The Latest

SCIENCE FICTION

What if Japan also had an atomic bomb in August 1945?

What if Japan also had an atomic bomb in August 1945?

Anyone with a passing knowledge of World War II is aware that Germany attempted to build a nuclear weapon. What is less well known is that Japan did so, too. Both programs failed, the Japanese more quickly and decisively than the German. But at least one prominent US-trained...

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MYSTERIES & THRILLERS

NONFICTION

The outrageous woman who helped shape the Gilded Age

The outrageous woman who helped shape the Gilded Age

Mark Twain satirized the period as the Gilded Age, suggesting that an overlay of gold plating hid the seamy reality underneath. Later, historians fixed the term to the years from the late 1870s to the late 1890s. Then, America emerged from the devastation of the Civil War to...

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Popular Fiction

This gorgeous Hollywood star was a brilliant inventor

This gorgeous Hollywood star was a brilliant inventor

Version 1.0.0 You might not think a biographical novel about a glamorous Hollywood star could figure in the history of World War II. But then you wouldn't reckon with the Austrian American actress Hedy Lamarr (1914-2000). Born Hedwig Kiesler in Vienna to a nonobservant Jewish...

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Explore My “BEST OF the category” selections

WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE BOOK?

When people ask me that question, I never know what to say. In a lifetime of reading, I’ve read many thousands of books. And I’ve reviewed well over 2,000 of them on this site. Picking just one as a “favorite,” or even a handful of them, makes no sense to me.

The problem is, I read for many different reasons. Perhaps you do, too. And I read many different sorts of books. Mysteries and thrillers. Popular fiction, especially historical fiction. Science fiction.

And nonfiction, history in particular. You’ll find hundreds of reviews in every one of those categories on this site.

Look to the right for a rotating random selection culled from throughout this site.

Happy reading!

 

The Trial and Execution of the Traitor George Washington, the indispensable man.

Was George Washington truly the indispensable man?

I admit it. The real reason I read alternate history is that I'm fascinated by what-if speculation about the twists and turns of history. What keeps me reading are the imagined consequences that flow from events that didn't happen or decisions that were never made. To my disappointment, this was...
Cover image of "Hornet Flight," a novel about Nazi radar and the British effort to understand it

The Danish Resistance and a secret Nazi base

Radar played as big a role in the Allied victory in World War II as the atomic bomb. Once the technology was fully developed, British and American bombers managed to wreak havoc on Nazi forces on land and sea alike. But early in the war, when Britain fought the Germans alone, Nazi radar technology...
Cover image of "Aurora," a novel about a massive solar storm

A massive solar storm threatens life on Earth

More than ninety percent of the Earth's people now have access to electricity, according to the World Bank. What might happen if the world's electric generating and transmission facilities suddenly died as the result of a solar storm, a massive wave of charged particles from the Sun? It happened...
Cover image of "The Pentagon's Brain" by Annie Jacobsen, a book about top-secret military research

The mind-boggling story of America’s top-secret military research

If you're familiar with the history of the computer industry, you're no doubt aware that the Internet was conceived and developed by a U.S. Government agency called DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency). That's the arm of the Pentagon responsible for top-secret military research....
Cover image of "The Other Boleyn Girl,"

She might have married Henry VIII. Her sister did.

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes Ask American college graduates to name any of the kings of England before Charles III, and if they can cite any at all they'll probably come up with a single example. Henry VIII. Few stories in the English-speaking world are more familiar than that of Henry and...

The hidden power of introverts

A review of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, by Susan Cain. @@@@@ (5 out of 5). A lively, popular discussion of the contrast between introverts and extroverts in America, with numerous references to social icons and extensive citations of the scientific literature exploring the psychology of personality.

Cover image of "The Fear Index," a novel about hedge funds

A taut thriller about the world of multibillion-dollar hedge funds

A review of The Fear Index, by Robert Harris. @@@@@ (5 out of 5). Set in Geneva, this taut thriller takes the reader into the world of a brilliant American scientist, Dr. Alexander Hoffman, who has developed mathetical formulas that make billions in profits for his hedge fund.

Cover image of "The Sentient Machine" by Amir Husain, a book about today's artificial intelligence

Today’s artificial intelligence is already transforming our lives

Artificial intelligence researchers draw a clear distinction between Artificial Narrow Intelligence (ANI) or Weak AI, and Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) or Strong AI. Weak AI is the stuff of today's Siri, self-driving cars, those annoying systems that answer you when you phone just about...
Cover image of "Time Bomb," as novel about Alex Delaware tackling a school shooting

A school shooting, 60s radicals, and the Holocaust

Child psychologist Jonathan Kellerman writes complex murder mysteries featuring his alter ego, Alex Delaware. There are 32 such novels to date. Time Bomb, published in 1990, was the fifth in the series—and the first I found disappointing. The set-up in Time Bomb is much like that of the...
Cover image of "Three Minutes to Doomsday," a book about the worst spy scandal in US history

The worst spy scandal in US history, and it’s not what you think

Since the advent of the Second World War more than eighty years ago, spies have stripped the United States of a sobering volume of critical, top-secret information that threatens our security. Name a few names, and students of espionage will immediately recognize the spy scandals they caused....

My Most Popular Reviews

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Mal Warwick - Book Reviews

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Mal Warwick

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