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    Blog Launch

    July 11, 2019 by

    Hello! My name is Joe Kessler, and I’ve been blogging in one form or another since 2004. This is the launch of my new home for that, where I’ll be posting book reviews and other short pieces of writing. I’m also debuting a Patreon site for anyone who would like to support my efforts through… Read more

  • Book Review: When I Was Your Age: Life Lessons, Funny Stories & Questionable Parenting Advice from a Professional Clown by Kenan Thompson

    April 25, 2024 by

    Book #67 of 2024: When I Was Your Age: Life Lessons, Funny Stories & Questionable Parenting Advice from a Professional Clown by Kenan Thompson An entertaining if disjointed memoir from the lifelong sketch comic, currently enjoying an unprecedented third decade at Saturday Night Live. I’ll repeat that: at 21 seasons on the show and counting,… Read more

  • TV Review: Shōgun, season 1

    April 24, 2024 by

    TV #14 of 2024: Shōgun, season 1 An exquisitely-rendered adaptation of the classic historical fiction novel about simmering political tensions and warfare in 17th-century feudal Japan. I can’t compare it to the 1980 NBC miniseries, which I haven’t seen, but I’m impressed with how closely this one hews to the original book in its plot… Read more

  • Book Review: Olivetti by Allie Millington

    April 23, 2024 by

    Book #66 of 2024: Olivetti by Allie Millington I understand that when the premise of a book includes half of its chapters being narrated by a sentient typewriter, you kind of have to suspend a lot of your disbelief going into the thing. All the more so for the twelve-year-old other narrator and the overall… Read more

  • Book Review: Dream Girl by Laura Lippman

    April 23, 2024 by

    Book #65 of 2024: Dream Girl by Laura Lippman This 2021 thriller feels like a take on Stephen King’s Misery for the #metoo era, in which a bedridden white male writer is held accountable and ultimately held captive by an overbearing nurse figure for the sins of his past, oblivious to most of them though… Read more

  • Book Review: Book of Doom by John Peel

    April 19, 2024 by

    Book #64 of 2024: Book of Doom by John Peel (Diadem: Worlds of Magic #10) This is the last of the second wave of author John Peel’s Diadem novels, the four published from 2005 to 2006 under Llewellyn (following the original six volumes put out by Scholastic from 1997 to 1998). It also functions as… Read more

  • Book Review: Elephants Can Remember by Agatha Christie

    April 18, 2024 by

    Book #63 of 2024: Elephants Can Remember by Agatha Christie (Hercule Poirot #42) This is the last Hercule Poirot novel that Agatha Christie wrote, although it would be followed in publication by Curtain, which she’d completed decades earlier and kept locked away in a vault. It’s an odd story, with a rather obvious twist and… Read more

  • Book Review: Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson

    April 18, 2024 by

    Book #62 of 2024: Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson [Disclaimer: I am Facebook friends with this author.] I should admit upfront that I didn’t care much for this novel upon its initial release back in 2009. But I’ve heard so many people praise it over the years (and I’m such a big fan of author Brandon… Read more

  • Book Review: He Who Drowned the World by Shelley Parker-Chan

    April 11, 2024 by

    Book #61 of 2024: He Who Drowned the World by Shelley Parker-Chan (The Radiant Emperor #2) I think that objectively speaking, this sequel is generally of the same high quality as its predecessor She Who Became the Sun, which began this queer fantasy retelling of the 14th-century founding of China’s Ming Dynasty (which appears to… Read more

  • Doctor Who: The Legends of River Song edited by Justin Richards

    April 9, 2024 by

    Book #60 of 2024: Doctor Who: The Legends of River Song edited by Justin Richards The year is 2016. The latest episode to air on the show Doctor Who was the recent holiday special The Husbands of River Song, which brought back the titular time-traveling archaeologist for her single on-screen adventure alongside the Twelfth Doctor,… Read more

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