The Latest

SCIENCE FICTION

First Contact deep in the Amazon rainforest

First Contact deep in the Amazon rainforest

What can I say about a book that could have been great but isn't? In Entropy, the 31st entry in his long-running series of standalone novels about First Contact with alien intelligence, Australian author Peter Cawdron tells a gripping story about the crash of a private jet deep...

read more

MYSTERIES & THRILLERS

Travis McGee stumbles into a massive financial fraud

Travis McGee stumbles into a massive financial fraud

He calls himself a beach bum. Travis McGee lives on a houseboat in Fort Lauderdale and only works when he's running out of money. Then he becomes a "salvage consultant," helping someone who's been robbed blind. He'll steal back the money or valuables—for half the take. But this...

read more

NONFICTION

Popular Fiction

A brilliant novel of love, hope, and the Rwanda genocide

A brilliant novel of love, hope, and the Rwanda genocide

Today, Rwanda is one of the brightest lights in Africa. The economy is booming. Corruption is rare. Government delivers services. The streets of Kigali, the capital, are clean. It's even easy to open a business. Thirty years ago the country was in chaos, as this award-winning...

read more

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 "Blindsighted" by Karin Slaughter, one of the Grant County thrillers

Karin Slaughter’s well-crafted series of Grant County thrillers

Karin Slaughter's first novel in the Grant County series, Blindsighted, was published in almost 30 languages and made the Crime Writers' Association's Dagger Award shortlist for "Best Thriller Debut" of 2001. In addition to the six-book Grant County series of...
political junkies: Then Everything Changed by Jeff Greenfield

Joy for political junkies in a brilliant alternate history

A review of Then Everything Changed: Stunning Alternate Histories of American Politics, JFK, RFK, Carter, Ford, Reagan, by Jeff Greenfield.
@@@@@ (5 out of 5). There is a subspecies of the human race that is afflicted, usually from birth, with an insatiable thirst for politics. This book was written for them — and, to this political junkie, what a book it is!

Cover image of a book about Edward Snowden

Edward Snowden in context: the inside story

When the news broke late in May 2013 about a junior contract employee of the National Security Agency (NSA) who had fled to Hong Kong with a collection of top secret documents about US intelligence practices in his possession, I didn't pay a great deal of attention. Nor did I think much of it when...

Race relations in colonial Africa through the eyes of a Swedish novelist

Among the countless books and plays written by the masterful Swedish writer Henning Mankell are nine novels and one collection of five short stories about the life and work of a troubled police detective named Kurt Wallander in the town of Ystad, Sweden. The Wallander series, which has been...
Fatal System Error by Joseph Menn

Joseph Menn: criminals are stealing trillions of dollars through the Internet

If you're already worried about computer crime and identity theft, you'll be wracked with fear if you read this troubling new account of the subject by a Los Angeles Times reporter specializing in Internet security. Joseph Menn's "Fatal System Error" is aptly subtitled "The Hunt for the New Crime...
Cover image of "The House by the Lake," a book of 20th-century German history

An intimate take on 20th-century German history

There are several ways to approach history. You can focus on the broad political and social trends in society at large and how they evolve over time. You can look into the history of technology, or business, the arts, or any other single discipline. Or you can study the leading individuals whose...
Homer and Langley by E. L. Doctorow

E. L. Doctorow on the legendary Collyer brothers

Homer & Langley may not be the product of E L Doctorow's finest writing, but stacked up against the usual run of popular contemporary fiction it has to be regarded as superior. This tale of the legendary Collyer brothers who perished in old age in their family's once-elegant Fifth Avenue home...
Cover image of "The End of Power," a book about power today

A brilliant inquiry into the limits of power today

Mark Zuckerberg hit it out of the park with this one, the first selection in his attempt to channel Oprah Winfrey with his own "book club." The End of Power is a  remarkably insightful inquiry into the limits of power in today's wired world, when a tiny group of fanatics can upend national policy...
Timescape

An ingenious twist on time travel

Physics can drive you crazy. Solid matter isn't solid. Black holes don't just make matter and light disappear; they suck up information, too. And Schrödinger's cat is both alive and dead at the same time. Go figure. And if paradoxes like these rattle your nerves, you may want to avoid reading...
Cover image of "Bletchley Park and D-Day," a book about the Bletchley Park intelligence factory

How Bletchley Park helped the Allies win on D-Day

Romanticized accounts of the World War II codebreakers at Bletchley Park convey the impression of a cozy community of brainy people with Oxford and Cambridge degrees laboring in isolation in the countryside. And there is some truth in this picture during the first two years of the war. But that...

My Most Popular Reviews

Weekly Reviews Delivered to You!

Mal Warwick - Book Reviews

Weekly book reviews to match your taste!

Love mysteries and thrillers? Historical fiction fan? Prefer to read nonfiction? Or, like me, you just love reading? Take your pick of my three weekly newsletters. Just click the Yes! button, and you’re on your way.

Here you can take your pick of the three newsletters I publish each week. They’re all free of ads, and I never share subscribers’ email addresses with anyone. Just make your newsletter selections below.

Feel free to subscribe to any or all of these newsletters. Remember, they’re ad-free, and I won’t share your contact information with anyone.

Enjoy reading!

Mal Warwick

The latest mystery
& thriller book
reviews every Tuesday.

…includes my latest mystery and thriller book reviews, with links to other content in the genre.

The latest nonfiction book reviews every Wednesday.

…includes my latest nonfiction book review, with links to other nonfiction content.

My latest
book reviews,
every Thursday.

…includes summaries and links to all the previous week’s three to five book reviews, including some that don’t appear in any of the other newsletters.

The Latest Book Reviews of the Week

...includes summaries and links to all of the week’s three to five book reviews, including some that don’t appear in the other newsletters.

You have Successfully Subscribed!

The Latest Mystery & Thriller Book
Reviews Every Week

Mysteries & Thrillers Tuesday includes my latest mystery and thriller book review,
with links to other science fiction content.

You have Successfully Subscribed!

The Latest Nonfiction Book
Reviews Every Week

Nonfiction Wednesday includes my latest nonfiction book review,
with links to other nonfiction content.

You have Successfully Subscribed!

The Latest Book Reviews of the Week

The Weekly includes summaries and links to all the previous week’s three to five book reviews, including some that don’t appear in any of the other newsletters.

You have Successfully Subscribed!

Tuesday's Newsletter

Tuesday's Newsletter

Mysteries & Thrillers Tuesday includes my latest mystery and thriller book review, with links to other science fiction content.

You have Successfully Subscribed!

Wednesday's Newsletter

Wednesday's Newsletter

Nonfiction Wednesday includes my latest nonfiction book review, with links to other nonfiction content.

You have Successfully Subscribed!

The Weekly Newsletter

Thursday's Newsletter

The Weekly includes summaries and links to all the previous week’s three to five book reviews, including some that don’t appear in any of the other newsletters.

You have Successfully Subscribed!