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 "The Other Boleyn Girl,"

She might have married Henry VIII. Her sister did.

Ask American college graduates to name any of the kings of England before Charles III, and if they can cite any at all they'll probably come up with a single example. Henry VIII. Few stories in the English-speaking world are more familiar than that of Henry and his six wives. Amazon lists hundreds...
Cover image of "The White Russian,"

Murder in Petrograd on the brink of the Russian Revolution

Nineteen seventeen was a watershed year in world history. It marked the arrival of the first American troops on the Western Front in World War I, laying the groundwork for victory the following year. The dissolution of the German, Austro-Hungarian, Turkish, and Russian Empires would soon follow....
In Spymaster, Brad Thord betrays his anti-Russian perspective.

Brad Thor showcases his anti-Russian perspective in this novel

Brad Thor has achieved the dubious distinction of reaching #25 on the Richtopia list of the "Top 200 Most Influential Authors" in the world. Judging from the list, that may mean very little. But there's no disputing Thor's success as a writer. The 19th entry in his Scot Harvath series of thrillers...
Nighttown is a hilarious crime novel.

A legendary burglar, a beautiful hitwoman, and a seven-foot killer

So, here's the deal. Junior Bender chose to accept a cockamamie proposition to rob a deserted house for entirely too much money. Even knowing someone might try to kill him for taking the job. Junior and his girlfriend, Ronnie Bigelow, "were planning an operation to kidnap her two-year-old son from...

A brilliant novel of the French Resistance

Alan Furst homes in on the French Resistance in Red Gold, the fifth of the 13 novels in his "Night Soldiers" series that have been appearing regularly since 1988. His mastery of the moods and the political environment in Europe before and during the Second World War is unexcelled, and the flawed,...
Cover image of "Smoke and Ashes," a new history of opium

A new history of opium as addictive as the drug

Part history, part memoir, part travelogue, Smoke and Ashes is the latest work by acclaimed Indian author Amitav Ghosh. Grounded in the extensive research he conducted in writing his extraordinary Ibis Trilogy, this new history of opium traces the story of the drug from its earliest known use six...
US foreign policy: The Brothers by Stephen Kinzer

They shaped US foreign policy for decades to come

One of them was the most powerful U. S. Secretary of State in modern times. The other built the CIA into a fearsome engine of covert war. Together, they shaped U. S. foreign policy in the 1950s, with tragic consequences that came to light in the decades that followed. These were the Dulles...
Cover image of "Fantasyland" by Kurt Andersen, a book about conspiracy theories

Conspiracy theories, fake news, and other delusions in American history

You will be amazed. In Kurt Andersen's shocking 500-year survey of US history, Fantasyland, you'll learn just how truly exceptional America is—and not in a good way. If you think only Donald Trump, Fox News, anonymous online pundits, and Russian hackers have a monopoly on "fake news," guess again....
Fatal System Error by Joseph Menn

Joseph Menn: criminals are stealing trillions of dollars through the Internet

If you're already worried about computer crime and identity theft, you'll be wracked with fear if you read this troubling new account of the subject by a Los Angeles Times reporter specializing in Internet security. Joseph Menn's "Fatal System Error" is aptly subtitled "The Hunt for the New Crime...
Death in the East is the fourth book in the Wyndham and Banerjee series.

A murder mystery in the British Raj

In the far northeastern corner of India, on land near a border disputed by China, lies the tribal village of Jatinga. There, every year following the monsoon rains, thousands of birds dazed by high winds descend toward the village's lights on foggy, dark nights. Local people, convinced they are...

My Most Popular Reviews

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Mal Warwick - Book Reviews

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