Book #101 of 2016: What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami I think there are probably three groups of people that will get something out of this book: 1) long-distance runners, 2) aspiring novelists, and 3) fans of Haruki Murakami’s own novels. Only being in the first category myself, I …
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Book #100 of 2016: Mastiff by Tamora Pierce (Beka Cooper #3) Beka Cooper’s final case is also her biggest, with the Tortall guardswoman chasing after a kidnapped prince all over the country. But although it’s been fun to watch Beka grow in both competence and confidence as this series progressed, Mastiff is somewhat lacking as …
Book #99 of 2016: Yossarian Slept Here: When Joseph Heller Was Dad, the Apthorp Was Home, and Life Was a Catch-22 by Erica Heller Erica Heller has definitely inherited her father’s droll sense of humor, and she uses it to good effect in this memoir of their family life. I’ve read several of Joseph Heller’s …
Book #98 of 2016: Linger by Maggie Stiefvater (The Wolves of Mercy Falls #2) This book was sadder than the first one in the Wolves of Mercy Falls series, but it also had less in the way of ridiculous teenage hormones, so that was a nice change. Plus I really appreciated how it dealt with …
Book #97 of 2016: What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Munroe I like Randall Munroe’s xkcd webcomic, but this book of outlandish inquiries was a big letdown. A few of the passages stand out, like which US state is flown over by the most airplanes each day, or what would …
Book #96 of 2016: My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante (The Neapolitan Novels #1) The bildungsroman is a genre that generally doesn’t interest me, but My Brilliant Friend is a very well-executed instance of it. Elena Ferrante’s tale of two girls growing up in 1950s Naples is undeniably charming, even in translation and viewed from …
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Movie #16 of 2016: Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) Hands-down the best Star Trek adventure I’ve seen yet (which means it was better than the first movie, the three Chris Pine ones, and all of TOS and TAS). Part of me wonders why they even bothered to make more Trek after this, …
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Movie #15 of 2016: Terminator Genisys (2015) I definitely understand where all the criticism of this movie is coming from. It is bleeding plot holes left and right, to the point where the whole thing makes no sense even by the very loose standards of the Terminator franchise. But that being said, there’s a whole …
TV #45 of 2016: Don’t Trust the B—- in Apartment 23, season 2 It’s really hard to review this season, given how screwed over it was by the network / production company. (I don’t know who’s ultimately most responsible for the episodes airing out of their intended order, but even on Netflix it’s a hot …
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Book #95 of 2016: Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians by Brandon Sanderson (Alcatraz #1) Brandon Sanderson’s Alcatraz series starts out with a bang, combining one of his trademark creative magic systems with a narrator as snarky as Peter David’s Sir Apropos of Nothing in this fun novel for junior readers. We only get the first …
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