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SCIENCE FICTION

MYSTERIES & THRILLERS

A hilarious romp through the byways of small-town crime

A hilarious romp through the byways of small-town crime

To be clear at the outset, you should not expect a realistic picture of small-town crime when you read Justin Halpern's comic masterpiece, Get Lost. What you'll get instead is a fiendishly clever story that somehow involves a missing woman, corrupt almond farmers, a Big Box...

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NONFICTION

He could have been king. Or a dictator. He retired instead.

He could have been king. Or a dictator. He retired instead.

Myths and legends swirl around the life of George Washington. Remember that cherry tree? The wooden teeth? Throwing a coin across a wide river? The white wig? All of these widely accepted beliefs about our founding President are flatly untrue. And, just for the record, he was...

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Popular Fiction

American history, laughing all the way

American history, laughing all the way

Scoot yourself over, Huckleberry Finn! Make room! Here comes Henry Shackleford, aka Henrietta, aka Little Onion, with a tall tale ripped and twisted out of the pages of history that's like to set your britches afire. Yes, here's The Good Lord Bird, courtesy of James McBride, a...

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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!

 

Cover image of "Nigerians in Space" by Deji Bryce Olukotun

Nigerians in space? Fiction is stranger than reality

Deji Bryce Olukotun writes science fiction stories, and his second book was a dystopian novel. So, perhaps I can be forgiven for thinking that his first book, Nigerians in Space, would be a science fiction novel. Especially since it opens at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. Alas, this is no...
Cover image of "1873,"

How depression in the 1870s set the stage for the 20th century

Former World Bank economist Liaquat Ahamed earned the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for History for Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World. His book explored the causes of the Great Depression and made a compelling argument that central bankers' stubborn adherence to the gold standard had played...
Who Cover image of "Who Is Vera Kelly?," a puzzling spy storyIs Vera Kelly?

A puzzling spy story set in Argentina in the time of the generals

At the outset of this puzzling spy story, we meet a teenage girl named Vera who may or may not have accidentally attempted suicide. It's October 1957. Vera lives in Chevy Chase, Maryland, with her mother. The two do not get along. At all. Soon, we're introduced to a young woman named Anne. It's...
Cover image of "Revenge of the Tipping Point,"

Malcolm Gladwell reappraises the Tipping Point

When Malcolm Gladwell's book, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, appeared in 2000, it led to something like the viral impact about which Gladwell wrote in the book. The Tipping Point spent eight years on The New York Times Bestseller List and to date has sold more than...
Cover image of "Ancillary Justice," a peculiar book.

Why did this peculiar book win both the Nebula and Hugo Awards?

Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie was the first novel ever to win the Hugo, Nebula, and Arthur C. Clarke Awards. I'm trying to figure out why. Let's see if we can suss out what's going on in the story. For starters, every character is referred to as "she" or "her" regardless of whether they...
Cover image of "Children of Ruin," the second book in an award-winning series

An award-winning series continues

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes Stories of First Contact abound in science fiction. One author, Australian Peter Cawdron, alone is writing a total of twenty-five standalone novels on the theme—and he's close to his goal as I write. But the British phenomenon Adrian Tchaikovsky has done them all...
Cover image of "An Indigenous People's History of the United States," a revisionist US history

Revisionist US history from an indigenous perspective

Every country has its foundation myth, and the United States no less than any other. Here, settlers fleeing religious persecution and poverty in Europe flooded our shores. They founded thriving colonies on the Eastern seaboard dedicated to freedom. After gaining their independence, they drove...
Cover image of "From a Far and Lovely Country," a novel about the famous African lady detectives

Down home with the lady detectives again

Here we are again, back with Mma Precious Ramotswe, proprietor of Botswana's #1 Ladies' Detective Agency. And of course all the familiar people in her circle are close at hand as well. Mma Grace Makutsi, self-promoted "co-director" of the agency. Mr. J. L. B. Matekoni, Mma Ramotswe's husband,...
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 "Sand," a novel with a new perspective on dystopia

Dystopian fiction from a fresh new perspective

Well over a century after Jules Verne and H. G. Wells, you might think that science fiction writers would run out of new material. In fact, some have: they write traditional space operas or dystopian novels that give the genre a bad name, oblivious to the fact that these themes were worked to...

My Most Popular Reviews

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Mal Warwick - Book Reviews

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Mal Warwick

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