The Latest
A brilliant Indian novel about the First Opium War
A review of River of Smoke, by Amitav Ghosh. @@@@ (4 out of 5). The second book in Amitav Ghosh’s planned Ibis trilogy set among the momentous events of the massive 19th-Century opium trade between India and China. Details the life at sea and in the foreign enclave in Canton of the immensely rich men who dominated the trade, principally Britons and Americans.
SCIENCE FICTION
A motley crew sets out on a troubled mission to Saturn’s moon Titan
It's 2031. Tech billionaire John Ward is financing a two-year mission to Saturn's biggest moon, Titan. Convinced that Earth will eventually become unlivable and that Mars is inhospitable and impractical for colonization, he has settled on Titan as the last best hope to ensure...
MYSTERIES & THRILLERS
A murder and a cover-up jump-start this Travis McGee thriller
From 1964 to 1985 a World War II veteran officer and Harvard MBA named John D. MacDonald published a series of 21 remarkable short crime novels centered on a "Florida beach bum" named Travis McGee. Travis, of course, was MacDonald's alter ego, with an incisive mind, a head for...
NONFICTION
How a team of rebel Tories ousted Neville Chamberlain
You may have the impression that Winston Churchill stood alone in warning England of the rising Nazi menace. Many histories of the period paint that picture. But it's not accurate. In fact, a group of younger Conservative MPs were vocal opponents of the Tory Establishment's...
Popular Fiction
A brilliant Indian novel about the First Opium War
Balzac (and lots of people after him) thought that "Behind every great fortune there is a crime." Nowhere is that aphorism more baldly pictured than in the 19th Century opium trade that enriched England, Scotland, and the United States. There, trade in the drug created a score...
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!
My Most Popular Reviews
20 top nonfiction books about World War II
Here are 20 nonfiction books that present a broad overview of World War II and the factors that led up to it. The list does not fully reflect the war’s global dimensions. It’s biased toward an American, British, and French point of view.
The 15 best espionage novels
Over the past decade, I’ve read and reviewed nearly 200 espionage novels (not counting a great many more I never finished). My 15 favorites—well, make that 16: I couldn't choose—are listed immediately below. Though my preliminary list included multiple titles by...
30 outstanding detective series from around the world
Here you'll find my (admittedly incomplete) guide to the most outstanding detective series set in countries all across the world. It's a work in progress. Expect to see more added here from time to time. Below I’ve listed 30 outstanding detective series set outside...
The ultimate guide to the all-time best science fiction novels
OK, I’d better qualify that headline. In this survey, I’m not including science fiction written before World War II. Or, for that matter, short stories or anthologies, comic books, or manga. And definitely not fantasy: zombies, vampires, witches, dragons, superheroes,...
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Enjoy reading!
Mal Warwick
