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SCIENCE FICTION

MYSTERIES & THRILLERS

The best spy novelists writing today

The best spy novelists writing today

The first espionage novels appeared early in the 19th century with the publication of James Fenimore Cooper's The Spy in 1821 and The Bravo in 1831. A few other notable titles were published in the ensuing decades, and Sherlock Holmes got into the act around the turn...

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NONFICTION

Roger Ailes: the man who built Fox News and divided America

Roger Ailes: the man who built Fox News and divided America

As a teenager growing up in the 1950s in Lima, Ohio, (population 50,000 then), I learned that our local daily, The Lima News, had been purchased by a man named R. C. Hoiles. Hoiles lived in Orange County, California, and was a member of the John Birch Society. He owned a chain...

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Popular Fiction

Love, disease, and self-deception: the life of Typhoid Mary

Love, disease, and self-deception: the life of Typhoid Mary

Shortly after the 19th century turned into the 20th, a medical sleuth named George Soper, whom we would today call an epidemiologist, identified a young Irish immigrant cook in New York City as an asymptomatic carrier of the pathogen that causes typhoid fever. Her name was Mary...

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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.

Look to the right for a rotating random selection culled from throughout this site.

Happy reading!

 

Cover image of "Bannerless" by Carrie Vaughn, a novel about population control

In an SF novel of life after the Fall, population control is the key to survival

What are the roots of the biggest problems confronting humanity today? Amid a long list of possibilities, two stand out: overpopulation and overconsumption. Today, we are beginning to confront the resource limits of our planet, drinkable water and arable land most prominently among them. In...
Cover image of "The Snowman" by Jo Nesbo, a novel about serial murders

Harry Hole investigates a two-decade-long string of serial murders

It's difficult to surpass the fiendishly complex plotting on offer in every one of the Harry Hole novels by Jo Nesbo. Other thriller writers may equal Nesbo's skill in one or even several books, but few (if any) are better. In The Snowman, the seventh entry in the Harry Hole series, the...
China

Chinese history made fun and easy in a compelling novel

The roots of the Chinese Communist Revolution lie in the 19th century. The Opium Wars, the Taiping Rebellion, the Boxer Rebellion—these three blood-soaked events set the stage for the dissolution of the Chinese Empire in 1912. The chaos of one century led to a new sequence of chaotic episodes in...
Cover image of "Recursion," a disappointing new novel.

Spoiler alert: If you want to read this book, skip this review

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes In Groundhog Day, Harold Ramis's 1993 hit film, Bill Murray is caught in a time loop and repeatedly relives the same day over and over again. Blake Crouch's disappointing new novel, Recursion, is a lot like that. But Dr. Helena Smith and Barry Sutton are forced to...
Cover image of "All the Sinners Bleed," a novel classified as Southern noir

Southern noir at its eloquent best

Blood and tears. Violence and mayhem. Love and hate. These were the rocks upon which the South was built. They were the foundation upon which Charon County stood." So writes S. A. Cosby at the outset of his disquieting new crime novel, All the Sinners Bleed. This is Southern noir at its eloquent...
Cover image of one book in The Night Soldiers series by Alan Furst

The evocative Night Soldiers series from Alan Furst

Alan Furst has written fifteen novels to date in his Night Soldiers series, which he began writing late in the 1980s when he was nearly 50 years of age. While attending general studies courses at Columbia University, he became acquainted with Margaret Mead, for whom he later worked. Before...
Cover image of "Activation Degradation," a novel about biomechanical robots and aliens

Biomechanical robots battle invading aliens

AMS Unit Four wakes fresh from the reconstitution station to the sound of emergency alarms. Aliens are attacking the energy mine in Jovian space that supplies a third of Earth's energy needs. Forced to rush immediately into action, it soon finds itself confronted with a terrible dilemma. One of...
Cover image of "The Silver Bone,"

The first in a new series of Ukraine mysteries

Kyiv, Ukraine, 1919. Everything is scarce in this city of half a million souls. Food. Water. Electricity. And chaos reigns. Control of the city and its suburbs shifts from week to week among warring factions. The Red Army. The Whites under Denikin. And armed peasants aroused by local warlords....
Cover image of "Corruption in America" by Zephyr Teachout, a book about Citizens United

Citizens United, bribery, and corruption in America

If you're among the four out of five Americans who decry Citizens United as a tragic misstep, law professor Zephyr Teachout will show you just how far outside the bounds of precedent and tradition the Supreme Court stepped when it produced this ruling. Her book about Citizens United surveys the...
Cover image of "The Admirals," a book about World War II in the Pacific

Good books about World War II in the Pacific

Most of the books about World War II that are widely read by Americans concern the war in Europe. My own reading reflects that imbalance. Still, I’ve managed to find, read, and review 11 that fit my definition of “good books” that cast light on the titanic, eight-year-long war unleashed by the...

My Most Popular Reviews

Weekly Reviews Delivered to You!

Mal Warwick - Book Reviews

Weekly book reviews to match your taste!

Love mysteries and thrillers? Historical fiction fan? Prefer to read nonfiction? Or, like me, you just love reading? Take your pick of my three weekly newsletters. Just click the Yes! button, and you’re on your way.

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Mal Warwick

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…includes my latest nonfiction book review, with links to other nonfiction content.

My latest
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…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.

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