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 "Real Tigers" by Mick Herron, a novel about British spooks

Slough House spooks are on the loose again

They're all spooks. But Marcus is a gambling addict. Shirley's a cokehead ("It was a weekend thing with her, strictly Thursday to Tuesday"). Catherine is a recovering alcoholic, Louisa a sex addict, Roddy a hacker with a toxic personality. And River screwed up a large-scale training mission so...
Love this novel: Before I Go to Sleep by S. J. Watson

If you’re very, very patient, you may love this novel of suspense

A review of Before I Go to Sleep, by S. J. Watson. @@@ (3 out of 5). Before I Go to Sleep, the debut novel of a long-time employee of the British National Health Service, tells the story of a one-time novelist with a rare case of amnesia that means she wakes up every day completely clueless about the last two decades of her life. Her husband, Ben, has to explain to her who she is, where she is, and why.

Cover image of "The Summit," a book about Bretton Woods

Bretton Woods: clashing personalities determined our economic history

It's unlikely that a general reader would pick up a book about Bretton Woods, and this one -- with a bland main title and not one but two off-putting subtitles -- would appear to be a work that only an economist could love. It's not. The dramatic interplay of personalities that Ed Conway brings to...
The Plague Year

This book delivers perspective on the pandemic

If it's too early for a post-mortem on the COVID-19 pandemic, America's publishers haven't gotten the memo. Amazon lists 642 titles in response to the query "books about the COVID-19 pandemic." The pandemic still rages on, filling hospitals in heavily impacted states and killing the unvaccinated...
Cover image of "The List," a novella in Mick Herron's Slough House series

Bumbling spies again in Mick Herron’s Slough House series

MI5 officer John Bachelor has already been put out to pasture, in a manner of speaking. For some time now, it's been his job to track several former foreign assets who have retired to England. Then one of them, Dieter Hess, suddenly dies—and John has a problem. A big problem. Diana Taverner, a...
Cover image of "Brandenburg Gate," a novel set in Easy Germany before the Wall fell

When Communism lost its grip on East Germany

On November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall fell, setting off a fast march to German reunification. But it was not a singular event, arising out of the blue. Because the reform movement launched by Mikhail Gorbachev in Moscow four years earlier had triggered a series of increasingly assertive protest...
Cover image of "Knots and Crosses," the first in a series of detective novels

The first in a series of great detective novels

John Rebus makes his debut as a Detective Sergeant in the Edinburgh police in Knots and Crosses. He’s been on the force for fifteen years following a decorated career in the British Army and, for a time, in the original special forces unit, the Special Air Service. He’s a disagreeable sort,...
Cover image of "The Secret Chord," a biblical story

A biblical story, brilliantly retold

The King David story has been told not just in the Bible but countless other times over the three millennia since he reigned over Israel and Judah. Perhaps never before, though, has any author plumbed so deeply into the complex personality that comes to light from Biblical sources and...
Cover image of "Grandfather Anonymous," a dystopian techno-thriller

A dangerous old man in dystopia

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes Most genre fiction is formulaic. Mysteries may be detective stories, police procedurals, cozy mysteries, and so forth. Romance novels fall into categories of their own. And science fiction encompasses space travel, dystopia, First Contact, military science...
One of China's top three suspense authors wrote Death Notice.

A detective novel by one of “China’s top three suspense authors”

Zhou Haohui, author of Death Notice, is referred to in the biography at the end of the novel as "one of the top three suspense authors in China today." The statement leaves me puzzled. Perhaps something's been lost in the translation from the Chinese to English, but it's hard to believe that this...

My Most Popular Reviews

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Mal Warwick - Book Reviews

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