Often history can be usefully viewed through the lens of a single product. For example, Harvard professor Sven Beckert’s powerful book, Empire of Cotton: A Global History, illuminates the early centuries in the history of capitalism by tracing the growth of the textile industry from its...
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Alan Furst’s latest novel opens in Paris in March 1941, approximately nine months after Hitler’s armies entered the city. The action that follows concludes the following year. During that time, a Parisian businessman code-named Mathieu coordinates a cell in what came to be called the...
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Historians are fond of advancing the notion that no major event in human affairs can be fully understood until many years later, when the major actors have passed from the scene and long-suppressed archival records finally come to light. Journalists sometimes dispute this contention, citing their...
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Red Cross nurse Nina Borg is a do-gooder who can’t say no regardless of the consequences to her marriage or her two children’s well-being. The older child, a fourteen-year-old girl, has consigned Nina to “Mom Hell. The place reserved for bad mothers, career women, alcoholics, and...
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The Whitehall Mandarin, Edward Wilson’s complex and sophisticated novel of Cold War espionage, is the fourth book in a series that began with the The Envoy. That first book centered around the life of one Kit Fournier, an American intelligence officer who rose to become head of the CIA...
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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.