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SCIENCE FICTION

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A true story of high finance and murder in Putin’s Russia

A true story of high finance and murder in Putin’s Russia

Even if you follow international news only casually, you're likely to be aware that Putin's Russia is a kleptocracy. Two dozen oligarchs effectively run the country. Some, including President Vladimir Putin himself, hold government office. Others are private "bankers" and...

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Popular Fiction

A sprawling Indian family in Delhi confronts its demons

A sprawling Indian family in Delhi confronts its demons

Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi died at the hands of her Sikh bodyguards on October 31, 1984. Violence erupted immediately. Anti-Sikh riots raged for four days, resulting in the deaths of thousands of Sikhs. Eight years later, in December 1992, an organized mob of 70,000...

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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 "Living Memory," a novel about the hunt for dinosaur fossils

These dinosaurs left something behind

Now, here's a story that involves dinosaurs, Thai human traffickers, teams of paleontologists, and the CIA. They all come together in David Walton's thrilling new science fiction novel, Living Memory. Walton, an engineer, writes hard science fiction, thoroughly grounded in known science. And...
Shanghai 1937

The battle that started World War II in China

China was not ready for war when the Japanese struck Shanghai on August 13, 1937. Despite six years of warning after the Empire of Japan occupied Manchuria in 1931, Chiang Kai-shek's forces were woefully unprepared for the battle that started World War II in China. His army consisted of 176...

A murder mystery set in Communist Laos in the 1970s

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes You've never read a mystery novel anything like this. It's 1976 in Vientiane. Communist Laos is in an uneasy relationship with its patron, the Vietnam of Ho Chi Minh. Dr. Siri Paiboun, a long-suffering, 72-year-0ld doctor who has spent much of his life in the...
Cover image of "Russia,"

An impressionistic history of the Russian Revolution

For some unfathomable reason, Antony Beevor is one of Britain's most popular and widely read military historians. It's true that he knows a great deal about military matters. He's a former army officer and teaches at military staff colleges in Britain, the US, and other countries. But, to judge...
Cover image of "A Quiet Flame" by Philip Kerr, one of the Bernie Gunther novels

Philip Kerr’s Bernie Gunther novels

The late Philip Kerr’s series of historical novels featuring Berlin detective Bernie Gunther span the years of Hitler’s rise to power, German rearmament in the 1930s, World War II, the post-war years in Germany, and the flight of top-ranked Nazis to South America. Twelve Bernie Gunther novels have...
Cover image of "Deer Hunting with Jesus" by Joe Bageant, a book about America's class war

On the front lines of America’s class war

Balance, schmalence -- Joe Bageant tells it like it is about class war in America. Here, for example, is the author holding forth on "the business class, that legion of little Rotary Club spark plugs . . . vital to the American corporate and political machine. They are where the institutionalized...
The Bangkok Asset by John Burdett, the sixth entry in the Royal Thai series.

Murder mystery meets science fiction in Bangkok

There are five previous novels in John Burdett's Royal Thai series featuring Bangkok police detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep, and every one of them is strange. The detective is a devout Buddhist (a former monk) and prey to the supernatural fantasies so common in Thailand. In some of the books,...
Cover image of "Rachel to the Rescue," a satirical take on Donald Trump

A wacky satirical take on Donald Trump

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes Meet Rachel Klein. It's her last day on the job in the White House. She works in the fictional White House Office of Presidential Correspondence. There, Rachel uses Scotch tape to reconstruct the documents President Donald Trump rips up and tosses into the trash...
The Evening and the Morning is the prequel to the Kingsbridge Trilogy.

Ken Follett sets up the Kingsbridge Trilogy in a prequel

For decades Welsh novelist Ken Follett was best known for his bestselling thrillers, beginning with Eye of the Needle (1978), which established his reputation as a master of the craft. A decade later he indulged his longstanding passion for the architecture of classic European cathedrals when he...
This book is the story of the Code Girls who helped win World War II.

The amazing story of the American “Code Girls” who helped win World War II

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes It's often said that winners write the history. And it's true that until recently the winners in the gender wars—men—have written most of the history books. Only over the past few decades have the contributions of women begun to show up in published accounts of...

My Most Popular Reviews

Weekly Reviews Delivered to You!

Mal Warwick - Book Reviews

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Mal Warwick

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