The Latest

SCIENCE FICTION

MYSTERIES & THRILLERS

A clever whodunit author outdoes himself

A clever whodunit author outdoes himself

In A Deadly Episode, the sixth book in his Hawthorne and Horowitz series, Anthony Horowitz delivers a belated sequel to the novel that launched the series, The Word is Murder. And, true to form, he delivers a baffling story with a devilishly clever premise. Yes, Horowitz does...

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NONFICTION

How the Occupied nations helped win World War II

How the Occupied nations helped win World War II

Thousands of books memorialize the story of World War II in Europe. Every aspect of the conflict has received its due, from the fighting itself, to the deprivations on the home front, to the role of intelligence and the personalities of the civilian and military leadership on...

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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.

Look to the right for a rotating random selection culled from throughout this site.

Happy reading!

 

Cover image of "New York," an epic historical novel

An epic historical novel about New York City

Once upon a time they were known as Mannahata, Breukelen, Bronck's Farm, Staten Eylandt, and Queens, after Queen Catherine of Braganza, wife of the seventeenth-century King Charles II of England. Of course, now the five boroughs of New York City have more familiar names. But that was centuries in...
American Disruptor is the biography of the man who founded Stanford University.

The California Governor who was a notorious thief

He founded Stanford University to honor his fifteen-year-old son who died of typhoid fever — and left the university near bankruptcy when he died, without an endowment. He was elected as California's eighth Governor when his business partners effectively bought the job for him after he had lost...

A time-travel novel about the Black Death

What do we know about the past, and how do we know it? Historians rely largely on the contemporaneous written records they call primary sources. But other disciplines make important contributions to history as well, including archaeology, physics, and genetics. Still, what they learn comes...
A Rising Man is the first in a series of historical detective novels.

The Wyndham and Banerjee historical detective novels set in colonial India

The weight of history began crashing down on the British Raj in World War I, as these exceptionally well executed historical detective novels make abundantly clear. Victoria's "jewel in the crown" had sent more than one million soldiers to fight for God and country—England, not India—chiefly on...
In Darwin's Cipher, genetic research goes awry.

Genetic research goes awry in this chilling science fiction novel

Ever since the mid-twentieth century geneticists and molecular biologists have been mucking around in the human genetic code. Medical researchers have been seeking ways to cure diseases or prevent them entirely. Others have been toying with techniques to heighten critical elements in our...
Cover image of "A First-Class Catastrophe," one of several books that explain what caused the Great Recession.

7 insightful books that explain what caused the Great Recession

A decade after the onset of the Great Recession, economists, financiers, historians, and politicians still debate its causes. It's widely agreed that the recession was triggered by the massive Wall Street crash of 2008 and that it constituted the greatest threat to the stability of the world...
The Spy and the Traitor is a factual Cold War spy story.

An extraordinary Cold War spy story a screenwriter couldn’t make up

Throughout the Cold War, the "special relationship" between US and British intelligence was uneasy. In the 1950s, the defection of the Cambridge Five devastated MI6—and undermined American trust in the British. When Kim Philby fled to the Soviet Union in 1963, both MI6 and the CIA lost confidence...
Cover image of "The Diamond Eye," a novel about a famous Soviet female sniper

That famous Soviet female sniper in WWII

Yes, there was, indeed, a Soviet female sniper who gained fame in World War II. You may have come across mentions of her if you've read a lot about the war. She was Ukrainian, a fourth-year history student at Kiev University, and her name was Lyudmila Mikhailovich Pavlichenko (1916-74). She killed...
Cover image of a book about the Sixth Extinction

Are we living through the Sixth Extinction?

You probably know that you and I—actually, all of us collectively, homo sapiens the species—are responsible for a truly alarming reduction in the number of other species on Planet Earth. But apart from occasional stories in the media about endangered polar bears and black rhinos and the like, you...
Cover image of "Why the Allies Won," World War II

A British historian questions why the Allies won World War II

Brace yourself. Much of what you believe about why the Allies won World War II may not be true. British historian Richard Overy challenges the received wisdom in his eye-opening revisionist interpretation of the six-year ordeal, titled simply Why the Allies Won. For most historians, that question...

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Mal Warwick - Book Reviews

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Mal Warwick

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