The Latest

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 "Spasm,"

Forensic scientists investigate Russian biological warfare in America

Here's a story that only a gifted writer could successfully pull off. The key figures could hardly figure as principals in anyone else's novels. The rootless young men in a depressed small town who've formed a would-be right-wing militia. Four Russian biological warfare specialists. A small-town...
Across a Billion Years depicts an advanced alien civilization.

A science fiction master imagines a uniquely advanced alien civilization

Every science fiction fan must be familiar with Robert Silverberg. The man has written more than 300 books, most of them SF. He won the Grand Master Award from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFFWA) in 2003—a rare honor that goes only to the best in the business. If you read a...
Sleep Well, My Lady

The truth lies undercover in this Ghana murder mystery

Ghana's most celebrated women's fashion designer has been murdered in her bed, and the police investigation has, as is so often the case, gone awry. Lacking even a shred of evidence, they've arrested and imprisoned without trial Lady Araba's driver and prevented the police lab from analyzing DNA...
Cover image of "The Pinnacle,"

Murder at the top of Indian society. Literally.

A decade ago Anglo-Indian author Abir Mukherjee broke into a second career as a crime novelist after 20 years working as an accountant. His first effort, A Rising Man, appeared in 2016. An historical detective novel featuring a pair of Calcutta cops shortly after World War I, it won a coveted...
Cover image of "The Man From St. Petersburg," a novel about a Russian anarchist in England

A terrorist threatens a WWI British alliance

A century ago, they called themselves anarchists. But we today would think of them as terrorists. After all, they had shocked the world again and again with their bombs and bullets. Anarchists had assassinated Tsar Alexander II of Russia in 1881, Empress Elisabeth of Austria in 1898, King Umberto...
The Big Nine portrays a future dominated by AI.

An artificial intelligence skeptic paints a chilling picture of a future dominated by AI

If you're looking for an expert to confirm your fears about killer robots, the grey goo problem, or robots taking all our jobs, you're in the wrong place. Amy Webb began her career as a reporter for the Wall Street Journal. She has become a widely respected futurist, author, and founder of the...
Cover image of "Mrs. Sherlock Holmes" by Brad Ricca, a book about a great female detective

The great female detective who captivated WWI America

As a child, she was known as Mary Grace Winterton, one of three daughters of a wealthy New York family. After gaining a law degree from NYU and being admitted to the bar in 1904, she set up the People's Law Firm to offer affordable legal services to low-income New Yorkers, especially immigrants....
Cover image of "Year of Wonders," a historical novel by Geraldine Brooks

Geraldine Brooks’ outstanding novel about England and the Plague

Geraldine Brooks is a 21st Century phenomenon in the world of historical fiction. In Year of Wonders, the first of her six novels published to date, she tackles the familiar territory of the bubonic plague. Brooks adds great emotional depth to the reader's understanding of its impact and the...
Groucho Marx Master Detective is one of the books reviewed here that feature famous people as detectives.

Famous people as detectives in fact and fiction

Authors of historical fiction often pluck their characters from the historical record, imagining how they might have spoken and acted in life. Other writers, probably those with an aversion to the drudgery of documentary research, avoid using historical figures as characters, other than for cameo...
Cover image of "Mirror Dance" by Lois McMaster Bujold, a novel in which character development shines

Character development shines in this superb Vorkosigan Saga novel

The setting of Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga is utterly fantastic, and the circumstances not to be believed. This is, after all, space opera, but it isn't your grandfather's space opera. Character development shines here. Of course, the denizens of this far-future universe aren't real...

My Most Popular Reviews

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Mal Warwick - Book Reviews

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