Book #48 of 2019: Off the Sidelines by Kirsten Gillibrand This 2014 memoir / female empowerment guide is essentially my introduction to Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a 2020 presidential candidate who has only been peripherally on my radar before now. Reading it hasn’t convinced me to vote one way or another in that upcoming primary election, …
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Book #47 of 2019: Aru Shah and the End of Time by Roshani Chokshi (Pandava Quartet #1) This is one of those books that I don’t really love myself, but am glad exists in the world for other people. I’m sure many young Hindu readers will see themselves in the heroine, and children in general …
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Book #46 of 2019: The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller As in her later book Circe, author Madeline Miller has crafted an immersive retelling of Greek mythology, here bringing to life the tragic love story of Achilles and Patroclus. The latter figure has always struck me as a bit of an afterthought in The …
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TV #10 of 2019: Breaking Bad, season 4 Another superb year of ratcheting tension, untenable situations, and wonderfully complex character arcs. I have some issues with where the story goes from here, mostly in how it sometimes frames Walter White as more of a hero than I think is merited, but this penultimate run of …
TV #9 of 2019: Friday Night Lights, season 3 This season is a bit of a soft reboot for the show… which was arguably necessary after the trainwreck of melodrama the year before, but is still somewhat jarring for viewers. Several characters are in very different places — both plotwise and emotionally — than when …
Book #45 of 2019: Golden State by Ben H. Winters This dystopian police procedural has a premise that irresistibly recalls earlier sci-fi classics like Fahrenheit 451 or Minority Report: it’s set in a future version of California where lying has been outlawed, and special detectives with the ability to detect falsehood are tasked with preserving …
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Book #44 of 2019: East by Edith Pattou (East #1) I’m unfortunately underwhelmed by this retelling of the Scandinavian fairy tale East of the Sun and West of the Moon. There’s promise here in the idea of prophecy and birth directions, but the setting is not particularly distinctive and none of the characters have much …
TV #8 of 2019: True Detective, season 3 There are quite a few elements in the latest season of this mystery anthology that feel remixed from its first year, but I think I actually prefer how they’re assembled this time around. Whereas there was really no compelling story reason for the original investigation to be …
Book #43 of 2019: Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel I love this book just as much as I remember, and upon this reading I’m particularly struck by the quiet tone of the work. It’s all too easy for a writer of this sort of world-ending saga to lean on the action and the …
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Book #42 of 2019: Team of Vipers: My 500 Extraordinary Days in the Trump White House by Cliff Sims There’s a tendency for this new genre of tell-all books concerning Donald Trump’s presidency to come across as overly gossip-driven and vengeful, and just as the title suggests, that’s ultimately how this one from former aide …
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