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SCIENCE FICTION

MYSTERIES & THRILLERS

Porfiry Rostnikov’s last case

Porfiry Rostnikov’s last case

Before his death in 2009, the prolific detective novelist Stuart Kaminsky wrote 16 police procedurals featuring a Moscow investigator named Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov. The books span the years 1981 to 2008. They encompass the final years of Communist rule and the first two...

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NONFICTION

20 top nonfiction books about World War II

20 top nonfiction books about World War II

If you've been reading my reviews for very long, you're aware that the World War II era holds special fascination for me. This might have something to do with the fact that I was born then—in fact, about six months before the USA entered the war. Or maybe it's just because it...

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Popular Fiction

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 "Christine Falls," the first entry in the Quirke series of Dublin crime novels.

The Quirke series of Dublin crime novels from Benjamin Black

Benjamin Black is the pen name of Irish author John Banville, who is widely regarded as a consummate stylist of the English language. He won the Man Booker Prize in 2005 for his fourteenth novel, The Sea. Banville insists that he writes the Quirke series of Dublin crime novels for the money, but...
Cover image of "The Determined Spy,"

He launched the CIA’s regime change ops in Iran and Guatemala

Throughout its eight-decade history, the Central Intelligence Agency has racked up an extraordinary number of clandestine operations gone wrong. Of course, the agency's defenders assert we don't know about the many successes that have never seen the light of day as well as a few that have. One,...
"The Shareholder Value Myth" by Lynn Stout is a book about investments

If you own stock, invest in companies, or are starting a new business, read this book!

A review of The Shareholder Value Myth: How Putting Shareholders First Harms Investors, Corporations, and the Public, by Lynn Stout. @@@@@ (5 out of 5). A business law professor argues that “maximizing shareholder value” is a mistaken and dangerous concept — and is not required under the law.

Cover image of "Advise and Consent," a novel set at a time when Congress worked

This novel is set at a time when Congress worked well

Most Americans today are likely to have a difficult time imagining how well Congress worked in the 1950s. Of course, it was far from perfect. On the nation's dominant domestic issue, the legacy of slavery, segregationist Southern Democrats holding positions of power in both houses stymied any...
Cover image of "Machinehood,"

Danger looms as AI approaches human-level sentience

Welga Ramirez is nearing her thirty-fifth birthday. She's a veteran of the Marine Special Forces but a little long in the tooth for a shield—a bodyguard—though the pills increase her strength and the speed of her reflexes. And at thirty-five she'll hit the limit. Platinum Shield Services only...
Cover image of "Incarnations," a book of Indian history

Indian history portrayed through biography

Picture a stretch of territory of nearly 1.9 million square miles, housing 1.7 billion people. These people speak 26 major languages and more than 1,500 lesser languages and dialects. How can such a place be a single nation? In fact, in recent years, that territory has consisted of three...
Cover image of "The Good Daughter," a new thriller

Karin Slaughter’s engrossing new thriller, “The Good Daughter”

The Good Daughter, Karin Slaughter's new thriller, her nineteenth novel, is set in rural Georgia, like most of the Grant County and Will Trent novels which established her reputation. She was born there and now lives in Atlanta—and it shows. Slaughter's characters are clearly native to the area....
Cover image of "A Constellation of Vital Phenomena," a book about the war in Chechnya

A searing inquiry into life during the Chechnyan War

American writer Anthony Marra began winning major literary awards when he was still in his 20s. He won seven for A Constellation of Vital Phenomena. But he deserves another one simply for having the guts to write it. The book's setting is the Caucasus, no less, and during the worst of Russia’s...

A journey into the minds of Native Alaskans

White Sky, Black Ice introduces Nathan Active, an Alaska State Trooper starting his career far from the action he craves in the capital. However, he finds almost enough action to derail his career soon after it's started in his assignment to the provincial town of Chukchi, where his birth mother...
Cover image of "A Coffin for Dimitrios," a classic spy novel

Still a lively read among classic spy novels

First published in 1939, A Coffin for Dimitrios is widely regarded as one of the very best of the classic spy novels. That reputation is richly deserved. But it would be a mistake to pigeonhole what may be Eric Ambler's most accomplished work as merely an espionage novel, as it features few of the...

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Mal Warwick - Book Reviews

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