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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!

 

The American Agent is set in Britain during the Blitz.

Maisie Dobbs pursues a killer in Britain during the Blitz

Digging into a new Maisie Dobbs novel is like reuniting with an old friend. And she's been my friend ever since, as a teenager, she enlisted as a nurse and served at a casualty clearing section behind the front lines in France during World War I. Now, in The American Agent, the fifteenth novel in...
Cover image of "The Fourth Courier," an inventive historic thriller

When nuclear smuggling threatened the West

When the Soviet Union collapsed the day after Christmas in 1991, security officials in the West faced a new nuclear nightmare. Tons of nuclear fuel had accumulated in the country's far-flung reactors and military bases—and some of that fuel might make its way to terrorists, sold by unscrupulous...
Cover image of "Oryx and Crake," which is brilliant dystopian fiction

Margaret Atwood’s brilliant dystopian fiction

For several hundred years, since the advent of the Enlightenment, the idea of the perfectibility of the human project has dominated what is broadly called Western thought. Believing, somehow, against all available evidence, leading thinkers from Rousseau and Jefferson to Marx posited that the...
It Was All a Lie explains how the Republican Party became Donald Trump.

How the Republican Party became Donald Trump

Amazon lists more than 1,000 books about Donald Trump. And only two US Presidents—George Washington and Abraham Lincoln—account for more (over 2,000 in each case). But Trump hasn't even completed a single term in office, and there are lots more books to come. One of the latest, and in its way most...
The Flowers of Vashnoi

Space opera comes home in this charming Vorkosigan Saga novella

Strong female characters have always been one of the attractions of this award-winning sci-fi series. One of the most intriguing of them comes to the fore in this charming Vorkosigan Saga novella. Well into his thirties, Lord Miles Vorkosigan fell in love off-planet with the wife of a corrupt and...
Komarr is the best book in the Vorkosigan Saga.

The best book in the Vorkosigan Saga?

For the past two years I've been hooked on the series. Komarr is the 11th book among the 16 that have been published so far. And, even though some of the earlier novels have also been exceptionally good, Komarr is in my opinion the best book in the Vorkosigan Saga. The best book in the Vorkosigan...
Cover image of "The Case of the Man Who Died Laughing" by Tarquin Hall

Vish Puri and the case of the man who died laughing

The four Vish Puri novels published to date won't suit everyone's taste. To enjoy these detective stories to the fullest, you probably need to have an intense curiosity about life in India and a high level of tolerance for languages you're very unlikely to understand. The author, Tarquin...
Cover image of "The Warmth of Other Suns,"

When six million Americans left home behind

For 70,000 years or more, homo sapiens has been on the move. First, within Africa, when changing climate forced whole communities to move across the continent. Then, when a venturesome few slipped across the land bridges joining Africa and Asia to begin our species' dispersal throughout the globe....
Cover image of "The Water Knife," a novel about the Southwestern drought

Dystopian fiction that breaks the mold

Dystopian fiction too often aims to sketch out a possible future, taking one of two directions. Either exaggerating what's gone bad. Or just casting out hints of the problems, allowing the reader to fill in the gaps on the canvas. The characters seem to exist merely to...
Cover image of "Aurora," a novel by kim stanley robinson

A major new science fiction novel from Kim Stanley Robinson

Kim Stanley Robinson's place in the pantheon of great science fiction writers is assured on the strength of his tour de force, the Mars Trilogy (Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars). He's written a number of other novels since then, but I've seen none that represented such a serious effort as his...

My Most Popular Reviews

Weekly Reviews Delivered to You!

Mal Warwick - Book Reviews

Weekly book reviews to match your taste!

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Mal Warwick

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