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SCIENCE FICTION

MYSTERIES & THRILLERS

A Tang Dynasty judge solves a string of baffling murders

A Tang Dynasty judge solves a string of baffling murders

For readers in the USA or Europe, it can be a challenge to understand law enforcement policies and procedures in countries grounded in non-Western values and assumptions. In China, for example. The Inspector Chen novels of the Chinese expatriate author Qiu Xiaolong show just...

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NONFICTION

A soldier helped build America’s Empire. Then he spoke out.

A soldier helped build America’s Empire. Then he spoke out.

Few know his name today. But over a 34-year military career, Marine officer Smedley Butler (1881-1940) was for long America's most famous soldier. He fought in the Philippine–American War, the Boxer Rebellion, the Mexican Revolution, World War I, and all of the USA's imperial...

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Popular Fiction

Laughs in sci-fi? P. G. Wodehouse did humor better.

Laughs in sci-fi? P. G. Wodehouse did humor better.

The legendary English humorist Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (1881-1975), known to readers as P. G., wrote about 100 books in a career that spanned much of the 20th century. His output included 71 novels, 24 collections of short stories, 42 plays, three memoirs, and a lot...

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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.

Check out our rotating random selection here, culled from throughout this site.

Happy reading!

 

Cover image of "The Sentient Machine" by Amir Husain, a book about today's artificial intelligence

Today’s artificial intelligence is already transforming our lives

Artificial intelligence researchers draw a clear distinction between Artificial Narrow Intelligence (ANI) or Weak AI, and Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) or Strong AI. Weak AI is the stuff of today's Siri, self-driving cars, those annoying systems that answer you when you phone just about...
Cover image of "A History of Burning,"

A multigenerational tale of the Indian diaspora in Africa

Some three million people of Indian origin live today in the nations of southeast Africa. Although trade and migration between India and Africa reach as far back as the first millennium, much larger numbers arrived there late in the nineteenth century as indentured laborers under the British. One...
Cover image of "Elon Musk," a biography of the man behind Tesla and SpaceX

Elon Musk wants to build a colony on Mars (for real)

When I was a child, I was addicted to science fiction. Many of the novels I read then rhapsodized about human settlements on Mars, the moons of the outer planets, and among the stars beyond. That fantasy morphed into an expectation as the Apollo Project achieved its seemingly impossible dream of...
Cover image of "A Tap on the Window," a small town thriller

An engrossing small town thriller

This is the first time I've stumbled across Linwood Barclay. It turns out, though, that A Tap on the Window is one of fifteen novels he's written, most of them, like this one, detective fiction. Barclay is a US-born Canadian author who has won awards for his mysteries. I find it amazing that,...
The Midnight Witness is by Denmark's favorite author.

Denmark’s favorite author disappoints with her latest novel

She may be Denmark's favorite author, but the latest entry in her series of detective novels is disappointing. The Midnight Witness is a police procedural, and like so many other stories in that category, the cast is large. Other authors such as Michael Connelly, Ian Rankin, and Joseph Wambaugh...
Cover image of "The Insecure Mind of Sergei Kraev,"

A cautionary tale about brain implants

Something happened on April 17, 2120. Something so big that now, a century later, it's still referred to as 4-17. Whatever it was, it's somehow connected to the brain implants that have been universally required for decades. But what exactly happened, and why, isn't at all clear. To find out,...
The Big Sleep was the first Philip Marlowe novel.

The classic first Philip Marlowe novel by Raymond Chandler

How much do we owe yesterday's literary greats? Enough to forgive them the racism, sexism, and homophobia that so often crops up in some of their work? I for one am inclined to be tolerant, since I recognize how much our culture has evolved in recent decades. But it's sometimes hard to take...
Miss Kopp's Midnight Confessions

The lady cop who fascinated America a century ago

This is not a detective story, despite the fact that it's one in a series of historical novels about New Jersey's first female deputy sheriff (and apparently the first anywhere to carry a gun). Nor is it a thriller or even especially suspenseful. Instead, Miss Kopp's Midnight Confessions is a tale...
Cover image of "A Force So Swift" by Kevin Peraino, a book about modern China

Mao, Truman, and the birth of Modern China

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes Most history books paint the past in broad strokes, covering dozens or hundreds of years. Yet some of the most engaging works drill down into the events of a particular time or place. Kevin Peraino has brilliantly used that approach in A Force So Swift: Mao,...
Cover image of "Daikon," an alternate history of the final days of World War II

What if Japan also had an atomic bomb in August 1945?

Anyone with a passing knowledge of World War II is aware that Germany attempted to build a nuclear weapon. What is less well known is that Japan did so, too. Both programs failed, the Japanese more quickly and decisively than the German. But at least one prominent US-trained Japanese nuclear...

My Most Popular Reviews

Weekly Reviews Delivered to You!

Mal Warwick - Book Reviews

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Mal Warwick

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