The Latest

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!

 

AI 2041

A troubling but balanced view of artificial intelligence

We can't look back at our time from the perspective of the 22nd century. But if we were able to do so, it seems likely that one of the dominant phenomena we would observe in our era is the emergence of artificial intelligence. Few developments in science and technology have caused both more hope...
The Bellini Card by Jason Goodwin

A very odd couple solves murders in this historical novel

It's 1840. A eunuch in service to the Ottoman sultan is, improbably, an accomplished detective, a gifted hand-to-hand fighter, and even a lover of women (or, at least, one woman) in this fanciful but flawed mystery story. Dr. Watson to Yashim's Sherlock Holmes is a Polish Count ejected from his...
space travel

The nitty-gritty details of space travel, funny and otherwise

Let's just assume, for the sake of argument, that you're passionately interested in space travel and desperate to know "what it's really like out there." Mary Roach's Packing for Mars will tell you more than you ever dreamed of knowing about the experience. It may also make you think twice about...
Cover image of "The Deep Blue Good-By,"

Suspense authors look to this classic thriller series as a model

Check out your favorite writers of mysteries and thrillers whose careers began after, say, 1970. You're likely to find that several turn to the work of John D. MacDonald as a model of the craft. In his time—the 1940s through the 1980s—he was one of the world's most admired and bestselling authors...
Cover image of "Bloodhounds," a send-up of classic detective fiction

A send-up of classic detective fiction

Writers of genre fiction tend to be widely read within their own narrow field. The British detective novelist Peter Lovesey is a prime example. In Bloodhounds, Lovesey demonstrates his familiarity with his genre, referring by name to a large number of prominent mystery writers. His novel is a...
Ageless

An aging reviewer tackles a book about aging

If you're considering this book in hopes of finding some magical supplement or salve to add ten years to your life, forget it. The author is a PhD physicist turned computational biologist—a serious scientist. In Ageless, he relates the latest findings about the emergence of a new field called...

From Jo Nesbo: ritual murder, blood diamonds, and Norway’s CSI

Leave it to Jo Nesbø to link ritual murder, Satanism, police corruption, desperate love affairs, Norwegian geography, alcoholism, sex, diamond smuggling, the German Army in World War II, and obscure forensic discoveries in a single book -- and somehow make it all work. The Devil's Star, first...
The Genius Plague

The greatest threat to humanity is . . . a mushroom?

Welcome to the wonderful world of mycology! The people who pursue this abstruse discipline, mycologists, are the folks who study mushrooms. Or, more broadly, fungi. Because, as it turns out, the mushrooms we see and sometimes eat, are, in a manner of speaking, just the tip of the iceberg. Fungi,...
Cover image of "A Truck Full of Money," a biography of a man with bipolar disorder

Software success, philanthropy, and bipolar disorder

Most business biographies are about heroes. Though their stories may be leavened by references to the negative side of their character, the overall effect is overwhelmingly positive. Not so with Tracy Kidder's even-handed new account of a successful software entrepreneur, A Truck Full of Money....
The Lords of Easy Money

How did the US economy get to be in such a mess?

When I first became aware of the stock market in 1960, the Dow Jones Industrial Average stood at 679. By the beginning of 2022, the index had topped 36,000. Even discounting inflation, today's Dow Jones average is five and a half times as high as it was just over 60 years ago. Of course, economic...

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

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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