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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 "Crash and Burn," a thrilling police procedural

A thrilling police procedural by Lisa Gardner

Crash and Burn opens straightforwardly enough with an automobile tumbling down a hillside in northern New Hampshire, nearly killing Nicole Frank, the intoxicated woman driver. But as the story unfolds, it turns out to be anything but straightforward. Frank sets police off on an intensive,...
Cover image of "The Late Show," a novel that introduces Renee Ballard

Michael Connelly introduces Renee Ballard, a tough new lead character

After writing 29 other thrillers, including 20 in the venerable Harry Bosch series and five of the Lincoln Lawyer novels, Michael Connelly has introduced a new lead character. Is this the beginning of a new series? We'll have to see. But Renee Ballard is certainly interesting enough. Estimated...
Cover image of "Avenue of Spies," a book about Occupied Europe

A revealing account of life under the Nazis in occupied Europe

If it's true that "God is in the details," wouldn't it stand to reason that history can best be understood through the stories of the individual people who experienced it? It often seems that way, doesn't it? Certainly, the reality of life in times past is far easier to get our arms...
Cover image of "Wake Up and Dream," an alternate history of Hollywood

This thriller is an alternate history of Hollywood

Hollywood, June 1944. Europe is still at war, with England about to fall to Hitler's legions. In the United States, FDR readies a run for a third term as the fascist Liberty League gains ground across the land. Everywhere, people are flocking to the theaters to take in the newest "feelies,"...
Cover image of "This Perfect Day," a novel about artificial intelligence

A superb tale of a future where artificial intelligence rules

Centuries in the future, the people of Earth live under the control of an artificial intelligence called UniComp. A century and a half earlier, the computers governing the five continents had come together in the Unification. The result was a worldwide society free of war, hunger, crime, and...
Cover image of "Branches," a novel about a journey through the multiverse

An unwelcome journey through the multiverse

There are two possibilities here. Either this is, as the book's cover suggests, a science fiction tale about a man caught in an endless loop through innumerable possible timelines in the multiverse. Or it's a story of a man having a nervous breakdown. Journey through the multiverse? Nervous...
business history

My 10 favorite books about business history

I've spent more than half my life in business, engaged in founding or leading a number of small companies. So it's only natural that I should read a good deal about economic and business history. Here, I've listed more than sixty of the best books about the history of business that I've read and...
Cover image of "War and Conflict in the Middle Ages,"

A global view of war in the Middle Ages

Most Western historians view the years between about 500 CE and 1500 CE as the Middle Ages, and they typically divide the period into three sections of 500 years each. The bookmarks for the period are the collapse of the Roman Empire and the "discovery" of the Americas. But this is a decidedly...
The Dark Hours

Harry Bosch teams up with Renée Ballard again

Harry Bosch is getting old. Years earlier, he was forced to retire from the LAPD. After a stint with a small police force in the San Fernando Valley, he obtained a P.I. license as a way to continue following up discreetly on the cold cases that eluded him while he was on the job. Though aging, he...
Cover image of "The Fifties,"

They fought for change in the 1950s

We look upon the 1950s as a decade of conformity when little of consequence happened in the United States. But sweeping generalizations about any period in history are misleading at best, and none more so than about the Fifties. Because the period from the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950...

My Most Popular Reviews

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Mal Warwick - Book Reviews

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