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 …
Category Archives: Uncategorized
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 …
Continue reading “Book Review: Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel”
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 …
Continue reading “Book Review: Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo”
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 …
Book Review: Portuguese Irregular Verbs by Alexander McCall Smith
Book #104 of 2017: Portuguese Irregular Verbs by Alexander McCall Smith (Portuguese Irregular Verbs #1) A lightweight little comedy about a trio of hapless linguistics professors. The plot is thin, but the humor is droll, particularly in its barbs at academia. A short, fun read. ★★★☆☆
Book Review: All the President’s Men by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward
Book #103 of 2017: All the President’s Men by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward A gripping firsthand account of the Watergate investigation, told by the two Washington Post reporters who first broke the story and kept following up on its leads until the scandal ultimately brought down a president. It’s easy for people like me, …
Continue reading “Book Review: All the President’s Men by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward”
Book Review: John Dies at the End by David Wong
Book #102 of 2017: John Dies at the End by David Wong (John Dies at the End #1) This novel is weird, both in the sense of uncanny Lovecraftian horrors and in the sense of a bizarre plot related by a rambling unreliable narrator. I think the author was aiming for an Army of Darkness …
Continue reading “Book Review: John Dies at the End by David Wong”
TV Review: Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, season 4
TV #16 of 2017: Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, season 4 The season finale was kind of a letdown, but the season itself was the best S.H.I.E.L.D. has ever been – and close to the best the MCU in general has offered in terms of character-driven informed storytelling and really meaty material for its actors. I …
Continue reading “TV Review: Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, season 4”
Book Review: The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie
Book #101 of 2017: The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie (The First Law #1) An overall solid fantasy novel, very much in the George R. R. Martin tradition of court intrigue and gratuitous violence. Unfortunately the plot was slow-moving and fairly opaque, and I found myself struggling to care about most of the characters. Still, …
Continue reading “Book Review: The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie”
The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more 