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Ken Follett’s monumental saga of the First World War

Ken Follett’s monumental saga of the First World War

No one is still alive with any adult memory of World War I, which ended a century ago. So when we think of the events that have shaped the world we live in today it's likely World War II looms large. But its antecedent three decades earlier may have had greater long-term...

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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 "The Burning Grounds,"

Hollywood meets the British Raj in post-WWI India

Captain Sam Wyndham, late of the Western Front in World War I, had made powerful enemies in the Imperial Police in Calcutta, where he transferred after the war. Perhaps he was too honest, or too thorough. But when he helped his sergeant, Surendranath Banerjee, to flee India when falsely accused of...
Cover image of "We Must Not Think of Ourselves," a novel about the time before the ghetto uprising in Warsaw

The drama before the Warsaw ghetto uprising

When we think of the Warsaw Ghetto, our minds turn to the four months early in 1943 when starving Jews fought back against the Nazis with smuggled and makeshift weapons. The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising vividly displayed heroism and desperation in equal measure, and it has deservedly entered history as...
Primitive by Mark Nykanen

“Primitive” by Mark Nykanen: to wake up the world to global warming

A middle-aged model is kidnapped by a community of environmental activists so passionately convinced of the imminence of climate chaos that they've established a Stone Age community in a snow-bound Northern wilderness. Filled with righteousness and possessing aterrifying, top-secret CIA report...
Cover image of "Last Days in Shanghai," a thriller that doesn't quite thrill

A thriller that doesn’t quite thrill

At 24, Luke Slade is mourning the end of his relationship with his girlfriend, Alex, when his boss takes him on a trip to China. Luke is a top aide to Republican Congressman Leonard (Leo) Fillmore, whose questionable ethics have allowed him to make the journey courtesy of a shadowy billionaire, a...
Cover image of "The Shortest History of England," which is readable English history

English history that’s not just about kings and queens

For generations of boys and girls throughout the English-speaking world, British history comes across as one bloody king after another. And you might expect the same from The Shortest History of England, which weighs in at less than three hundred pages. But no. Historian James Hawes offers here a...
Cover image of "Farthing," a novel that explores the consequences if Hitler won the war

What if Nazi Germany had won the war?

Here's a thought-provoking new take on World War II that combines a murder mystery with science fiction. It's chilling alternate history that explores what might have happened if HItler won the war. Estimated reading time: 4 minutes It's 1949. Eight years earlier, Rudolf Hess had made his way to...
The Man From Beijing by Henning Mankell

Henning Mankell leaves Kurt Wallender behind on a trip to Beijing

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes Before Stieg Larsson and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, there was Henning Mankell, the long-reigning Swedish king of crime fiction with his internationally popular series of detective novels featuring the world-weary policeman, Kurt Wallander. With The Man From...
Cover image of "The Murder of the Century,"

The Gilded Age murder that set off the tabloid wars

William Randolph Hearst thundered into New York City in 1895, intent on making history with a brash new approach to writing and selling newspapers. The following year he bought the ailing New York Evening Journal to compete with his old mentor, Joseph Pulitzer, who published the city's...
Cover image of "Paper," a history of paper

More than you ever wanted to know about the history of paper

Often history can be usefully viewed through the lens of a single product. For example, Harvard professor Sven Beckert's powerful book, Empire of Cotton: A Global History, illuminates the early centuries in the history of capitalism by tracing the growth of the textile industry from its origins in...
Pieces of Her is Karin Slaughter's latest novel.

Karin Slaughter’s latest novel is unlike her previous work

Karin Slaughter is best known for the Grant County and Will Trent series of crime novels and her bestselling standalone thrillers, Cop Town, Pretty Girls, and The Good Daughter. All fall neatly within the mystery and suspense genre. With Pieces of Her, Slaughter's most recent standalone effort,...

My Most Popular Reviews

Weekly Reviews Delivered to You!

Mal Warwick - Book Reviews

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Mal Warwick

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