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Exploring the vast lands Thomas Jefferson bought from France

Exploring the vast lands Thomas Jefferson bought from France

Historians usually credit President Theodore Roosevelt with launching the United States as an imperial power. But no president did more to establish the country as a power to be reckoned with than Thomas Jefferson. In 1803, he took advantage of the turmoil unleashed by Napoleon...

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Popular Fiction

A sprawling Indian family in Delhi confronts its demons

A sprawling Indian family in Delhi confronts its demons

Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi died at the hands of her Sikh bodyguards on October 31, 1984. Violence erupted immediately. Anti-Sikh riots raged for four days, resulting in the deaths of thousands of Sikhs. Eight years later, in December 1992, an organized mob of 70,000...

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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!

 

Charm in abundance at the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency

Precious Ramotswe is a "traditionally built" woman who founded and runs the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency. She is known throughout Botswana's capital, Gaborone, for her wisdom and her street smarts. She is also reflective, unfailingly kind, truthful, and patient to an almost superhuman degree. She...
This post examines what Americans read the most.

What do Americans read the most?

Image: NBC News Estimated reading time: 4 minutes When you read books, what floats your boat? If you're among the 54 percent of Americans who have read one or more books in the past year, chances are you read mysteries and crime stories. Or so we learn from a recent post on YouGov (December 21,...
Cover image of "Thank You For Your Servitude,"

A fresh and funny look at the Trump Administration

What? Another book about Donald Trump? I've already reviewed nearly two dozen of them. So, what could possibly move me to read another one? Well, three things, as it turns out. First, author Mark Leibovich is one of the funniest observers of American politics I've come across in recent years....
Cover image of "Hollywood Moon," a novel about the Hollywood police

These Hollywood police procedurals launched serious police drama

Joseph Wambaugh, who recently passed away at the age of 88, wrote both novels and nonfiction about police and crime in Los Angeles for more than 50 years. While still at work as an LAPD detective sergeant in 1971, he wrote his first novel, The New Centurions. Two years later I read The Onion...
Ocean Prey

Lucas Davenport and Virgil Flowers take on drug smugglers

So, here we go again with our old friend Lucas Davenport, star of thirty previous novels in John Sandford's "Prey" series. Lucas left the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) quite some time ago. He's been a United States Marshal ever since. Still based in the Twin Cities, but he gets...
Methodology takes center stage in "A Colder War," a book about spycraft

Spycraft takes center stage in this novel of espionage

Charles Cumming has been hailed by some reviewers as a worthy successor to the dean of spy novelists, John Le Carre. He's good, he understands spycraft, and occasionally he's almost great. But I wouldn't go that far. In Cumming's most recent outing in the realm of suspense, A Colder...
Cover image of "Camino Island," a mystery about a daring heist

A daring heist, a frustrated novelist, and the ghost of F. Scott Fitzgerald

A gang of five thieves pulls off a spectacular heist, making away with five priceless manuscripts handwritten by F. Scott Fitzgerald from the Firestone Library at Princeton University. They leave behind only one shred of evidence: a drop of blood. This alone enables the FBI to identify one of the...
Cover image of "From a Far and Lovely Country," a novel about the famous African lady detectives

Down home with the lady detectives again

Here we are again, back with Mma Precious Ramotswe, proprietor of Botswana's #1 Ladies' Detective Agency. And of course all the familiar people in her circle are close at hand as well. Mma Grace Makutsi, self-promoted "co-director" of the agency. Mr. J. L. B. Matekoni, Mma Ramotswe's husband,...

Historical perspective on the surprising rise of Barack Obama

The White House has been home to many colorful characters in the more than two centuries since it was first occupied in 1800—think of the polymath Thomas Jefferson, the swashbuckling Andrew Jackson, and the big game hunter and peacemaker Teddy Roosevelt—but Barack Obama is at least their equal....
Cover image of "For Blood and Money,"

The drama behind two biotech startups

Genentech launched in 1976 to commercialize recombinant DNA technology. Ever since then, biotech has played an increasingly prominent role in the US healthcare industry. A flood of startups has explored every nook and cranny of the possibilities. Venture capitalists and medical researchers...

My Most Popular Reviews

Weekly Reviews Delivered to You!

Mal Warwick - Book Reviews

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Mal Warwick

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

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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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