The Latest

SCIENCE FICTION

MYSTERIES & THRILLERS

A young police detective pursues an escaped Nazi spy

A young police detective pursues an escaped Nazi spy

Nazi Germany reportedly dispatched as many as 135 spies to Britain during World War II. And, according to numerous historical accounts, every single one of them was either captured or turned themselves in to authorities. (At least one didn't fit the pattern, though. He...

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NONFICTION

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!

 

A brilliant courtroom drama about the Lincoln Lawyer from Michael Connelly

Most successful crime writers develop a single hero who becomes the protagonist of a series of novels. Few authors have two who exist in autonomous (if overlapping) universes. However, Michael Connelly has pulled it off with half-brothers Hieronymous (Harry) Bosch, a grumpy LAPD detective, and...
All Systems Red reminds us that technology doesn't always work well.

A reminder that technology doesn’t always work well in the future, either

Technology rules our lives. We depend on the lights to go on, our phones to work, and airplanes not to fall out of the sky. Nowadays, we assume that technology will just go on getting better and better. Perfection is within reach, right? Well, of course not. Stuff happens. And Martha Wells'...
Cover image of "The Future of Humanity" by MIchio Kaku, a book spanning the moon and Mars to the multiverse

From the moon and Mars to the multiverse

Climate change. The threat of thermonuclear war. Bioterrorism. Overpopulation. Is it any wonder that most Americans today are pessimistic about the future of the human race? In the face of all these (and so many other) existential threats to the survival of our civilization, who can blame us for...
Losing the News by Alex S. Jones

Alex S. Jones laments the passing newspaper era

The subtitle of this impassioned essay—The Future of the News that Feeds Democracy—tells half the story, one that's familiar to any alert reader of today's major newspapers. The other half of the story, equally familiar, is about how the Internet is undermining the newspaper industry and, in the...
An AI expert worries about the future in 2062.

An AI expert worries about the robots of the future

I believe that one day we will create machines that think," writes AI researcher Toby Walsh in his new book, 2062. "We will invent machines that are superior to us. They will be stronger, faster and more intelligent than us." However, he notes, they will think in ways very different from us. "A...
Starship Troopers spotlights reactionary politics.

Robert Heinlein’s classic novel is a showcase for his reactionary politics

In any list of the all-time best science fiction novels, you're certain to come across the name Robert A. Heinlein—and his 1959 novel, Starship Troopers, is one of the titles most likely to be cited. You may also find the list includes Stranger in a Strange Land, which is a very different sort of...
The Gods of Gotham is a thrilling historical novel.

The first cops in old New York star in a thrilling historical novel

It's 1845. The US Congress has approved the annexation of Texas and admitted Florida to statehood. The New York Evening Mirror has just published "The Raven" by Edgar Allen Poe. The Great Famine is raging in Ireland, driving hundreds of thousands of emigrants to US shores. The American...
American Oligarchs reveals the Trumps and Kushners backstory.

The Trumps and the Kushners: the backstory

His father was arrested for failure to disperse from a Ku Klux Klan rally. He was also investigated for profiteering by the U. S. Senate and the State of New York and sued by the Department of Justice for civil rights violations. His son-in-law's father spent fourteen months in Federal prison for...
The Corridors of Time is a Poul Anderson novel.

A legendary sci-fi author makes a mess of time travel

The Danish-American author Poul Anderson (1926-2001) won seven Hugo Awards and three Nebula Awards as well as many other science fiction and fantasy awards for the innumerable novels and short stories he wrote in a career spanning the last six decades of the twentieth century. But his 1965 novel,...
Cover image of "Tai-Pan," a novel about the founding of Hong Kong

A swashbuckling story of the founding of Hong Kong

In May 1817, a Scottish physician named William Jardine (1784-1843) abandoned his post as a surgeon's mate on a British East India Company ship and settled in Canton to take up life as a merchant. Over the succeeding years, he prospered in the opium trade and, in 1832, cofounded the...

My Most Popular Reviews

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Mal Warwick - Book Reviews

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Mal Warwick

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