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SCIENCE FICTION

MYSTERIES & THRILLERS

A supersecret US spy sets out to prevent a biowar attack

A supersecret US spy sets out to prevent a biowar attack

Few things pose a greater threat to our peace of mind than the prospect of a terrorist attack with a biological weapon. That theme has powered several high-profile thrillers over recent years, including Richard Preston's The Cobra Event, Stephen King's The Stand, and Spasm by...

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NONFICTION

The far-reaching and surprising impact of World War II

The far-reaching and surprising impact of World War II

Is it too much to say that World War II "changed everything?" In The Fear and the Freedom, author Keith Lowe makes a strong case to justify the claim. As many as 80 million people died of a global population barely 30 times that number in 1939. Perhaps an equal number became...

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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 "How I Became a North Korean," a novel about North Korean refugees

A compelling story of North Korean refugees in China

Three North Korean teens fleeing North Korea find one another over the Chinese border and end up cowering together in a cave, hiding from the police who would send them back. The three couldn't be more different. Yongju is the treasured son of the #11 official in North Korea's government, but the...
Cover image of "Forgotten Ally," a book about China's role in the war of 1937-45, one of the most significant events of World War II

The 10 most consequential events of World War II

China played a huge role in World War II, if only because it occupied millions of Japanese soldiers in a futile attempt to subdue one of the biggest countries in the world. The virtue of history is that it affords us perspective—not just the distance that the passage of time occasions but the...
Cover image of "Beyond the Messy Truth" by Van Jones

Van Jones’ messy truth about the Democratic and Republican Parties

More than half the American people complain about Donald Trump. But few are doing something about it. Van Jones is one of the exceptions. Van does not mince words. "There is evidence that Trump is crazy," he noted in a Nov. 5 interview with the San Francisco Chronicle Book Review, "but he has also...
Cover image of "Death in a Strange Country," Donna Leon's best detective novel

Donna Leon’s best detective novel in the Commissario Brunetti series

NOW I UNDERSTAND why so many people are crazy about Donna Leon's detective fiction! Death in a Strange Country, published in 1993, was the second in her series featuring Commissario Guido Brunetti of the Venice Police, and it's nothing short of brilliant. It's the best detective novel she's...
Cover image of "If the Dead Rise Not," a novel set in Hitler's Germany

Bernie Gunther from Hitler’s Germany to Batista’s Cuba

If the Dead Rise Not is either the third or the sixth novel in Philip Kerr's series about the indomitable Berlin detective Bernie Gunther, a policeman in Hitler's Germany. The ranking depends on whether you take into account the three much earlier books in the Berlin Noir series that introduced...
Cover image of "Death of a Red Heroine,"

A gripping Chinese police procedural

You might think a police officer in any country in the world would share a great deal with anyone in law enforcement anywhere else. Surely, detecting crime and punishing criminals is a straightforward process that must involve the same methods everywhere. A Chinese police procedural must closely...
Cover image of "Until the Last of Me,"

Humanity’s route to the stars

First, a pair of warnings. Don't pick up this book unless you've already read the first in its series, A History of What Comes Next. Author Sylvain Neuvel has tried to make Until the Last of Me read like a standalone novel, but the effect is mixed. It's likely to be very confusing for a new...
Cover image of "Caleb's Crossing," a novel about Harvard's first Native American graduate

In Colonial America, the first Native American goes to Harvard

A review of Caleb’s Crossing, by Geraldine Brooks. @@@@@ (5 out of 5). Caleb’s Crossing is history told as it should always be: vivid, engrossing, and emotionally honest. In relating Caleb’s story, Brooks paints an indelible picture of the early decades of colonial life in Eastern Massachusetts. She casts a bright light on the troubled, and eventually tragic, relationship between the colonists and the Indians, and explores an aspect of that history much less commonly discussed: the rebellion of so many colonists against the rigid, narrow-minded regime of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

Cover image of "Among the Mad" by Jacqueline Winspear, a story about shell shock

Shell shock, madness, and the Great Depression

If your taste in crime fiction runs to blood, guts, and gore, you're unlikely to enjoy reading Jacqueline Winspear's Maisie Dobbs series. If, instead, you favor a more cerebral approach focused on three-dimensional character development and psychological insight, you'll find exactly what you're...
Cover image of "Garden of Lamentations," a story of police corruption

Uncovering corruption at Scotland Yard

Let me see if I've got this straight. There are lots of cops in Deborah Crombie's latest detective novel, Garden of Lamentations, a story of police corruption. Six of them, for starters: Co-protagonists Detective Superintendent Duncan Kincaid and Detective Inspector Gemma James are married....

My Most Popular Reviews

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Mal Warwick - Book Reviews

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Mal Warwick

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