TV #18 of 2017: The Flash, season 3 The Flash is kind of in a weird place right now, where it’s trying to be both as comic-book-bonkers as DC’s Legends of Tomorrow and as dark and brooding as their big brother Arrow. So as a result you have this show where there are time remnants …
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Book Review: I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban by Malala Yousafzai with Christina Lamb
Book #112 of 2017: I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban by Malala Yousafzai with Christina Lamb Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani girl who survived being shot by the Taliban for her public advocacy on female education rights, is undeniably an inspiring figure. Unfortunately, …
Book Review: Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
Book #111 of 2017: Mansfield Park by Jane Austen Fanny Price is a somewhat passive heroine (which I gather was more of a virtue in Jane Austen’s time), but I still found myself liking Mansfield Park more than I did Pride and Prejudice. Call me a sap, but Edmund’s lifelong decency towards Fanny warms my …
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Book Review: The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
Book #110 of 2017: The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury Ray Bradbury’s vision of the Martian frontier is a haunting dream, populated by a telepathic indigenous species that humanity can never hope to truly understand. In this collection of loosely-related vignettes, he walks us through a history of the human presence on Mars from first …
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Book Review: Dark Matter by Blake Crouch
Book #109 of 2017: Dark Matter by Blake Crouch This science-fiction novel is like It’s a Wonderful Life, if George Bailey had ended up in that alternate reality without a wife and children because the version of himself there kidnapped him at gunpoint and forced him to switch places. The other version of our hero …
TV Review: Supergirl, season 2
TV #17 of 2017: Supergirl, season 2 Kind of an uneven season, but then, I think at this point we just have to accept that Supergirl is kind of an uneven show. It continues to be unabashedly 100% girl-power in a way that I think is probably amazing for the smaller girls and boys who …
Book Review: Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel
Book #108 of 2017: Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel (Themis Files #1) I expected a lot more from this novel about humanity discovering parts to a giant alien robot buried beneath the earth, especially once I found out the author has a PhD in linguistics. (There’s even a linguist character in the book, and the …
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Book Review: Red Rising by Pierce Brown
Book #107 of 2017: Red Rising by Pierce Brown (Red Rising #1) Just as great as when I first read it last year, so I’ll just quote from my earlier review: Red Rising at its heart is telling a story like The Count of Monte Cristo or Gattaca, where someone from a lower class has …
Book Review: Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo
Book #106 of 2017: Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo (Six of Crows #2) As much as I liked the fantasy heist novel Six of Crows, I was a little put off when the ending seemed to wrap up its main plot and then throw a curveball cliffhanger out of nowhere, because I didn’t relish the …
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Book Review: My Own Words by Ruth Bader Ginsburg with Mary Hartnett and Wendy W. Williams
Book #105 of 2017: My Own Words by Ruth Bader Ginsburg with Mary Hartnett and Wendy W. Williams A collection of writings and speeches by Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, interspersed with brief biographical details and other context. Ginsburg’s collected remarks provide an engaging (and fairly apolitical) view into one of America’s finest legal …
The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more 