World War II prisoner-of-war escapes are a staple of adventure fiction. IMDB lists twenty-one films on the theme, most prominently the 1963 production The Great Escape, starring Steve McQueen, James Garner, and Richard Attenborough. In reality, however, successful escapes were rare....
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You might think John Grisham would show signs of fatigue or a failure of imagination when writing his fiftieth novel. Not so. The reigning champion of the legal thriller is at the top of his form in The Boys from Biloxi, the story of one family’s decades-long struggle against the mobsters of...
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Octavia Butler was the author of three cycles of science fiction novels—two Parable books, the Xenogenesis trilogy, and five books in the Patternmaster series—as well as two standalone novels. She is also credited with seven graphic novels (including Black Panther) produced in collaboration with...
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On January 30, 1649, after seven years of the English Civil War, England’s King Charles I was beheaded by order of a Parliament crowded with anti-Catholic religious extremists. They governed as a republic for a decade under a dictatorship. But their experiment in government guided by a...
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Estimated reading time: 7 minutes Historians long debated the Great Man Theory of History attributed to the Scottish essayist Thomas Carlyle in 1840. As we have come to understand the contrasting views on either side of the question, some insist that the course of history is set by the ideas and...
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Mysteries & Thrillers Tuesday includes my latest mystery and thriller book review,
with links to other science fiction content.
Nonfiction Wednesday includes my latest nonfiction book review,
with links to other nonfiction content.
The Weekly includes summaries and links to all the previous week’s three to five book reviews, including some that don’t appear in any of the other newsletters.
Mysteries & Thrillers Tuesday includes my latest mystery and thriller book review, with links to other science fiction content.
Nonfiction Wednesday includes my latest nonfiction book review, with links to other nonfiction content.
The Weekly includes summaries and links to all the previous week’s three to five book reviews, including some that don’t appear in any of the other newsletters.