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Why do some novels win literary awards?

Why do some novels win literary awards?

Let's see if we can figure out why this paper-thin work of fiction won wide recognition and a literary award for its author. Snow Hunters introduces . . . let's count them: eight characters in 226 pages: Yohan, a North Korean soldier captured by UN forces late in the Korean...

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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 "The Darkest Hour," a novel about when the Nazis rule Britain

The Nazis rule England. And the Resistance grows.

Sergeant John Rossett is "a good man just doing a bad job." A war hero, he returned to his prewar job as a cop in London only to be pressed into service in a distasteful job. The Nazis rule Britain, and they've forced him to work as a "Jew-catcher" in the Office of Jewish Affairs. Numb and...
Cover image of "Bluebird, Bluebird" by Attica Locke

A compelling tale of murder, race, and family secrets by Attica Locke

Two bodies have turned up in quick succession in a small town in hardscrabble East Texas. The sheriff is inclined to treat them as unconnected. But not so Darren Matthews, a Texas Ranger who has come to town at the urging of a friend in the FBI who suspects larger forces at work there. An African...
Cover image of "Subversives" by Seth Rosenfeld, a book about 1960s Berkeley

J. Edgar Hoover, Ronald Reagan, and the violence in 1960s Berkeley

A review of Subversives: The FBI’s War on Student Radicals, and Reagan’s Rise to Power, by Seth Rosenfeld. @@@@@ (5 out of 5). Relates the campus-based conflicts of Berkeley in the 60s, with a focus on the roles of J. Edgar Hoover, Ronald Reagan, Clark Kerr, and Mario Savio.

Cover image of "The Admirals," a book about World War II in the Pacific

Good books about World War II in the Pacific

Most of the books about World War II that are widely read by Americans concern the war in Europe. My own reading reflects that imbalance. Still, I’ve managed to find, read, and review 11 that fit my definition of “good books” that cast light on the titanic, eight-year-long war unleashed by the...
Cover image of "Wired" by Douglas E. Richards, a bestselling science fiction novel

A bestselling science fiction novel that doesn’t measure up

Amazon boasts that this book was the #1 bestseller for an entire year in both technothrillers and science fiction. I don't think this speaks well for the reading taste of Amazon's customers. Wired is the first of two novels in Douglas E. Richards' series about a near-future breakthrough in...
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...
brutal Belgian Congo: Long Time Coming by Robert Goddard

A tale rooted in the brutal Belgian Congo

Robert Goddard writes suspenseful novels that typically span many years in British history and demonstrate graphically the unforeseen consequences of long-ago acts. Long Time Coming is one of the 20 books he has written since the early 90s and one of 12 now available for the Kindle. I acquired an...
The Order of the Day

The men who made Adolf Hitler’s war possible

There's something strange about the French. I suspect that any American publisher would have rejected this peculiar little book. But it wasn't just published in France—it won the country's most prestigious literary award, the Prix Goncourt. And this despite the fact that in fewer than 150 pages...
Cover image of "When Christ and His Saints Slept,"

Cousin battles cousin in the first English civil war

One of the pivotal events in the evolution of Great Britain as we know it today occurred nearly 900 years ago during the era known as "The Anarchy." From 1138 to 1153, what are today England and France experienced continuous turmoil, as two contenders battled for the throne in the first English...
The Devotion of Suspect X is a Japanese detective novel.

Something’s missing in this Japanese detective novel

Something is often lost in the translation of foreign fiction. If the translator has done a poor job, the prose comes across as ragged or word choice sometimes puzzling. Neither of these problems crops up with the translation from the Japanese of Keigo Higashino's novel, The Devotion of Suspect X....

My Most Popular Reviews

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Mal Warwick - Book Reviews

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Mal Warwick

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