Every year, the publishing industry pours out a torrent of new books. Some 275,000 in the United States alone last year, according to the International Publishers Association. And that doesn’t count hundreds of thousands of self-published works. The total reported elsewhere is one million...
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Take a look down the page at the map I copied from Amazon.com’s review of this outstanding historical novel, and you’ll get a sense of the extraordinary scope of the story. Pulitzer-Prize-winning author Geraldine Brooks will carry you on the eloquence of her prose through the...
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A review of Wild Bill Donovan: The Spymaster Who Created the OSS and Modern American Espionage, by Douglas Waller. @@@@@ (5 out of 5). Donovan was a law unto himself both in his (often-public) private life and in his extended role during World War II as the founding director of the Office of Strategic Services, the precursor to the CIA. He went head-to-head with many of the most powerful, stubbornest, and most manipulative figures of the age, including Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevent, Douglas MacArthur, Chiang Kai-Shek, and J. Edgar Hoover — and, more often than not, came out the winner.
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The eight novels of Ursula Le Guin’s Hainish Cycle don’t read like science fiction. They’re set on make-believe worlds, and the technology was in place in the mid-20th century. And the characters might have stepped out of an historical novel. The upshot is that the stories come...
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One of the reasons the resistance to Nazism within Germany itself was so meager was the refusal of the Allies to support the men and women who opposed Hitler. Still, many brave souls persisted nonetheless, hoping to overturn the Third Reich and reach a peace agreement with the Americans 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.