The Latest

SCIENCE FICTION

First Contact deep in the Amazon rainforest

First Contact deep in the Amazon rainforest

What can I say about a book that could have been great but isn't? In Entropy, the 31st entry in his long-running series of standalone novels about First Contact with alien intelligence, Australian author Peter Cawdron tells a gripping story about the crash of a private jet deep...

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MYSTERIES & THRILLERS

Bombay’s sole female lawyer investigates early Bollywood

Bombay’s sole female lawyer investigates early Bollywood

The American motion picture industry, which we know as "Hollywood," began in the early 1910s when filmmakers migrated to California. By 1915, they had established a global cinema hub. But filmmaking grew early in India, too. The first Hndi-language feature film produced there,...

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NONFICTION

Popular Fiction

A brilliant novel of love, hope, and the Rwanda genocide

A brilliant novel of love, hope, and the Rwanda genocide

Today, Rwanda is one of the brightest lights in Africa. The economy is booming. Corruption is rare. Government delivers services. The streets of Kigali, the capital, are clean. It's even easy to open a business. Thirty years ago the country was in chaos, as this award-winning...

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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!

 

Jerry Brown biography: Trailblazer by Chuck McFadden

A new biography serves up Jerry Brown, once over lightly

A review of Trailblazer: A Biography of Jerry Brown, by Chuck McFadden. @@@ (3 out of 5). The contradiction-filled story of California Governor Jerry Brown in less than 200 pages.

Cover image of "The Deceivers" by Alex Berenson, a John Wells spy novel

Russia takes the next step in the latest John Wells spy novel

Is a new Cold War underway between the United States and Russia? Certainly, the signs are emerging. The two countries are at loggerheads in Ukraine and Syria, and the Russian response to deepening US sanctions has seemed increasingly desperate. Russian efforts to upend the 2016 presidential...
The Widow is a psychological thriller about a child abduction.

A psychological thriller about a child abduction

When reviewers compare a thriller to Gone Girl, my hackles rise. I then know to expect a psychological thriller with a central character who's a woman, an "unreliable narrator," and at least a little crazy. Well, some of the reception to Fiona Barton's The Widow was of that ilk. And I'm here to...
Cover image of "The Edge of Anarchy,"

The American labor movement in the Gilded Age

Today's widening gap between rich and poor—the billionaires versus the rest of us—is often compared to that in the Gilded Age. Then, the parties involved were the Robber Barons at society's pinnacle and the working men and women whose labor generated the obscene wealth the rich displayed with such...
Cover image of "The Man With the Baltic Stare," a novel about a North Korean detective

Intrigue from Pyongyang, to Prague, to Macao

In the closing years of the past decade, beginning in 2008, North Korea began descending into chaos as its dictator, Kim Jong-Il, fell gravely ill. His youngest son, Kim Jong-Un, then only in his mid-twenties, began to emerge as the heir apparent, crowding aside not just his older brothers but the...
Started Early, Took My Dog by Kate Atkinson

Kate Atkinson started well, went to the dogs

You can tell from the title that Kate Atkinson is reaching for another literary prize with this well-written crime novel. Once you find yourself immersed in the story, you know that for a fact. Although Started Early, Took My Dog, is from one perspective a mystery story, though one that's hardly...
Komarr is the best book in the Vorkosigan Saga.

The best book in the Vorkosigan Saga?

For the past two years I've been hooked on the series. Komarr is the 11th book among the 16 that have been published so far. And, even though some of the earlier novels have also been exceptionally good, Komarr is in my opinion the best book in the Vorkosigan Saga. The best book in the Vorkosigan...
Intelligent plants star in "Interference."

Humans, intelligent plants, brilliant insects, and that’s not all!

In Semiosis, Sue Burke introduced the human colonists of the planet Pax and the sentient alien species they encountered there. But Burke seems to have more in mind than simply writing a good science fiction novel. Apparently, she was eager to show off. Semiosis is a term from linguistics that...
Cover image of "The Road to Roswell," an alien abduction story

An award-winner’s comic alien abduction story

As the conspiracy theorists would have it, an extraterrestrial spaceship crashed near Roswell, New Mexico, in July 1947. Government agents took custody of the aliens who'd survived the crash and rushed them to a secret base in Nevada called Area 51—and covered up the incident for decades...
Cover image of "Collusion" by Luke Harding, a book about the collusion exposed in the 2016 Trump campaign

Collusion exposed, but is there more? Is Donald Trump a Russian agent?

If the question in the above headline strikes you as over the top, you might feel differently after reading the Steele Dossier and Collusion. In the book, Guardian reporter Luke Harding analyzes and comments on the dossier, adding his own, independent findings. Even if you follow the...

My Most Popular Reviews

Weekly Reviews Delivered to You!

Mal Warwick - Book Reviews

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Mal Warwick

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