Book #92 of 2019: The Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy #2) This sequel is less laugh-out-loud funny than the original Hitchhiker’s novel, which makes it harder to look past the looseness of the plot (or the few snobby digs at the working class). There …
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Book #91 of 2019: Fool’s Errand by Robin Hobb (The Tawny Man #1) As expected for the seventh entry in her larger Elderlings saga, the world of Robin Hobb’s first Tawny Man novel feels quite well-developed and lived-in at this point. And it’s a real thrill to revisit the surviving characters from her initial Farseer …
Book #90 of 2019: Doctor Who: Regeneration by Philip Segal with Gary Russell This oral history of the 1996 Doctor Who movie is unauthorized and poorly-edited, making it feel somewhat amateurish despite being written by one of the project’s executive producers and earliest champions. But it’s packed with inside information on the production, including some …
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Book #89 of 2019: Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid I’ll admit I wasn’t immediately hooked by this oral history of a fictional 70s rock group, yet I found myself fairly riveted by the end. The ‘behind-the-music’ format is familiar for a documentary but pretty unusual for a novel, and author Taylor …
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TV #13 of 2019: Santa Clarita Diet, season 3 As always, I’ve laughed a lot this season at the twisted presentation of an oddly functional human-zombie marriage, but the plot doesn’t really surprise me as much as it has in the past. Instead the show just keeps falling back on its old common patterns, to …
Book #88 of 2019: Fire & Blood by George R.R. Martin (A Targaryen History #1) One of the main attractions of George R.R. Martin’s famous A Song of Ice and Fire series, as well as its HBO adaptation Game of Thrones, is the richly textured backstory that the author has built up for his fantasy …
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Book #87 of 2019: The Man Who Risked His Partner by Stephen R. Donaldson (The Man Who #2) Stephen R. Donaldson is primarily a fantasist, and his The Man Who detective series borrows heavily from that toolkit. I wouldn’t necessarily call it worldbuilding, but the setting of these books feels ever-so-slightly heightened and off-kilter from …
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Movie #4 of 2019: Crazy Rich Asians (2018) I had a somewhat lukewarm reaction to the novel this movie is based on, so although I was glad for the representation of an all-Asian blockbuster rom-com, I never made it a priority to watch myself. But it really is as fun as everyone said last year, …
Book #86 of 2019: The Ruin of Kings by Jenn Lyons (A Chorus of Dragons #1) I like that this massive fantasy tome from debut author Jenn Lyons takes some stylistic risks, presenting much of its story as dual-timeline narratives interspersed with comments from a later narrator reviewing both accounts. But there’s so much info-dumping …
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Book #85 of 2019: Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain I’ve never been especially familiar with celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain, but I was struck by all the fans who tearfully praised his warm, empathetic approach to food culture after his suicide in 2018. I heard over and over again that he …
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