Book #263 of 2020: A Conspiracy of Truths by Alexandra Rowland (A Conspiracy of Truths #1) It’s a definite testament to author Alexandra Rowland’s talent that their 2018 debut novel is so utterly engrossing despite being set almost entirely within the confines of a cramped jail cell. On trial for espionage in a strange land, …
Continue reading “Book Review: A Conspiracy of Truths by Alexandra Rowland”
TV #46 of 2020: The Office, season 5 Sitcoms have a tendency to grow stale and repetitive the longer they air, but the better ones find ways to gradually tweak their storytelling dynamics over time. This era of The Office is an excellent example of that, regularly spooling out developments that shake up the status …
Movie #13 of 2020: The Princess Bride (1987) This beloved film lives up to my memories and its own reputation, offering thrills, laughs, and emotional stirrings in equal measure. (I legitimately teared up at the last scene tonight, perhaps because my wife and I have each lost a grandfather this year.) It’s a feel-good movie …
Book #242 of 2020: Night Watch by Terry Pratchett (Discworld #29) This wasn’t my first Discworld title, but for a long time, it was the only one I had read in the subseries about the Ankh-Morpork City Watch. It’s the volume I’ve reread the most as well, so I can attest that it works just …
Continue reading “Book Review: Night Watch by Terry Pratchett”
Book #229 of 2020: The Power That Preserves by Stephen R. Donaldson (The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever #3) A suitably epic conclusion to this classic postmodern fantasy trilogy, bringing both its setting and its reluctant champion to the verge of apocalypse before pushing forward to a measure of redemption for each. This series …
Continue reading “Book Review: The Power That Preserves by Stephen R. Donaldson”
Book #225 of 2020: Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas There’s a certain climactic reveal in this YA urban fantasy novel that I found disappointingly telegraphed from early on, but that’s honestly one of the only critiques I can make about it. What a refreshingly original story overall, populated with delightful personalities who ring with #ownvoices …
Continue reading “Book Review: Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas”
Book #220 of 2020: Beowulf: A New Translation by Maria Dahvana Headley Any new rendition of Beowulf is an achievement, but this modernized and feminist approach to the Old English epic is particularly exciting. Author Maria Dahvana Headley has retained the poetic structures of the original, with its internal rhymes, alliterations, and kennings, but she …
Continue reading “Book Review: Beowulf: A New Translation by Maria Dahvana Headley”
Book #218 of 2020: Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer (Last Survivors #1) I already loved this novel when I first read it five years ago, and I’ve only grown more appreciative over time. The narrator is a realistically flawed teenager, alternately moody and intensely caring, and her slice-of-life diary entries document …
Continue reading “Book Review: Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer”
TV #38 of 2020: The Office, season 2 There may be better individual seasons of television than this, but I can’t think of another program that improves so much from its first year to its second (except maybe The Office’s spiritual descendant Parks and Recreation). The tweaks to the cringe-humor formula inherited from this show’s …
TV #33 of 2020: The Good Wife, season 5 Although it peters out slightly at the very end, this is overall an electrifying year of television, boldly delivering on character and plot arcs that have been in motion since practically the pilot. The Good Wife has been plenty strong to begin with, but the momentum …
The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more