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Were British double agents the key to the Normandy invasion?

Were British double agents the key to the Normandy invasion?

Americans' views of the Second World War have been dominated by films, books, and television specials about the role that U.S. troops played in the fighting. Even today, more than three-quarters of a century after the war ended, we tend to believe that it was our ingenuity and...

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Popular Fiction

British explorers risk death in forbidden Tibet in 1869

British explorers risk death in forbidden Tibet in 1869

Explorers today plumb the oceans' trenches and the vast reaches of solar space. For the truly adventurous who seek to cross humanity's last frontiers, few if any big challenges remain on land. But a century and a half ago, the opportunities for Western explorers to make their...

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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!

 

Politics by other means: Soccer Against the Enemy by Simon Kuper

Soccer, explains Simon Kuper, is merely politics by other means

If you think England's notorious soccer hooligans represent the worst expression of violent behavior in competitive soccer, read Soccer Against the Enemy. As British sports journalist Simon Kuper explains it in this lively book, soccer, like war, is merely politics by other means. The style a...
Image to illustrate which countries read the most

Which countries read the most?

I stumbled online across a fascinating—and surprising—article, "The countries that read the most books, mapped," which appears on the website Indy100 from the UK newspaper, Independent. Published August 30, 2020, and with data from 2016, the newspaper ranked and mapped selected countries by the...
Cover image of "Dead Lions," a novel about sleeper agents

Russian sleeper agents and the misfits of MI5

A long-retired former British secret service officer named Dickie Bow recognizes a face from the past—perhaps one of those infamous "sleeper agents" he's read about. He impulsively sets out to follow the man on a train from London to Worcester, and later on the bus passengers boarded when the...
A Fine Red Rain

In Gorbachev’s Russia, corruption and a serial killer

In March 1985, a little known Communist Party apparatchik named Mikhail Gorbachev ascended to the pinnacle of leadership in the Soviet Union. He was the country's fourth supreme leader in four years, and he took charge as the USSR was in steep decline following seven decades of Communist rule. As...
Photo of Donna Woolfolk Cross, author of this novel about a female Pope

When a woman sat on the Papal throne

One of the greatest controversies in the history of the Catholic Church surrounds the papacy of a ninth-century woman known to us as Pope Joan (Ioannes Anglicus). According to innumerable sources in Church records for centuries after her death in 855, her short reign (853-55) was an historical...
Cover image of "Paper Money," a novel about a classic armored-car heist

A clever heist story from Ken Follett

As Ken Follett notes in an introduction, "This book was written in 1976, immediately before Eye of the Needle, and I think it is the best of my unsuccessful books." Of course, as everyone who reads thrillers must be aware, Eye of the Needle was a publishing sensation, becoming one of the...
Cover image of "Gravity," a medical thriller in space

An action-packed medical thriller set in orbital space

Gravity opens in the Galápagos Rift nineteen thousand feet below the surface of the South Pacific. And it reaches a shattering conclusion two hundred twenty miles above the Earth. The connection between these two events, two years apart, lies at the heart of the mystery in this pulse-pounding...
Cover image of "The Secret War," a revisionist history of WWII

A revisionist history of intelligence in World War II

Shelves-full of history books have been written about the triumphs of Allied intelligence in World War II. The Ultra Secret. The Man Who Never Was. Operation Mincemeat. Agent Zigag. Double Cross. A Man Called Intrepid. I've read all these and many more. (There are hundreds.) Now comes British...
Cover image of "The Holy Thief," a mystery set in Stalin's Soviet Union

A terrific murder mystery set in Stalin’s Soviet Union

With The Holy Thief, William Ryan joins Martin Cruz Smith (the Arkady Renko series) and Tom Rob Smith (the Child 44 Trilogy), whose compelling crime novels have illuminated the dark recesses of Stalin's USSR. However, Ryan's new contribution is set not in the 1950s, the 80s, or more recently, as...
Miracle at St. Anna

Black soldiers on the front line in Tuscany in World War II

This book is a work of fiction inspired by real events and real people." So writes James McBride in an author's note that precedes the text. He continues: "It draws upon the individual and collective experiences of black soldiers who served in the Serchio Valley and Apuane Alps of Italy during...

My Most Popular Reviews

Weekly Reviews Delivered to You!

Mal Warwick - Book Reviews

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Mal Warwick

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…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.

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