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SCIENCE FICTION

MYSTERIES & THRILLERS

A Tang Dynasty judge solves a string of baffling murders

A Tang Dynasty judge solves a string of baffling murders

For readers in the USA or Europe, it can be a challenge to understand law enforcement policies and procedures in countries grounded in non-Western values and assumptions. In China, for example. The Inspector Chen novels of the Chinese expatriate author Qiu Xiaolong show just...

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NONFICTION

A soldier helped build America’s Empire. Then he spoke out.

A soldier helped build America’s Empire. Then he spoke out.

Few know his name today. But over a 34-year military career, Marine officer Smedley Butler (1881-1940) was for long America's most famous soldier. He fought in the Philippine–American War, the Boxer Rebellion, the Mexican Revolution, World War I, and all of the USA's imperial...

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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 "Rise of the Robots," a book about a jobless future

Will robots create a jobless future?

Warren Buffett, who ought to know, recently told shareholders of his investment company, Berkshire-Hathaway, that the development of driverless cars poses a "real threat" to the insurance industry. Buffett cares a lot about insurance, because he's got billions invested in it. But he might have...
Cover image of "A Sunlit Weapon," a novel about the women pilots of World War II

Maisie Dobbs meets Eleanor Roosevelt

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes In Jacqueline Winspear's 17th Maisie Dobbs novel, the brilliant "psychologist and investigator" meets the world-famous wife of the President of the United States. But that meeting is a long way off as the story opens. And how it comes about is a complex tale...
Cover image of "The Cold Millions," one of the best historical novels set in America

A gripping tale about the early American labor movement

For several decades in the mid-twentieth century, America's middle class prospered and grew. A vigorous labor movement gained livable wages and steadily expanding benefits for millions. To some extent, labor owed its central role in the economy to the reforms of the New Deal and the social change...
Cover image of "Fellow Travelers," a book about the Red Scare

Thomas Mallon on America’s third Red Scare

Only American history majors are likely to be aware that America's first Red Scare unfolded in 1886, sparked by the Haymarket affair in Chicago. That blood soaked event was a demonstration by workers calling for an eight-hour day which led to widespread persecution of men, usually foreign born,...
Cover image of "Murder in the Bastille," a murder mystery by Cara Black.

A murder mystery by Cara Black set in Paris

After enjoying the first three books in Cara Black's series of detective novels featuring Aimee Leduc, I found Murder in the Bastille to be disappointing. Granted, Aimee and her partner, Rene, were their usual engaging selves, the portrait of a bureaucratic and sometimes dysfunctional Paris police...
Cover image of "The Whitehall Mandarin," a novel about nuclear espionage

In the early days of the Cold War, nuclear espionage in search of the H-bomb

The Whitehall Mandarin, Edward Wilson's complex and sophisticated novel of Cold War espionage, is the fourth book in a series that began with the The Envoy. That first book centered around the life of one Kit Fournier, an American intelligence officer who rose to become head of the CIA mission in...
The cancer chronicles

Cancer under the microscope, a story already told better

If you're looking for an introduction to the painful subject of cancer -- its history, its origins, and the efforts of science to combat it -- I suggest you read the authoritative and compelling book, The Emperor of All Maladies, by the oncologist Siddhartha Mukherjee. The Cancer Chronicles treats...
The Winds of War

Is this classic World War II novel the best ever?

Imagine trying to tell the story of World War II through the lives of a single family. After all, the war engaged more than 100 million people from 30 countries in a conflict that raged for years on three continents. Yet half a century ago a remarkable author named Herman Wouk set out to do...
Cover image of "The Spare Man," a detective novel about murder in space

Murder in space on an interplanetary cruise ship

Dashiell Hammett's murder mystery, The Thin Man, published in 1933, reached the silver screen the following year under the same title. The film was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Picture. It starred Hollywood luminaries William Powell and Myrna Loy as Nick and Nora Charles, a retired...
Cover image of "The Matchmaker," a spy thriller

The best mysteries and thrillers of 2022

To be clear, what follows is not a list of the best mysteries and thrillers published during the past year. Instead, I’ve decided not to copy those reviewers who imply they've read the many thousands of mysteries and thrillers published in any given year. Nobody, and no team of...

My Most Popular Reviews

Weekly Reviews Delivered to You!

Mal Warwick - Book Reviews

Weekly book reviews to match your taste!

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Mal Warwick

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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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