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SCIENCE FICTION

MYSTERIES & THRILLERS

The top mystery and thriller award winners

The top mystery and thriller award winners

Most citations of awards in the mystery, thriller, and suspense field mention the Edgar, Gold Dagger, Anthony, and International Thriller Writer Awards. But the categories used by these four awards don’t match. And as you’ll see, the awards themselves don’t often, either. For...

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NONFICTION

Vladimir Putin, the KGB, and the restoration of Soviet Russia

Vladimir Putin, the KGB, and the restoration of Soviet Russia

Every once in a while I'm shocked to learn anew that the American news media has missed the mark in its reporting of events around the world. Masha Gessen's portrait of third-term Russian President Vladimir Putin, The Man Without a Face, is an excellent case in point. Now, a...

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Popular Fiction

Why do some novels win literary awards?

Why do some novels win literary awards?

Let's see if we can figure out why this paper-thin work of fiction won wide recognition and a literary award for its author. Snow Hunters introduces . . . let's count them: eight characters in 226 pages: Yohan, a North Korean soldier captured by UN forces late in the Korean...

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Explore My “BEST OF the category” selections

Popular Fiction
Mysteries & Thrillers
Nonfiction
Recommendations

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 "Still Life" by Louise Penny, a detective novel

From Louise Penny, a detective novel that continues to surprise to the end

She doesn't look like a misanthropic poet, but, if it's true that the characters in a novel all reflect some aspect of the author's personality, she may not be nearly as sweet as she looks. That's Louise Penny, who has written ten complex detective novels featuring Chief Inspector of Homicide...
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Women programmers are a special focus in "Coders."

Women programmers, blue-collar coders, and the world they’re building

The first computer programmer was a woman. Ada Lovelace, Lord Byron's daughter, wrote code in 1842-43 for Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine, a computer that was never built. And a century later, when the first digital computers finally came into existence, the programmers were mostly female. In...
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Cover image of "Destiny Disrupted" a book that presents an Islamic perspective

An Islamic perspective on history

It seems remarkable to me that Destiny Disrupted is the first new global history written from an Islamic perspective that has come to my attention in the fourteen years since 9/11. After all, analyses of events in what we call the Middle East frequently emphasize that Muslims perceive the world...
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The Good German illustrates the cost of total war.

The cost of total war was clear in Berlin after World War II

Throughout most of the past millennium war has been largely a civilized affair fought by professional armies operating under established rules. With a few notable exceptions—the rape and pillage of the Mongol hordes in the thirteenth century, for example, and the mass conscription introduced in...
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Cover image of "Collusion" by Luke Harding, a book about the collusion exposed in the 2016 Trump campaign

Collusion exposed, but is there more? Is Donald Trump a Russian agent?

If the question in the above headline strikes you as over the top, you might feel differently after reading the Steele Dossier and Collusion. In the book, Guardian reporter Luke Harding analyzes and comments on the dossier, adding his own, independent findings. Even if you follow the...
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Does technology promise humanity a bright future?

A review of Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think, by Peter H. Diamandis and Steven Kotler. @@@@@ (5 out of 5). Envisions a world in which humanity triumphs against all its challenges, from climate change, overpopulation, and poverty to the planetary deficits in energy and water.

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Cover image of "Operation Mincemeat," a book about deception in World War II

How the Allies fooled the Nazis with a corpse

Sometime in the mid-1950s, when I was in what is today called middle school, I eagerly snapped up a new nonfiction book about an astonishing World War II British spy caper. The book, The Man Who Never Was by Ewen Montagu, had been published in 1953 in the UK to great acclaim and enormous sales....
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Cover image of "Missionary Stew" by Ross Thomas, a novel about a Central American revolution

Cocaine, the CIA, and a Central American revolution

Start with a hapless French-American journalist imprisoned by the Emperor-President of a small African country. The Emperor is a cannibal, which is admittedly worrisome, but the journalist is rescued by Amnesty International and returned to the United States. He's penniless but makes his way to...
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Cover image of "The City, Not Long After" the plague

San Francisco after the Plague

Pat Murphy's novel, The City, Not Long After, is a puzzling piece of work. With generous helpings of fantasy, it doesn't quite qualify as science fiction. Sometimes the book is categorized as a dystopian novel. Since the near-future American society Murphy depicts is in shambles because of a...
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Cover image of "Top Secret America," one of the good books about espionage

Good nonfiction books about espionage

For good or ill, a fair amount of what I’ve learned about espionage over the years has come from reading spy stories. A few authors are particularly diligent about research and accuracy, so most of what I’ve picked up is probably true. In fact, many of those authors are veterans of the...
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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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