The Latest

SCIENCE FICTION

MYSTERIES & THRILLERS

Those lady detectives in Botswana save baby elephants

Why, I keep asking myself, do I continue to read these books about two ladies who operate as private detectives in Gaborone, Botswana? After all, they're not really detectives. They don't investigate crime and almost never encounter the police. They "help solve people's...

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NONFICTION

He ran the morgue on 9/11. The job took years.

He ran the morgue on 9/11. The job took years.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, Shiya Ribowsky walked to work. It was a beautiful day, and he was in no hurry. As director of identifications at New York City’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME), he knew death keeps its own schedule. Then the first plane struck...

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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 "A House Between Earth and the Moon,"

When billionaires flee to a private space station

Here's a thought-provoking novel set in the near future about a dozen billionaires who build a private space station in Low Earth Orbit. The architects of this dream project are two Korean-American sisters, Rachel and Katherine Son. They have advanced telephone technology by inserting phones in...

Race relations in colonial Africa through the eyes of a Swedish novelist

Among the countless books and plays written by the masterful Swedish writer Henning Mankell are nine novels and one collection of five short stories about the life and work of a troubled police detective named Kurt Wallander in the town of Ystad, Sweden. The Wallander series, which has been...
Smoke and Ashes is set in colonial Calcutta.

A brilliantly constructed murder mystery set in colonial Calcutta

The Indian independence movement was nearly a century in the making (1857-1947). By 1921, when thousands of Indian troops had returned from fighting for their king-emperor in World War I, the movement began shifting into high gear. Mohandas Gandhi's policies of nonviolence and civil disobedience...

Tea Party politics may not be what you think

A review of Steep: The Precipitous Rise of the Tea Party, by Lawrence Rosenthal and Christine Trost. @@@@@ (5 out of 5). A superb collection of scholarly articles that examine the Tea Party from many different angles.

Cover image of a novel about Watergate

Watergate through a novelist’s eyes

If you're under the age of 45 or so, it would be surprising if you had any active memory of Watergate. More likely, your knowledge of the scandal comes from history books. Certainly, though, if you were born before, say, 1965 -- or, for sure, before 1960 -- the events of those tragic days are...
The Bomber Mafia

Malcolm Gladwell wades into the debate about strategic bombing in WWII

In The Bomber Mafia, Malcolm Gladwell departs from the precincts of social psychology he knows so well (The Tipping Point, Talking to Strangers, Outliers) and ventures into the history of World War II. The book, subtitled "A Dream, a Temptation, and the Longest Night of the Second World War,"...
Cover image of "The Library Book," which is about an arson fire, the expanded role of libraries, and eccentric librarians.

An arson fire, the growing role of libraries, and eccentric librarians

How good is The Library Book? It's unquestionably one of the most enjoyable books I've read in recent years. Susan Orlean has a magical way with prose, and she turns what could easily be a monumentally boring subject into a captivating tale. Even if you're not a passionate devotee of public...
Cover image of "Echo House," one of the best novels about politics

The five best novels about politics

Please focus on the headline. What you’ll see below is a list of the five best novels about politics—as distinct from political novels. The stories here cast light on the mechanics of the political process—insider baseball, if you will. By contrast, a political novel reflects the...
Cover image of "Two Nights in Lisbon,"

A compelling thriller full of surprises

Ariel Pryce awakens to a sunny day in Lisbon only to find her new husband, John Wright, missing. After hours waiting for him to turn up, it's clear something's amiss. There's no message, and no sign of him whatsoever. Fearing he's fallen victim to an accident or been kidnapped, she turns to the...
Cover image of "Poison" by John Lescroart, a Dismas Hardy courtroom drama

Another excellent Dismas Hardy courtroom drama

John Lescroart surprises with a courtroom drama in which the suspense is all about whether Dismas Hardy's new case will ever get into a courtroom. Poison is the 17th novel in Lescroart's first-rate series about the San Francisco defense attorney who is also an ex-Marine, a bartender, and a former...

My Most Popular Reviews

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Mal Warwick - Book Reviews

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