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Mal Warwick @bookishq.bsky.social · 5d

You might not think a single company could play a central role in the development of the Chinese economy. But this eye-opening new book may change your mind. The story is amazing.
#apple #china #trade #economicdevelopment

How Apple made China great while becoming a $3 trillion company

You might have wondered, as I have, how China could become so prosperous and powerful in less than half a century since Deng Hsiao-ping launched what I

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Mal Warwick @bookishq.bsky.social · 6d

Dan Fesperman is prominent among a new crop of spy novelists. He brings to the table considerable skill as a writer and on-the-scene knowledge of the Middle Eastern settings in which he places his books. So far, I haven't found a false note in any of his work.
#spies #espiionage #Iran #Israel

This taut spy novel ends with a jaw-dropping surprise

Claire Saylor is doing time in Langley hoping for a new field posting. But she hasn't bargained on the assignment that's just come her way. "You’re due

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Mal Warwick @bookishq.bsky.social · 10d

To take a break from the news and from all those serious books you read, check out this delightful series of little novels set in a place you may never have heard of. You'll be charmed, too.

#africa #detectivefiction

A charming portrait of an African country that breaks the mold

The South African nation of Botswana attracts wildlife tourists and diamond-buyers but little other attention from the outside world. It's a big place,

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Mal Warwick @bookishq.bsky.social · 12d

For most, Donald Trump's second term has been problematic at best and catastrophic at worst. Thom Hartmann's new book offers a pointed critique of the man and the movement that has made his effort to remake the American political system possible.
#donaldtrump #politics #MAGA #corruption

A savage takedown of the would-be dictator in the Oval Office

Amazon lists more than 3,000 books about Donald Trump, and I feel as though I've read most of them. (Well, at least 23, anyway.) So, why do we need yet

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Mal Warwick @bookishq.bsky.social · 13d

Here, from the author of Lucas Davenport series of "Prey" novels is the second book in his new series featuring Davenport's tough adopted daughter, Letty. Like her father, she works as a federal agent, but for DHS, not the Marshal Service.
#detective #domesticterrorism #DHS

John Sandford's badass young detective takes on dangerous hackers

In a series of 36 crime novels to date, John Sandford has traced the career of crack investigator Lucas Davenport for four decades. Marketed under the

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Mal Warwick @bookishq.bsky.social · 18d

The late, great Elmore Leonard wrote this novella back in the day when the United Farmworkers Union was organizing in the fields of the Southwest. This short novel dramatizes the dynamics of their operations in Texas. It's a great story.

#union #strike #novella #farmworkers

Elmore Leonard's long-lost novella explores farmworkers' lives

More than half a century ago, Elmore Leonard was eking out a living writing pulp Western novels. He was about to take a sharp turn into crafting the crime

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Mal Warwick @bookishq.bsky.social · 19d

For decades, women faced a stone wall that prevented all but a few to rise to top jobs in the CIA. This book by an agency insider chronicles women's rise to the leadership. It was a very tough fight.
#CIA #women'smovement #feminism #history

How the women's revolution changed the CIA

Few agencies of the US Government resisted women's liberation and the civil rights movement as long or as fiercely as the CIA. Born in the macho exploits

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Mal Warwick @bookishq.bsky.social · 20d

If you crave detective novels set in exotic places, you should love this tale of murder and mayhem in Siberia on the longest railway in the world.
#detectivefiction #murdermystery #Russia #historicalfiction

Murder on the Trans-Siberian Express

Work began on the Trans-Siberian Railway on March 9, 1891. Then, Tsar Alexander III still ruled the Russian Empire. But when he died at the age of 49

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Mal Warwick @bookishq.bsky.social · 25d

Of all the major players on the world stage, we know the least about North Korea. This shocking account of life inside the country's notorious political prison system opens a window on one of North Korea's best-hidden realities.
#northkorea #prison #gulag #escape

A survivor's eye-opening tale of life in the North Korean gulag

A review of Escape from Camp 14: One Man's Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West, by Blaine Harden. @@@@@ (5 out of 5). Chronicles the life of Shin Dong-hyuk, only of only three p...

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Mal Warwick @bookishq.bsky.social · 26d

Nearlly every one of the many books I've read about the US Civil War over the years has been about the fighting. Even the novels. This one isn't. It explains how and why the North won the conflict, viewing the scene in the broadest possible terms.
#civilwar #industry #manufacturing

How inventors and businessmen won the Civil War for the Union

In 1860, when civil war erupted, the federal government was a mere shadow of what it has become today. The federal budget was about $63 million, only

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Mal Warwick @bookishq.bsky.social · 27d

Some of the best spy novels now in print come from the pen (or keyboard) of Alan Furst. They're set in Europe in the 1930s and 40s and revolve around the run-up to and then World War II itself. This is one of the best of the books.
#esionage #spynovel #Europe #worldwarII

At the dawn of World War II, a Hollywood star becomes a spy

Alan Furst writes deeply engrossing novels of suspense about espionage in Europe in the years leading up to and during World War II. Mission to

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Mal Warwick @bookishq.bsky.social · Oct 2

You can always depend on Carl Hiaasen for laughs. Except that I doubt the inhabitant of Mar el Lago would share the sentiment.
#humor #funnybooks #florida #satire #right-wing

Carl Hiaasen has outdone himself with this sendup of Florida insanity

Most of Carl Hiaasen's 16 previous adult novels have centered on the destruction of Florida's natural beauty. He has skewered corrupt developers, crooked

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Mal Warwick @bookishq.bsky.social · Sep 30

Science fiction has gone soft in recent years, with a smattering of charming, light-hearted stories by authors such as Becky Chambers. Now Annalee Newitz adds a delightful new novella, "Automatic Noodle," to the mix.
#scifi #sciencefiction #robots #restaurants

Four robots wake up in a restaurant, and they're in charge

California's long War of Independence has ended. It's 2064. All of a sudden the new country's many sentient robots, most of them veterans, face an

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Mal Warwick @bookishq.bsky.social · Sep 26

If you have the impression that war is a nonstop presence in our lives, you're right. I'm not aware of any time during my more than 80 years of life when there hasn't been war underway somewhere in the world. This superb novel explores the dynamics of human conflict.
#war #Russia #Chechnya

A searing inquiry into life during the Chechnyan War

American writer Anthony Marra began winning major literary awards when he was still in his 20s. He won seven for A Constellation of Vital Phenomena. But

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Mal Warwick @bookishq.bsky.social · Sep 24

Even if you never watched the HBO series "Deadwood," you'll be fascinated by this factual account of the legendary frontier town where Wild Bill Hickok met his death. The book illuminates an important chapter in the history of the United States.
#WildWest #Americanhistory #OldWest #GoldRush

Debunking the myths of the Wild West

For three seasons early in this century, HBO aired Deadwood, which won more than two dozen Emmy Awards. The series starred Timothy Olyphant as businessman

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Mal Warwick @bookishq.bsky.social · Sep 23

If you're looking for a crime novel that's unlike any other you've ever read and is full of surprises, check out this remarkable book.
#mystery #crime #murder #historicalfiction

The most unusual crime novel in years

Most crime fiction is formulaic and often entirely predictable. Whodunits. Locked-room mysteries. Legal thrillers. Caper stories. Psychological thrillers.

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Mal Warwick @bookishq.bsky.social · Sep 18

It wouldn't surprise me in the least if more books have been written about the Tudors than any other of the five main dynasties that have held the English throne over the past thousand years. And many of the best of those books are novels. This is my list of the best of them.
#Tudors #English

The best novels about the Tudors

England’s Tudor Dynasty (1485-1603) encompassed the reign of five monarchs. But just three of them ruled for a combined total of more than a century:

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Mal Warwick @bookishq.bsky.social · Sep 17

Here's one of the most unusual, and most celebrated, espionage capers of the Second World War, and it's all true. In fact, the book brings to light some long-suppressed facts about the execrable behavior of the Nazis in the occupation of France.
#WWii #espionage #arttreasures #France #Nazis

She defied the Nazis to save the world's greatest art treasures

During the six years of World War II in Europe, Nazi officials and their collaborators looted some 650,000 works of art. Competing Nazi bureaucracies sent

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Mal Warwick @bookishq.bsky.social · Sep 16

If you're looking for detective novels unlike any others, check out this amazing series of Chinese police procedurals. They're historical novels set in the modern era, beginning in the 1990s.

#china #historicalnovel #mytery #detectivefiction

The best Chinese detective novels

Beginning with Death of a Red Heroine in 2000, the Chinese American author Qiu Xiaolong inaugurated a series of Chinese detective novels now 13 strong and

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Mal Warwick @bookishq.bsky.social · Sep 11

I tested two leading AI apps for their ability to understand this sprawling historical novel. One came out way on top.
#AI #artificialintelligence #chatgpt #claude

A monumental historical saga of London spanning 2,000 years

Only once in the past 15 years since I began reviewing books have I written about anything without reading it to the end. But I'm about to break that rule

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Mal Warwick @bookishq.bsky.social · Sep 3

Books about the Gilded Age celebrate (or condemn) the Robber Barons. But how about their wives? This entertaining book traces the extraordinary story of one of those women. Today, she could pass as a standup comedian. Then, she was a hostess. And the most famous of her time.
#GildedAge #biography

The outrageous woman who helped shape the Gilded Age

Mark Twain satirized the period as the Gilded Age, suggesting that an overlay of gold plating hid the seamy reality underneath. Later, historians fixed

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Mal Warwick @bookishq.bsky.social · Sep 2

If you read detective novels and are in the mood for something really out of the ordinary, check out this terrific Russian police procedural set early in the 21st century. Note: it's not science fiction despite the title. This is an excellent mystery novel.
#policeprocedural #detectivenovel #Russia

Politics and intrigue bedevil the police in Putin's Russia

From 1986 to 2001, the massive Russian space station Mir ("peace") hurtled around the Earth at 17,000 miles per hour, circling the planet approximately

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Mal Warwick @bookishq.bsky.social · Sep 1

Alternate history asks provocative questions, and this recent novel poses one of the most intriguing I've come across. What if Japan had gained access to an atomic bomb in the closing days of World War II? Would the war have ended in August 1945 as it did?
#worldwar2 #alternatehistory #japan

What if there were 3 atomic bombs in the Pacific, not just 2?

Anyone with a passing knowledge of World War II is aware that Germany attempted to build a nuclear weapon. What is less well known is that Japan did so,

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Mal Warwick @bookishq.bsky.social · Aug 28

We live today in the shadow of the Iranian Revolution of 1979. This amazing book traces the roots of that cataclysmic event and assigns blame to the US officials whose arrogance and inattention let it happen.

How Iran came to be America's bitterest enemy

When future historians tally the most consequential revolutionary movements of the modern era, the choices will be obvious. The Russian Revolution re-set

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Mal Warwick @bookishq.bsky.social · Aug 27

This revisionist study of World War II is one of the most thought-provoking books I've ever read about the conflict. The author questions many of the most deeply held conclusions that other historians have reached. It's fascinating.
#worldwarii #history #revisionist

A British historian questions why the Allies won World War II

Brace yourself. Much of what you believe about why the Allies won World War II may not be true. British historian Richard Overy challenges the received

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