Book #90 of 2017: The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper by Phaedra Patrick I mostly liked this story of an elderly widower who breaks out of the solitary routine he’s been in since his wife’s death, rediscovering his own love for life as he tries to learn more about her life before she met him. …
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Book #89 of 2017: White Sand, Volume 1 by Brandon Sanderson, Rik Hoskin, and Julius Gopez (White Sand #1) White Sand is an unpublished manuscript by author Brandon Sanderson, and this graphic novel is an adaptation of the first part of that unreleased novel, with two more planned volumes to follow. I had hoped that …
Book #88 of 2017: Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond A dry but interesting account of world history through the lens of cultural materialism, an anthropological theory holding that differences in environment can explain much of the variation that exists across cultures. For historian Jared Diamond, this approach essentially …
Book #87 of 2017: Doctor Who: Prisoners of Time by Scott Tipton and David Tipton Doctor Who: Prisoners of Time was a 12-issue comic book series written for the show’s 50th anniversary in 2013, telling the story of a mysterious enemy kidnapping the Doctor’s companions across all of the Time Lord’s incarnations thus far. It’s …
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Book #86 of 2017: The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova The Historian is a fascinating book that manages to be both a haunting vampire story and an ode to the alternating joys and terrors of scholarly research. Dracula exists in this novel not only as a character, but also as a metaphor for any such beguiling …
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Book #85 of 2017: Ever by Gail Carson Levine I’ve liked Gail Carson Levine’s other works, but Ever was a bit of a misfire for me. The ancient Mesopotamian setting felt very surface-level, as though Levine had only a cursory understanding of the area and its culture when she decided to use it for her …
Book #84 of 2017: Dark Places by Gillian Flynn This thriller from Gone Girl author Gillian Flynn lives up to its title, spinning a dark story of a woman trying to piece together the night from her childhood when someone murdered her mother and sisters just outside her bedroom door. It’s a well-told mystery populated …
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Book #83 of 2017: Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil by Hannah Arendt A raw and unflinching look at the trial of Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi officer who organized the mass transportation of Jews into concentration camps and gas chambers. Hannah Arendt was a Jewish author who sat in on his …
Book #82 of 2017: Wolf-Speaker by Tamora Pierce (The Immortals #2) An okay follow-up to Tamora Pierce’s earlier novel Wild Magic. I liked that Pierce went out of her way to emphasize that not all creatures who look like monsters are evil, but this was kind of a weird message in a novel where the …
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Book #81 of 2017: Games Wizards Play by Diane Duane (Young Wizards #10) This tenth book in the Young Wizards series is also by far its longest, which gives the characters a little bit more time to breathe before the usual crisis hits. The main plot revolves around a wizarding competition, and author Diane Duane …
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