Book #227 of 2020: Good Economics for Hard Times by Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo There are some interesting recent studies in this text, and I appreciate the inclusion of data from India and other developing countries, but as a piece of popular economics writing, it sinks along three key dimensions. First, despite having …
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Book Review: The Guns of Avalon by Roger Zelazny
Book #226 of 2020: The Guns of Avalon by Roger Zelazny (The Chronicles of Amber #2) This 70s fantasy sequel is another fun sword-and-sorcery adventure across parallel worlds, but it’s rather less gripping than the series debut. Our demigod hero was no less superhuman in that previous volume, but as an amnesiac going up against …
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TV Review: Star Wars: The Clone Wars, season 3
TV #39 of 2020: Star Wars: The Clone Wars, season 3 Another run of this CGI cartoon that strikes me as largely disposable for the wider franchise plot, although I assume the action sequences are exciting for younger audiences. The most interesting things this year are the complications that develop in the Dooku / Ventress …
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Book Review: Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas
Book #225 of 2020: Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas There’s a certain climactic reveal in this YA urban fantasy novel that I found disappointingly telegraphed from early on, but that’s honestly one of the only critiques I can make about it. What a refreshingly original story overall, populated with delightful personalities who ring with #ownvoices …
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Book Review: Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik
Book #224 of 2020: Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik This 2015 book is a solid overview of the major events in the life and career of the titular Supreme Court justice, and a bittersweet read in the wake of her recent passing. It’s not …
Book Review: The Silver Arrow by Lev Grossman
Book #223 of 2020: The Silver Arrow by Lev Grossman There’s a fun Diana Wynne Jones-meets-Norton Juster vibe to the start of this children’s fantasy novel, in which a bored eleven-year-old girl and her nine-year-old brother are gifted a life-sized magical steam train by their eccentric uncle. The ensuing adventure doesn’t quite live up to …
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Book Review: Darius the Great Deserves Better by Adib Khorram
Book #222 of 2020: Darius the Great Deserves Better by Adib Khorram (Darius the Great #2) This YA sequel is another fantastic #ownvoices slice-of-life narrative, following its overweight and depressed Persian-American teen hero after he returns home from his visit to Iran in the first book. Even more so than that initial volume, it’s hard …
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Book Review: Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph by T. E. Lawrence
Book #221 of 2020: Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph by T. E. Lawrence This 1926 memoir was the inspiration for the classic movie Lawrence of Arabia, about a British soldier’s experiences aiding the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Turks. I haven’t seen the film, and I also don’t know a whole lot about that …
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Book Review: Beowulf: A New Translation by Maria Dahvana Headley
Book #220 of 2020: Beowulf: A New Translation by Maria Dahvana Headley Any new rendition of Beowulf is an achievement, but this modernized and feminist approach to the Old English epic is particularly exciting. Author Maria Dahvana Headley has retained the poetic structures of the original, with its internal rhymes, alliterations, and kennings, but she …
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Book Review: The Thirteen Problems by Agatha Christie
Book #219 of 2020: The Thirteen Problems by Agatha Christie (Miss Marple #2) This second Miss Marple book (published as The Tuesday Club Murders in the U.S.) is a fun collection of short mystery stories, presented in the loose framework of a group of friends trying to stump one another with puzzling cases each has …
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The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more 