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...

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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...

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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...

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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!

 

Nuking the Moon is about the CIA and Pentagon's comic misadventures.

Cockamamie schemes of the CIA and the Pentagon

Imagine you've just wandered into the International Spy Museum in Washington, DC. You run into the museum's historian in the hallway, and for some reason he opens up to you. In the coffee shop downstairs, he starts telling you about all the crazy stuff that never made it off the drawing board at...
Cover image of "City of Secrets," a novel about israeli independence

Inside the fight for Israeli independence

A Latvian Jew freed from imprisonment in World War II internment camps makes his way to Palestine in 1948 and joins the Haganah, the Jewish paramilitary organization that led the fight for Israeli independence. His new name is Jossi. He operates as a courier in Jerusalem, part of a small cell that...
Cover image of "A Guardian and a Thief," a novel about how climate refugees crowd the city

Dystopia comes to India in this unforgettable near-future novel

The young Indo-American author Megha Majumdar made a splash with her award-winning debut, A Burning. This powerful New York Times bestseller painted a searing portrait of life in India today, with a focus on corruption, terrorism, and Hindu nationalism. Now, in her second novel, she ventures into...
Cover image of "The Christie Affair,"

The abiding mystery of Agatha Christie’s disappearance

Next to William Shakespeare, Agatha Christie was the bestselling author of all time. Not even J. K. Rowling, Danielle Steele, or James Patterson come even remotely close. So it's a fair bet that, if you read mysteries, you're likely to be aware she disappeared for 11 days in December 1926. When...
A Psalm for the Well-Built

The intriguing start to a new Becky Chambers series

Becky Chambers has made a name for herself among the newer crop of science fiction authors with her outstanding Wayfarers series, which won the Hugo Award for Best Series. The four books in that inaugural series introduced readers to a delightful future. Beginning with The Long Way to a Small,...
The Number 1 Ladies Detective goes into politics.

#1 Ladies Detective goes into politics

Precious Ramotswe, Botswana's #1 Ladies Detective, is respected throughout the capital city of Gaborone. She's a problem-solver, and very good at it. So it's no surprise that friends would turn to her to run for a vacant seat on the city council. The only candidate registered to run is their...
Mortal Causes is about Right-Wing Irish paramilitaries.

Inspector Rebus confronts Right-Wing Irish paramilitaries

Pick up a book about the Troubles in Ireland, and you're likely to find a great deal about the Irish Republican Army and the atrocities Catholics committed. Chances are you'll see less (at least here in the United States) about the violent actions of the Protestant Unionist forces. The IRA has...

Inspector Lynley and Barbara Havers go to Tuscany

Picking up a new entry in the Inspector Thomas Lynley series is like revisiting an old friend -- in fact, a whole coterie of old friends, with all their quirks and characteristics intact. In Just One Evil Act, the eighteenth novel in the series, Elizabeth George affords us a long yet none too...
A Hologram for the King by Dave Eggers

Dave Eggers goes to Saudi Arabia and finds a desert

A review of A Hologram for the King, by Dave Eggers. @@@ (3 out of 5). A middle-aged American salesman spends weeks in Saudi Arabia, trying to sell a huge IT system to the King on behalf of an IBM-like company.

Cover image of "A Very English Scandal," a novel about a political scandal

The political scandal that roiled the British Establishment

Look around carefully. Find three despicable human beings. Start with a confused and weak-willed young man, a male model with no other marketable skills who is helpless in the face of authority. Then find a lay preacher whose oratorical skills have gotten him a seat in Parliament despite a...

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Mal Warwick - Book Reviews

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Mal Warwick

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