sort of tale, in which a child and his pet are separated and try to return to one another. It’s a split narrative of alternating chapters between the perspective of the domesticated fox and the boy, but …
TV #40 of 2021: Firefly, season 1 Firefly casts a long shadow in fan circles for its notoriety as the classic case of a TV show unjustly canceled before its time. The litany is tediously familiar at this point: Fox executives didn’t understand the thing, aired the episodes all out of their intended order (scrambling …
Book #114 of 2021: White Cat by Holly Black (The Curse Workers #1) I’ve enjoyed this fantasy novel enough to continue on to the rest of the trilogy, but I have some real issues with the memory and emotion manipulation magic that populates the story. The protagonist at least somewhat recognizes how problematic it is, …
TV #39 of 2021: The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, season 1 One sad truth about franchises with heavy degrees of serialization is that it becomes harder to judge discrete installments on their own terms — and that they can be ruthlessly undercut by the weaker elements they inherit. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, …
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Book #113 of 2021: Lincoln and the Jews: A History by Jonathan D. Sarna and Benjamin Shapell A quintessential deep dive into a narrow topic, this 2015 book on Abraham Lincoln’s relationships with various Jewish Americans contains a lot of interesting information not often included in accounts of his life, but also a fair bit …
Book #112 of 2021: Provenance by Ann Leckie This space-opera comedy of manners takes place in the same broad continuity as author Ann Leckie’s earlier Imperial Radch trilogy, but it largely stands apart from that narrative, focusing instead on a few civilizations along the periphery of Radchian influence. It’s also a new tone for the …
Book #111 of 2021: The Wounded Land by Stephen R. Donaldson (The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant #1) In the first Thomas Covenant trilogy, the titular antihero resisted the appeal of the fantasy realm that summoned him from our reality, but gradually came to decide that its ideals were worth fighting for even if he …
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