Category: Book Reviews

February 16, 2017

The Gene by Siddhartha Mukherjee **** (of 4)

Mukherjee begins with the ancient Greeks. They wondered from whom and how did children inherit characteristics that made them look like their parents. Mukherjee continues...

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January 12, 2017

A Spy Among Friends *** (of 4) By Ben MacIntyre

Kim Philby joined the British spy services and the Russian KGB as a young man fresh from university. The Second World War had not yet...

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December 27, 2016

The Girl from Venice by Martin Cruz Smith *** (of 4)

In the closing days of WWII, as the Allies are conquering northward up the Italian peninsula, the Germans are beginning to retreat, and their Italian...

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December 18, 2016

Destiny of the Republic by Candice Millard *** (of 4)

The United States was on rocky footing in the immediate decades following the civil war with the North wanting revenge and the south not yet...

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December 9, 2016

Without You There Is No Us by Suki Kim **** (of 4)

Suki Kim spent six months teaching English to the sons of elite North Koreans enrolled at Pyongyang University for Science and Technology (PUST), an evangelical...

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December 1, 2016

American Heiress by Jeffrey Toobin *** (of 4)

Patty Hearst was the daughter of one of the wealthiest and most influential media men in American history (think Fox News) when she was kidnapped...

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December 1, 2016

The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George **** (of 4)

It seems to me that even mediocre authors can write tragedies. As long as a protagonist is reasonably sympathetic and something awful occurs, the reader...

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November 22, 2016

Palace of Treason by Jason Matthews *** (of 4)

The second in the series involving a a love affair that really should never happen between an American CIA spy, Nathanial Nash and the mole he...

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October 31, 2016

H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald **** (of 4)

Three parallel stories expertly told. In the first, the author trains a goshawk to fly from her glove to hunt pheasants and rabbits on the British...

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October 20, 2016

The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan *** (of 4)

This recounting of America’s dust bowl is a vivid, filthy painting of an American environmental disaster brought about by greed, hubris, and ignorance. After demolishing...

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