A review of The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail — But Some Don’t, by Nate Silver. @@@@@ (5 out of 5). Explores the ins and outs of predicting outcomes not just in politics, poker, and sports (baseball and basketball) as well as the stock market, the economy, and the 2008 financial meltdown, weather forecasting, earthquakes, epidemic disease, chess, climate change, and terrorism.
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A review of Florence of Arabia, by Christopher Buckley. @@@ (3 out of 5). A former State Department Middle East expert attempts to set off a feminist revolution in a kingdom closely resembling Saudi Arabia.
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A review of Steep: The Precipitous Rise of the Tea Party, by Lawrence Rosenthal and Christine Trost. @@@@@ (5 out of 5). A superb collection of scholarly articles that examine the Tea Party from many different angles.
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A review of Mad River, by John Sandford. @@@ (3 out of 5). Virgil Flowers of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension follows up on a brutal and seemingly senseless murder in a small rural town and finds himself in competition with an unsavory local Sheriff to end a murder spree.
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A review of The Racketeer, by John Grisham. @@@@ (4 out of 5). Malcolm Bannister is Grisham’s protagonist here. Bannister is a hapless small-town attorney in Virginia about halfway through an unjustified ten-year sentence in the Federal pen for violating the RICO act — and he’ll go to any lengths to get even with the FBI for putting him there.
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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.