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SCIENCE FICTION

MYSTERIES & THRILLERS

Skullduggery and murder in the corridors of power

Skullduggery and murder in the corridors of power

Here's a story that will awaken every cynical bone in your body that resonates to the waves of political corruption we see every day in the news. In Girls, Crimes, and the Ruling Body, veteran political operative Barry R. Ziman has written a novel for our time. You have only to...

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NONFICTION

New perspective on world history

New perspective on world history

Three decades ago an American historian named David Christian who was teaching at an Australian university at the time offered a new perspective on world history. His unique take on the subject took the discipline far beyond the limits of the written word. Calling it Big...

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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 "The Parable of the Talents," classic science fiction

Classic science fiction with a timely message

Read Octavia E. Butler's two-book Parable series or the five-volume Xenogenesis cycle, and you'll understand why she won a MacArthur Foundation genius grant as well as multiple Hugo and Nebula awards. The Parable of the Talents, the second of the two Parable novels, may be the best of all her long...
Cover image of "The Ventriloquists," a novel about the World War II Resistance in Belgium

A wild WW2 caper by the Belgian Resistance

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes Working round the clock for sixteen days in October and early November 1943, a ragtag bunch of Belgian resisters staged one of the most audacious and innovative protests their Nazi overlords had ever experienced. No one blew up train tracks or assassinated an SS...
Spies in Palestine is about a female Jewish spy in World War I.

The female Jewish spy who helped pave the way to the State of Israel

In the early history of the Israeli state, the name Aaron Aaronsohn stands out. In some ways, the agronomist who discovered an ancient strain of wheat that could be grown in the desert is as significant a figure as Chaim Weizmann and Baron Edmond de Rothschild. Large numbers of Jewish colonists...
Groucho Marx and the Broadway Murders, in which the comedian solves two murders

Groucho Marx solves two baffling murders

For most Americans who recognize the name, Groucho Marx was one of the three Marx Brothers who headlined a series of 1930s Hollywood comedies, most famously Monkey Business, Horse Feathers, Duck Soup, and A Night at the Opera. Yet to me he was the hilarious host of the radio and, later, television...
Women behave badly in Give Me Your Hand.

Women behave badly in Megan Abbott’s new psychological thriller

A blurb on the cover of the Kindle edition reads, "You don't have a self until you have a secret." It's well chosen. This statement is repeated like a mantra throughout the book. Give Me Your Hand is, in fact, a novel about a secret and its corrosive effect on the people it involves. That...
Cover image of "Vengeance," one of the Quirke novels

Benjamin Black’s Quirke series: Is it “serious literature?”

Vengeance is the fifth of the six novels featuring the Dublin pathologist Quirke (no first name) from the pen of Benjamin Black, aka Man Booker Prize-winner John Banville. Banville reportedly writes the series for money, seeing them as of a lower order than the dozens of "serious" novels...
Cover image of "The Wright Brothers," a book about the Wright Brothers

The true (and surprising) story of the Wright Brothers

In a world awash with praise for digital pioneers such as Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, it's all too easy to forget some of the extraordinary people who have shaped our world through business. We remember Thomas Edison, of course: the harnessing of electricity is impossible to overlook. But we recall...
Social Entrepreneurship by David Bornstein and Susan Davis

Social entrepreneurship: what it is, how it works, and where it’s going

A review of Social Entrepreneurship: What Everyone Needs to Know, by David Bornstein and Susan Davis. @@@@@ (5 out of 5). What it is, how it works, where it’s going. As an introduction to the field, Social Entrepreneurship is unmatched.

Instanbul Passage by Joseph Kanon is set in post-War Istanbul.

Romance, intrigue, and betrayal in post-War Istanbul

A review of Istanbul Passage, by Joseph Kanon. @@@@ (4 out of 5). Relates the tale of Leon Bauer, an American businessman in Turkey who has persuaded a friend in the U.S. consulate to hire him for special espionage assignments, helping smuggle Jews out of Romania and on to Palestine.

Why we need to elect a progressive Democrat in 2020: The Stakes

Why we need to elect a progressive Democratic President in 2020

Robert Kuttner has been helping set the progressive agenda for three decades as the cofounder and (current) coeditor of The American Prospect and as a cofounder and board member of the Economic Policy Institute. So, it's hard to think of anyone better qualified to make the case for electing a...

My Most Popular Reviews

Weekly Reviews Delivered to You!

Mal Warwick - Book Reviews

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Mal Warwick

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