Book #176 of 2017: Leonard: My Fifty-Year Friendship with a Remarkable Man by William Shatner with David Fisher A touching tribute from William Shatner to his fellow Star Trek alumnus Leonard Nimoy after the Spock actor’s passing in 2015. It’s an inside look at how the two men’s friendship changed over time, and at how …
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Book Review: A Thousand Pieces of You by Claudia Gray
Book #175 of 2017: A Thousand Pieces of You by Claudia Gray (Firebird #1) The beginning of this book is pretty weak, with a revenge quest that’s hard for readers to care about when we don’t have any emotional connection to the characters yet and a whole lot of infodumping about the technology that enables …
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Book Review: Grim Tuesday by Garth Nix
Book #174 of 2017: Grim Tuesday by Garth Nix (The Keys to the Kingdom #2) This sequel felt like a formulaic retread of the first novel in the Keys to the Kingdom series, which was already a pretty generic fantasy adventure story. I’m still waiting for that Garth Nix magic that I love from his …
Book Review: Coming of Age in Mississippi by Anne Moody
Book #173 of 2017: Coming of Age in Mississippi by Anne Moody This book is the incredibly gripping memoir of a poor black woman who became an early leader in the Civil Rights Movement, published in 1968 when the author was not yet 30 years old. Those first decades of her life were packed with …
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Book Review: Partners in Crime by Agatha Christie
Book #172 of 2017: Partners in Crime by Agatha Christie (Tommy and Tuppence #2) Tommy and Tuppence might be my favorite Agatha Christie characters, a pair of lovebirds and amateur detectives who are generally more interested in exchanging witty banter with one another than in solving the cases in front of them. (Nick and Nora …
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Book Review: Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs
Book #171 of 2017: Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs (Tarzan #1) If you can get past all the early-twentieth-century racism, this first Tarzan novel is a pretty fun adventure story. It’s complete pulp fiction with larger-than-life escapades and improbable developments, but sometimes that sort of romp is just what you need in …
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Book Review: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans 1933-45 by Milton Sanford Mayer
Book #170 of 2017: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans 1933-45 by Milton Sanford Mayer This 1954 book draws on interviews with German citizens to explore the typical actions and attitudes of everyday members of the Nazi party, with particular focus on why they were drawn to the movement and how they viewed their …
TV Review: Game of Thrones, season 2
TV #29 of 2017: Game of Thrones, season 2 As mentioned before, we are watching this show for my wife’s first time and my first time since catching it live as it first aired. It’s fun to rediscover the beginnings of everyone’s stories, especially the ones that have changed the most over the years. On …
Book Review: Johannes Cabal the Necromancer by Jonathan L. Howard
Book #169 of 2017: Johannes Cabal the Necromancer by Jonathan L. Howard (Johannes Cabal #1) Johannes Cabal isn’t a very compelling Faustian figure. He’s trying to win back his soul from the devil (by tricking 100 other people out of theirs), but he’s not particularly clever, or funny, or decent, or righteous as he goes …
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Book Review: The Fixer by Bernard Malamud
Book #168 of 2017: The Fixer by Bernard Malamud This 1966 Pulitzer-winning novel tells the story of a nonpracticing Jew in late Tsarist Russia who is arrested and falsely accused of murdering a Christian boy for ritualistic purposes. It’s a fictionalized version of the case of Menahem Mendel Beilis, and author Bernard Malamud nails the …
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