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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

How the Occupied nations helped win World War II

How the Occupied nations helped win World War II

Thousands of books memorialize the story of World War II in Europe. Every aspect of the conflict has received its due, from the fighting itself, to the deprivations on the home front, to the role of intelligence and the personalities of the civilian and military leadership on...

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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.

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

Happy reading!

 

Cover image of "The Long Ships," a Viking saga

A Viking saga reminiscent of myth and legend

For nearly three centuries (793–1066 CE) during the Middle Ages, Norsemen from Denmark, Sweden, and Norway ran rampant through Europe from present-day Russia to Spain, England, France, Italy, and Ireland. Called Vikings, they raided coastal communities all around the European continent, plundering...
Cover image of "Medieval Horizons"

What you know about the Middle Ages is probably wrong

Most Americans, and no doubt many in Britain, immediately fasten on the label Dark Ages when the Middle Ages come to mind. The term has fallen out of favor with many historians, who have delved into the history of the period from roughly 500 to 1500 and discovered signs of change that don't...
Cover image of "Conclave," a novel about Vatican politics

A thriller about Vatican politics

Over the course of my life four new Popes have been installed by the Catholic Church. Robert Harris' thriller, Conclave, which was recently released as a motion picture, is about the next election. Set a few years in the future, when a man closely resembling Pope Francis has either retired or...
Cover image of "The Shortest History of Germany," German history in a nutshell

2,000 years of German history in 200 pages

Before the dawn of the Common Era two thousand years ago, Julius Caesar gave the land its name, Germania. But it was nineteen hundred years before the land became a country. That happened only in 1871 when the ruthless and brilliant Prussian Chancellor Otto von Bismarck united twenty-five...
The Lost Man is an outstanding murder mystery.

A superb murder mystery set in the Australian outback

Imagine a whodunit without a detective, or an investigator of any sort, for that matter. Take a family of three brothers, their mother, one wife, two young children, and a long-time hired hand. Now, one of the brothers has died. Did he commit suicide? Or was it murder? And if it was, who did it?...
Code Name Lise is the story of one of the most highly decorated World War II female spies and saboteurs.

Female spies and saboteurs in World War II

Estimated reading time: 9 minutes For decades, the pivotal role many women played in codebreaking, espionage, and the Resistance in World War II went largely unappreciated. But with the advent of the twenty-first century, historians have begun bringing more of their extraordinary stories to light....
Cover image of "The Future of Humanity" by MIchio Kaku, a book spanning the moon and Mars to the multiverse

From the moon and Mars to the multiverse

Climate change. The threat of thermonuclear war. Bioterrorism. Overpopulation. Is it any wonder that most Americans today are pessimistic about the future of the human race? In the face of all these (and so many other) existential threats to the survival of our civilization, who can blame us for...
Landfall presents a sympathetic portrait of George W. Bush.

A novelist’s sympathetic portrait of George W. Bush

George W. Bush served in the Oval Office from 2001 to 2009. His two terms in office encompassed 9/11, the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, Hurricane Katrina, and the global financial collapse that set off the Great Recession—surely, the most consequential sequence of events in any eight years in...
Cover image of "The Trinity Six," a new spy story

A stellar new spy story by Charles Cumming

A review of The Trinity Six, by Charles Cumming. @@@@@ (5 out of 5). Much of the latter-day literature of espionage is based, directly or indirectly, on the notorious “Cambridge Five” who spied for the Soviet Union during World War II and later defected. This excellent novel is the story of the long-rumored “sixth man” and his even more consequential career.

Exigency

Scientists explore a planet with two sentient species

For six years they've been in orbit around Epsilon C, a rocky, Earth-like planet that hosts not one but two sentient species. The nine are on a mission of scientific exploration. They've devoted their lives to it. And they've learned a great deal about the local inhabitants. Even—with tiny probes...

My Most Popular Reviews

Weekly Reviews Delivered to You!

Mal Warwick - Book Reviews

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Mal Warwick

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