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 …
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TV Review: Friday Night Lights, season 3
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 Review: Golden State by Ben H. Winters
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 Review: East by Edith Pattou
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 Review: True Detective, season 3
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 Review: Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
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 Review: Team of Vipers: My 500 Extraordinary Days in the Trump White House by Cliff Sims
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 …
Book Review: This Will Only Hurt a Little by Busy Philipps
Book #41 of 2019: This Will Only Hurt a Little by Busy Philipps I mostly know actress Busy Philipps from her work on the long-running stage show / podcast the Thrilling Adventure Hour, and I’ll admit that I primarily picked up this book hoping — in vain, as it turns out — for stories of …
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Book Review: Where We Go from Here: Two Years in the Resistance by Bernie Sanders
Book #40 of 2019: Where We Go from Here: Two Years in the Resistance by Bernie Sanders This latest book from Bernie Sanders was published shortly before the Vermont senator officially announced that he would once more be seeking the Democratic nomination for president, but it has clearly been written with the intent of making …
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Book Review: Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Book #39 of 2019: Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky I think this is my favorite of the three Dostoyevsky novels I’ve now read, but that still isn’t saying much. Aside from an electrifying early sequence depicting the titular crime and its initial aftermath — which favorably brings to mind certain suspense writers that I …
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The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more 