Book #64 of 2017: From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg This 1967 story of a brother and sister running away from home to live in a museum – and the old lady chronicling their adventure – is simply darling. Two kids on their own in New York City …
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Book Review: We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
Book #63 of 2017: We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson Years ago, the aristocratic Blackwood family sat down to dinner at their New England estate, but poison in the dishes left only three survivors. Now Merricat, her sister, and her uncle live on in the home where the rest of their …
Continue reading “Book Review: We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson”
Book Review: The Regulators by Richard Bachman
Book #62 of 2017: The Regulators by Richard Bachman This pseudonymous Stephen King novel has too many characters with not enough characterization, which makes it hard to keep track of them or even care when they kept getting gunned down. It doesn’t help that most of the characters share names – but not much else …
Continue reading “Book Review: The Regulators by Richard Bachman”
Book Review: Touch by Claire North
Book #61 of 2017: Touch by Claire North A neat spy thriller about a character who can flit from body to body through skin contact, temporarily taking over other people’s lives while they black out. The entity known as Kepler has lived for hundreds of years that way, ever since discovering the power when facing …
Book Review: The Happiness Project: Or Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun by Gretchen Rubin
Book #60 of 2017: The Happiness Project: Or Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun by Gretchen Rubin Early on in Gretchen Rubin’s year spent practicing habits aimed at her own happiness (and writing about it), an acquaintance tells …
Book Review: A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn
Book #59 of 2017: A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn A People’s History of the United States is really two books, and one of them is significantly better than the other. Author Howard Zinn’s thesis is that any telling of history is inherently political, and his stated goal is to present …
Continue reading “Book Review: A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn”
TV Review: Santa Clarita Diet, season 1
TV #10 of 2017: Santa Clarita Diet, season 1 It seems like every time I convince myself that zombies are played out, some new property comes along and shows just how much rich material there still can be in the concept. In this case, it’s a laugh-out-loud half-hour sitcom about a middle-class suburban mom turning …
Book Review: Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond
Book #58 of 2017: Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond A brutal firsthand study of eviction, emphasizing both its high frequency and the devastating toll it takes on families. Matthew Desmond, an ethnographer who spent years living in low-income neighborhoods and trailer parks to research this book, shows how precarious …
Continue reading “Book Review: Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond”
Book Review: It Can’t Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis
Book #57 of 2017: It Can’t Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis This political satire from 1935 imagines a blustering American politician ascending to the presidency on a nationalistic campaign, aggressively insisting on anti-immigrant falsehoods and demonizing the media for disputing them. Although many citizens are opposed to his politics, they blithely reassure themselves that fascism …
Continue reading “Book Review: It Can’t Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis”
Book Review: A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge
Book #56 of 2017: A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge (Zones of Thought #1) A neat space opera, overflowing with intelligent alien lifeforms at various stages of development – think Star Trek or Mass Effect for a rough idea of the setting, but with the added wrinkle that approaching the galactic center makes …
Continue reading “Book Review: A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge”
The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more 