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Were British double agents the key to the Normandy invasion?

Were British double agents the key to the Normandy invasion?

Americans' views of the Second World War have been dominated by films, books, and television specials about the role that U.S. troops played in the fighting. Even today, more than three-quarters of a century after the war ended, we tend to believe that it was our ingenuity and...

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Popular Fiction

British explorers risk death in forbidden Tibet in 1869

British explorers risk death in forbidden Tibet in 1869

Explorers today plumb the oceans' trenches and the vast reaches of solar space. For the truly adventurous who seek to cross humanity's last frontiers, few if any big challenges remain on land. But a century and a half ago, the opportunities for Western explorers to make their...

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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!

 

Cover image of "Player Piano," Kurt Vonnegut's warning about automation.

Kurt Vonnegut’s warning about automation in his first published novel

Kurt Vonnegut was never willing to concede that he wrote science fiction. Though it's difficult to read his work without drawing that conclusion anyway, his many novels could also be considered as social commentary. Biting commentary, at that. So it goes with his first published novel, Player...
Cover image of "In Our Likeness," a novel about what’s real and what’s fake

Retooling reality with artificial intelligence

Graham Gooding is head of operations at Warlock & Co. He's been with founder David Warwick longer than anyone else and is Warwick's trusted go-to guy. So, when top coder Nessie Locke produces a promising new algorithm, Warwick turns to Graham to test it. According to Nessie, the algo began as...
Cover image of "The Untold Story of Books,"

In publishing, the writer usually comes last

Few people have any idea how many new books there are every year. According to Steven Piersanti, Founder and Senior Editor at Berrett-Koehler Publishers, quoting a 2023 report in Publishers Weekly, 2.3 million books were self-published in the US in 2021. And a recent industry estimate is that each...
Cover image of "Sunset Limited," a novel about the New Orleans mob

The New Orleans mob, a crooked film director, and a 40-year-old crucifixion

Here’s what to expect from a novel in the Dave Robicheaux series by James Lee Burke: Dave will get himself into trouble by ignoring orders from the Sheriff, his boss, and by disregarding threats from supremely dangerous people. Dave’s former partner in the New Orleans Police Department, Clete...
Cover image of "Vienna Spies," a novel set in wartime Vienna

A stirring tale of spies in wartime Vienna

In The Secret War, his illuminating revisionist history of secret intelligence in World War II, the British journalist Max Hastings questions the value of what has come to be called "humint," the product of spies working undercover. In Hastings' view, spies had little effect on the outcome of the...
Reverse Innovation by Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble

Reverse Innovation: The guide to “the fortune at the bottom of the pyramid”

A review of Reverse Innovation: Create Far From Home, Win Everywhere, by Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble. @@@ (3 out of 5). Here is the book that C. K. Prahalad should have written instead of The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid.

Cover image of "The Confession," a John Grisham novel

Why do so many people buy John Grisham’s books?

If you read books, then you almost certainly know the name John Grisham. To date, he's published 37 bestselling adult novels and seven for children, as well as three nonfiction books. Eleven of his novels have been adapted into feature films and four into television series. His books have sold an...
The Social Labs Revolution is about what makes social change happen.

What makes social change happen?

Planning based-approaches -- so common across government, civil society, and even business -- represent a neo-Soviet paradigm" and have long been shown to be at best minimally effective in fostering meaningful social change. If that assertion is a revelation to you, you're sure to find The Social...
Cover image of "Make Room! Make Room!," a novel about overpopulation

Overpopulation in fiction and on film

In 1973, American filmgoers were shocked by a film entitled Soylent Green, starring Charlton Heston and Leigh Taylor-Young. The film depicts New York City in 2022 with a population of 40 million. The streets are crowded with homeless people, but those few with jobs and a place to live in a...
Cover image of "The Man Who Walked Like a Bear," a novel about crime in the Soviet Union

An honest detective confronts reality in Soviet Russia

Award-winning Chicago-based mystery author Stuart Kaminsky wrote sixteen police procedurals featuring an honest Russian detective named Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov. The first of these novels, Death of a Dissident, appeared in 1981 and depicted crime in the Soviet Union under Leonid Brezhnev....

My Most Popular Reviews

Weekly Reviews Delivered to You!

Mal Warwick - Book Reviews

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Mal Warwick

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