The Latest

He ran the morgue on 9/11. The job took years.

He ran the morgue on 9/11. The job took years.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, Shiya Ribowsky walked to work. It was a beautiful day, and he was in no hurry. As director of identifications at New York City’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME), he knew death keeps its own schedule. Then the first plane struck...

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SCIENCE FICTION

MYSTERIES & THRILLERS

The Lincoln Lawyer takes AI to court

The Lincoln Lawyer takes AI to court

As I write, more than 20 lawsuits have been filed against the company OpenAI over the alleged misbehavior of its chatbot, ChatGPT. (I could find none against Anthropic's Claude.) Doubtless, more will surface as time goes on, especially in the face of fast-growing reports that...

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NONFICTION

He ran the morgue on 9/11. The job took years.

He ran the morgue on 9/11. The job took years.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, Shiya Ribowsky walked to work. It was a beautiful day, and he was in no hurry. As director of identifications at New York City’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME), he knew death keeps its own schedule. Then the first plane struck...

read more

Popular Fiction

Laughs in sci-fi? P. G. Wodehouse did humor better.

Laughs in sci-fi? P. G. Wodehouse did humor better.

The legendary English humorist Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (1881-1975), known to readers as P. G., wrote about 100 books in a career that spanned much of the 20th century. His output included 71 novels, 24 collections of short stories, 42 plays, three memoirs, and a lot...

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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.

Check out our rotating random selection here, culled from throughout this site.

Happy reading!

 

Cover image of "High Crimes," a novel about US intervention in Central America

A taut thriller about Special Forces running amok in El Salvador

Many of the popular thrillers published in the U.S. tend to revolve around the CIA, the KGB, or Nazis. High Crimes is a notable exception. It centers on the neglected topic of U.S. military intervention in Central America under the Reagan Administration. And author Joseph Finder shows no love for...
Cover image of "River of Darkness," the first of Rennie Airth's series of British police procedurals

The engrossing John Madden British police procedurals

Ironic, isn't it? Some of the best English mystery novels are written by people who aren't British. Consider the work of Elizabeth George, an American born in Ohio, and the Texan Deborah Crombie. To my mind, they're easily the equal of Ian Rankin and Kate Atkinson, among the living, as well as the...
Cover image of "Black Cherry Blues, a Dave Robicheaux novel

James Lee Burke’s Dave Robicheaux tackles the mob

What time it is?" "For how come you burn them leafs under my window, you?" "While I was driving your truck, me, somebody pass a nail under the wheel and give it a big flat." This is Cajun English, in all its glory, and James Lee Burke plays it for all the brilliant local color it can add to Black...
Cover image of "Blood of Victory" by Alan Furst, a novel set in WWII Istanbul

Alan Furst: spies at work in WWII Istanbul and Rumania

Blood of Victory is the seventh of the fourteen historical novels to date in the celebrated Night Soldiers series by Alan Furst. Written in the tradition of Eric Ambler and Graham Greene, the Night Soldiers stories are set in Europe during the period 1933-44. The action ranges all across...
Cover image of "Abundance,"

Both Democrats and Republicans have lost their way

The pundits Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson describe themselves as liberals, and the public looks on them that way. But conservatives will find the two men subscribe to many of their long-held beliefs. That's the message in Abundance, Klein and Thompson's thought-provoking new book. And readers in...
Cover image of "Family Genus Species," a satirical novel about Berkeley

Berkeley goes off the rails in this new satirical novel

In a satirical novel aout Berkeley, lamenting its "self-righteous mutual appreciation society," local author Kevin Allardice meshes the language of discontent with the fantasy of the absurd. The author himself characterizes his new novella, Family Genus Species, as a "wickedly funny satire of...
Agincourt

When war was personal and face-to-face

When military historians tick off the greatest battles in world history, the clash between the English and the French at Agincourt in 1415 is invariably on the list. Unlike some other battles, such as Stalingrad and Midway of recent memory, the victory at Agincourt didn't represent a historic...
Cover image of "After Atlas" by Emma Newman, a novel set on a future Earth

A 22nd century police procedural in a fascinating future Earth

In Planetfall, published in 2015, British science fiction author Emma Newman introduced us to the Earth-like planet where a massive starship had delivered 1,000 people many years earlier. The ship was called Atlas. The following year, Newman brought out a sequel, After Atlas, which portrayed life...
Cover image of "Spain in Our Hearts," a Spanish Civil War history

The American role in the Spanish Civil War

A few weeks ago I read and reviewed Richard Rhodes' Hell and Good Company: The Spanish Civil War and the World It Made, which was published last year. More recently, Adam Hochschild tackled Spanish Civil War history in a book published this year. It's the book that Rhodes tried and failed to...
The essential truth about America is revealed in Boom Town.

America revealed through the lens of a single mid-sized city

Quick: what do you know about Oklahoma City? Chances are, if you're over the age of forty, you'll mention Timothy McVeigh and the destruction in 1995 of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. One hundred sixty-eight people died then, and more than 500 were injured, in our country's largest-ever...

My Most Popular Reviews

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Mal Warwick - Book Reviews

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Mal Warwick

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