Book #17 of 2023: A Jewish Bestiary: Fabulous Creatures from Hebraic Legend & Lore by Mark Podwal An interesting read, but not quite what I was expecting and definitely not as in-depth or exhaustive as it seems like it could have been. This modern title presents encyclopedic entries for 35 different animals described in the …
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Book Review: Petty Treasons by Victoria Goddard
Book #16 of 2023: Petty Treasons by Victoria Goddard This novella revisits and expands upon a slice of backstory previously mentioned in author Victoria Goddard’s excellent fantasy doorstopper The Hands of the Emperor, when Cliopher Mdang first began service as His Radiancy’s personal secretary. Except while that book was generally presented from Kip’s third-person limited …
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Book Review: Bravely by Maggie Stiefvater
Book #15 of 2023: Bravely by Maggie Stiefvater This seems like it should have been an easy layup: beloved YA fantasist (and Celticist) Maggie Stiefvater writing an officially licensed sequel to Pixar’s Brave, the one about ancient Scottish magic, the mom who turns into a bear, and the headstrong daughter who breaks the curse by …
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Book Review: Watergate: A New History by Garrett M. Graff
Book #14 of 2023: Watergate: A New History by Garrett M. Graff This 2022 publication is a clear and exceedingly thorough account of the various misdeeds, investigations, and cover-ups that dogged the end of Richard Nixon’s presidency. Historian and journalist Garrett M. Graff has conducted no fresh interviews — which would not necessarily be possible …
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TV Review: Leverage: Redemption, season 2
TV #5 of 2023: Leverage: Redemption, season 2 Another pleasantly satisfying year of the Leverage revival, although I think I’ve finally keyed into why it’s not quite soaring for me as its predecessor often did. It’s hard to spot at first, because the cast is nearly all the same, and they are still adults facing …
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Book Review: The Stars Undying by Emery Robin
Book #13 of 2023: The Stars Undying by Emery Robin (Empire Without End #1) [Thank you to the publisher Orbit for providing me with a free copy of this title in exchange for an honest review!] I appreciate this debut novel as an intellectual exercise, but somewhat less as an engaging story in the moment. …
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TV Review: Star Trek: Voyager, season 6
TV #4 of 2023: Star Trek: Voyager, season 6 Right now in my Star Trek watch-through, I am alternating a season of Voyager with a season of Enterprise, which provides an interesting and productive contrast. While this will never be my favorite iteration of the franchise, and I have to say that this penultimate year …
Book Review: Tales from Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin
Book #12 of 2023: Tales from Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin (Earthsea #5) Although I’ve generally been enjoying the Earthsea setting / franchise, I confess that I expected this 2001 book of short stories to be somewhat extraneous and non-essential. Luckily, however, with the exception of the dry historical account “A Description of Earthsea” …
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Book Review: The Burden by Mary Westmacott
Book #11 of 2023: The Burden by Mary Westmacott The sixth and final novel that author Agatha Christie published under her Mary Westmacott pseudonym is unfortunately also the weakest. It starts off alright, tracing the childhood of a girl whose mother and father both resent her for living when her older brother dies of polio, …
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Book Review: After I Do by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Book #10 of 2023: After I Do by Taylor Jenkins Reid One-and-a-half stars, begrudgingly rounded up for my enjoyment of the heroine’s extended family. I nearly quit this book several times, and it’s by far my least favorite of the five Taylor Jenkins Reid titles I’ve now read. The characters are decently fleshed-out, and the …
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The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more 