Book #99 of 2024: Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder by Salman Rushdie Interesting yet somewhat rambling, though short enough overall that that discursiveness doesn’t bother me too much. I’ve never read any Salman Rushdie before, but I was attracted to this title by the story behind it, which I saw the author describe on …
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Book #98 of 2024: Doctor Who: Ruby Red by Georgia Cook A fine but ultimately forgettable Doctor Who adventure. I had high hopes for this project as the first novel to feature Ncuti Gatwa’s Fifteenth Doctor, but there really isn’t much here that feels distinctive to his particular incarnation of that regenerating alien hero (like …
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Book #97 of 2024: Sleeping Murder: Miss Marple’s Last Case by Agatha Christie (Miss Marple #12) More or less the end of author Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple series, published posthumously in 1976 although written and set several decades beforehand. (It would be followed by one final short story anthology a few years later, collecting tales …
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Book #96 of 2024: The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley The publisher’s description of this novel calls it “a time travel romance, a spy thriller, a workplace comedy, and an ingenious exploration of the nature of power and the potential for love to change it all.” I would contend that it is none of …
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TV #31 of 2024: Seinfeld, season 7 We have an ongoing plot again! Sort of. This one doesn’t really develop and shift as the year goes on, but it does bookend and provide a distinctive atmosphere to that run. In the first episode, George suddenly decides that it’s time for him to settle down, leading …
Book #95 of 2024: The Will of the Many by James Islington (The Hierarchy #1) This fantasy novel starts off strong and gets even better from there, spinning a tale that’s rather reminiscent of Red Rising in both its Roman-inflected worldbuilding and its rage-filled protagonist infiltrating the high society of his enemies (and subsequently feeling …
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Book #94 of 2024: The Husbands by Holly Gramazio I was initially charmed but ultimately dissatisfied with this paths-not-taken novel, in which an unmarried London woman suddenly finds a husband of several years sharing her flat. No sooner has he arrived than he’s gone again, replaced by yet another stranger — for it turns out …
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Movie #16 of 2024: Enchanted (2007) Basically as delightful as I had remembered, and my 3y/o and 5y/o seemed to like it too, despite not being very into live-action stuff yet as a rule. This movie is so fascinating to me, because it rides a really fine line between lovingly mocking various Disney Princess tropes …
TV #30 of 2024: American Gods, season 3 Better than season 2, but ultimately unable to cross that elusive threshold from good to great, especially in comparison to the masterful first year of this loose Neil Gaiman adaptation. The perpetually troubled production swapped showrunners yet again for this final run, which really doesn’t feel like …
Book #93 of 2024: Yendi by Steven Brust (Vlad Taltos #2) Published in 1984, this second Vlad Taltos novel is a prequel that’s lighter on the worldbuilding lore, taking us back to earlier in that assassin / crime boss’s career when the antihero was running a smaller territory and hadn’t yet married. In fact, he …
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