Book #3 of 2023: The Pallbearers Club by Paul Tremblay A horror novel with very little horror in it. This reads a bit like one of those Stephen King stories about an older man looking back on his haunted adolescence — Christine crossed with Revival, maybe? — which is a tone that I could theoretically …
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Book #2 of 2023: Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson [Disclaimer: I am Facebook friends with this author.] Fantasy author Brandon Sanderson, already one of the more prolific members of his field, realized in the pandemic lockdowns of 2020-2021 that his canceled public appearances and associated travel left him with a lot of …
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Book #1 of 2023: Tehanu by Ursula K. Le Guin (Earthsea #4) The second book in a row to be marketed as the final volume of Earthsea would ultimately, of course, prove not to be that at all. Author Ursula K. Le Guin just kept discovering new things to say about the fantasy setting and …
Book #200 of 2022: Dead Man’s Folly by Agatha Christie (Hercule Poirot #28) This is a fairly standard Agatha Christie mystery, notable mainly for stumping her retired Belgian detective for several weeks, during which time he retreats from the rural crime scene to sulk in frustration at home before an ultimately triumphant return to solve …
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Book #199 of 2022: The Night-Bird’s Feather by Jenna Katerin Moran [I read and reviewed this title at a Patreon donor’s request. Want to nominate your own books for me to read and review (or otherwise support my writing)? Sign up for a small monthly donation at https://patreon.com/lesserjoke today!] I don’t love every part of …
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TV #61 of 2022: His Dark Materials, season 3 This adaptation has long struggled to capture and distill the complex themes of Philip Pullman’s classic fantasy trilogy, and this final season faces the additional hurdle of navigating the events of its most complicated volume, The Amber Spyglass. Theoretically, it’s a pretty faithful representation! The series …
Book #198 of 2022: When the Angels Left the Old Country by Sacha Lamb My shorthand pitch for this debut novel would probably be something like “Good Omens meets The Golem and the Jinni“: a tale of the early twentieth century, richly steeped in #ownvoices Jewish elements, in which a friendly angel and demon who …
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Book #197 of 2022: The Hole by Hye-Young Pyun A bitter little novella about a Korean man who’s bedridden and initially only able to communicate by blinking, having been severely disabled by the car accident that also killed his wife. Lacking any other family to take him in, he’s looked after by his mother-in-law, who …
Book #196 of 2022: Dead Silence by S. A. Barnes A thrillingly creepy sci-fi horror novel in the same general vein as movies like Event Horizon, Alien, or Sunshine, where human/corporate greed may be the true enemy (for anyone who can survive the crazed assault of its previous victims). Out on the far vestiges of …
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Book #195 of 2022: Eight Nights of Flirting by Hannah Reynolds I was hoping this would be a cute little Hanukkah read, but it’s instead been a source of perpetual frustration and discomfort for me. The basic premise is that the narrator is desperate to get with the crush who’ll be visiting her grandparents’ house …
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