‹ Reviewer Book Marks

John Grisham

Positive Booklist Readers unfamiliar with the genre—those, perhaps, picking up the book because Grisham’s name is on the cover—will be shocked and outraged, which is precisely the response the authors were looking for.

Neal Stephenson

Rave Booklist Tremendously entertaining ... A glorious achievement from a unique and compelling writer.

Chuck Palahniuk

Positive Booklist \"The author’s writing style isn’t for everyone: he bounces from idea to idea, shifts gears stylistically, and rambles on from time to time, but it’s all completely intentional and an integral part of his unique storytelling mode. Palahniuk’s fans will be delighted.\

Pedro Almodóvar

Positive Booklist Fans of Almodóvar’s films should seek this out and read it carefully.

James Lee Burke

Rave Booklist It’ll come as no surprise to Burke’s fans that this is a perfectly constructed story told extremely well, and the opportunity to see Dave through the eyes of his best friend, from a new and rather intimate angle, absolutely should not be missed.

Stephen King

Rave Booklist This book features some of the author’s most engaging writing ... You Like It Darker proves that he is still at the height of his powers. A triumph.

Glenn Kenny

Positive Booklist This comprehensive, energetically written book covers the film’s casting, writing, filming, cultural impact, legacy, and controversies.

Don Winslow

Rave Booklist Clearing the veneer of civility to reveal his characters’ animal instincts, Winslow concludes his remarkable literary career with an exciting thrill ride for readers.

Ben H Winters

Positive Booklist Another strong, thought-provoking novel from a writer who gets better with every book.

Nicholas Shakespeare

Rave Booklist This richly detailed, well-documented, and exquisitely written biography is highly recommendable to fans of Fleming, Bond, or both.

Thomas Mullen

Positive Booklist Though the story is firmly anchored in its time and place, and Mullen renders the environment in precise period detail, its themes are thoroughly relevant to contemporary readers. A remarkably good book, smartly conceived and beautifully executed.

Sam Wasson

Rave Booklist Rich in detail, it’s full of surprises and revelations, and impeccably researched and documented. For fans of books about moviemaking in general, and Francis Ford Coppola in particular, this is required reading.

Max Marshall

Positive Booklist He treats his drug-dealing subjects and their victims as fully fleshed-out people. A must-have addition to any library’s true-crime section.

Scott Eyman

Positive Booklist Eyman approaches his subject with compassion, digging to explore the ordinary person beneath the veneer of celebrity. An essential addition to every film history collection.

Sandra Newman

Rave Booklist Brilliant...ambitious ... Although it never feels like Newman is imitating Orwell’s writing style, the novel has the same texture, and in scenes providing Julia’s take on passages from the original, Newman reproduces Orwell’s original dialogue verbatim. This is not a rewriting of 1984; it’s a faithful, respectful retelling of a familiar story from a fresh new angle. Wonderful.

John Grisham

Mixed Booklist Devoted Grisham fans will want to read this, but casual readers may well give it a miss. A serviceable but disappointing offering from a usually excellent storyteller.

Stephen King

Rave Booklist \"Opening up a new Stephen King novel and encountering his conversational prose is like settling into a comfortable chair or digging into a favorite meal. There’s an immediate sense of satisfaction. In her new leading role, Holly shines. She’s tough, relentless, and compassionate while at the same time being vulnerable and prone to lapses of confidence. The story is the kind of thing King excels at, too—dark, mysterious, and deeply unsettling. This is the novel Holly deserves.\

Saul Austerlitz

Positive Booklist Anchorman fans will thoroughly enjoy this appraisal, and students of film criticism will learn from Austerlitz’s readings. Sterling work.

Sarah Weinman

Positive Booklist Although the essays are for the most part objective and dispassionate, the book still engenders frustration at the injustices perpetrated by the legal system. A valuable addition to the ever-growing genre of crime nonfiction.

Dwyer Murphy

Rave Booklist A terrific heist novel ... Some caper novels feel by-the-numbers, as though the writer had a list of boxes to check but no real enthusiasm for the material. Murphy obviously loves what he’s writing about, which means we love reading him. For fans of heist and caper stories, this one’s a must-read.

Paul Tremblay

Rave Booklist Wonderful ... For fans of Tremblay, horror, or short fiction in general, this one’s a must-have.

Danielle Trussoni

Rave Booklist A surefire hit ... A sequel...is in the works, and it can’t come soon enough.

Maureen Ryan

Rave Booklist A straight-shooting, rigorously researched and documented exposé of Hollywood’s culture of abuse ... This powerful, angry, shocking, and important work should grip all readers interested in the truth about the entertainment industry.

Megan Abbott

Rave Booklist Another knockout ... Abbott is an accomplished storyteller...and this is one of her most compelling and well-constructed novels. A real treat for the author’s many fans and for everyone who treasures that sense of Gothic-tinged trouble both within and without.

James Comey

Positive Booklist This book is sure to get a lot of attention, considering the notoriety of its author, but regardless of what potential readers might think about the former FBI director, one thing is sure: his debut novel is a fine thriller ... Two more titles are planned in the series, and for once in the world of celebrity-authored thrillers, that’s not a bad thing.

Tom Hanks

Rave Booklist Superb ... Lovingly crafted, a wildly entertaining story beautifully told. If you love movies, you’ll love this book.

Tim Dorsey

Positive Booklist As usual, Dorsey’s rapid-fire prose is a perfect match for Serge’s energetic, scattershot behavior, and Serge continues to be one of contemporary fiction’s most unique characters ... Some readers might be a little bothered by Dorsey’s use of the recent pandemic in a comedic context, but most will surely enjoy seeing Serge deal with anti-maskers, toilet-paper hoarders, and the like.

Michael Schulman

Positive Booklist Endlessly fascinating ... the highly detailed stories function like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, each revealing part of the bigger picture. The author,... clearly knows his subject, and his enthusiasm is thoroughly contagious.

Grant Morrison

Positive Booklist Perhaps because this is the author’s first stab at long-form fiction, the writing is perhaps a little overblown from time to time, and Luci’s first-person narration meanders a bit in places, but overall the prose sparkles with wit and Luci’s unique turns of phrase. An engaging and occasionally horrifying story that delivers the goods.

Andy Greenberg

Positive Booklist ... spellbinding ... Written with great enthusiasm and with an ear for the dramatic turn of phrase—readers familiar with the work of Ben Mezrich will note a similarity of approach—this is the kind of book that yanks the reader’s eyes wide open ... Lively, highly relevant, and more than a little scary.

Steve Martin

Rave Booklist Sparkling ... A great story, too, full of behind-the-scenes snippets and interesting little tidbits ... It’s a clever and original way to approach a memoir, and it’s delightfully executed. A Hollywood memoir unlike any other.

Jeanine Basinger and Sam Wasson

Rave Booklist Magnificent oral history ... As close to a comprehensive Who’s Who of American film as we’re likely to see, and as close to a definitive history of American cinema as we’ve seen so far. An absolute must-read for industry pros and fans alike.

Jonathan Freedland

Positive Booklist Freedland...is the perfect person to tell Rosenberg’s story: he’s got a journalist’s eye for precise detail and a novelist’s sense of pacing and suspense ... This spellbinding book tells the kind of true story that, if it were the basis of a work of fiction, might be considered unbelievable.

James Patterson & Brendan DuBois

Mixed Booklist \"The narrative is written in the present tense, giving the proceedings an immediacy that proves crucial to keeping the reader from exploring the story’s weaknesses: a certain thinness of character and an overreliance on suspending disbelief (even once the premise is accepted). It helps that Patterson, writing with coauthor DuBois, employs his signature short chapters and constantly shifts the point of view from one character to the next, keeping us wondering what’s going to happen next. Patterson’s name on the cover pretty much guarantees an audience, but books with his name on them vary considerably in quality, from barely serviceable to quite good. Rank this one somewhere in the middle: clever and unnerving but a bit too slick to really get our pulses spiking.\

Fredrik Backman

Rave Booklist This is a dramatic and highly satisfying novel, building on themes introduced in the first two books and brilliantly drawing the reader deeply into the story. The translation by Neil Smith (who has also translated novels by Lars Kepler and Liza Marklund) is nimble and idiomatic, perfectly conveying Backman’s love of language and his wonderful sense of humor. If this really is the last Beartown novel, it’s a hell of a conclusion to an outstanding series.

Robert Harris

Rave Booklist It will come as no surprise to readers familiar with Harris’ work that this is a splendidly written historical novel. Harris really is a joy to read, and it’s interesting to see how he adjusts his writing style with each book to reflect the story’s time period (this one is less ornate than his books set in ancient Rome but more ornate than his WWII novels). Another top-flight effort from a master storyteller.

Daniel Stashower

Positive Booklist Based on numerous sources, including Ness’ own papers, this account is a gripping true-crime thriller ... Stashower opens the book with a good recap of the Capone case, for readers who need some backstory. True-crime fans will want this one on their TBR lists.

Christopher Buckley

Positive Booklist This is one of Buckley’s funniest books—there’s a big laugh on nearly every page, often more than one—and, perhaps unexpectedly, it’s also one of his most compassionate...A delight, with bite.

Joyce Carol Oates

Rave Booklist The novel eludes easy classification. It most resembles a psychological thriller, but with dark, torturous, bloody undercurrents running through it. Oates risks losing squeamish readers here, but that’s hardly a surprise from an author who has long embraced edgy subject matter. Also unsurprising is the quality of the writing: carefully constructed sentences, pitch-perfect dialogue, and a central character who is simultaneously sympathetic and repellent. An outstanding novel from a true modern master who jumps across genres with unrivaled dexterity.

Joy Fielding

Rave Booklist This is exactly the sort of story Fielding tells superbly. It’s a character-driven thriller, and she excels at creating people who exude the breath of real life. It’s a subtle story, too, relying heavily on subtext and the reader’s ability to put the clues together—again, very much in the author’s wheelhouse. Fielding’s many followers will definitely want to add The Housekeeprer to their TBR lists, and any psychological-thriller readers who aren’t already familiar with Fielding’s work will start backtracking after reading this one.

James Burrows

Rave Booklist If the title doesn’t have you practically salivating, then perhaps you need to brush up on your contemporary television history ... In this absolutely essential book, [Burrows] takes us through his career, from his early days right up to the present day. There’s plenty of behind-the-scenes stuff, and Burrows writes about dozens of TV stars, but if you’re looking for dirt, dig for it elsewhere. This is very much a celebratory book, an award-winning director looking back not only on his own career but also on his friendships with his colleagues and the things he learned from them. A wonderful book about the world of television, easily as valuable as Levinson and Link’s Stay Tuned (1981) and Bill Carter’s Desperate Networks (2006).

Gabino Iglesias

Positive Booklist This novel is so gritty that you’ll feel like washing your hands after you’ve read it; so brutal you’ll feel like you’ve been punched in the face. It is uncompromisingly, relentlessly, stomach-clenchingly disturbing. Not for every reader, to be sure, but a must for those unafraid of visiting the dark side, it’s brilliantly conceived and executed, a novel that proves again what Iglesias’ fans have known all along: he is a storyteller unafraid of exploring the shadowed corners of his characters and their world.

Jon Raymond

Positive Booklist The carefully sculpted prose has an addictive quality: the startling first sentence compels us read the second sentence, and before we know it, we’re almost at the end. With its fully realized depiction of a world recovering from cataclysmic events that happened only a couple of decades earlier, this is a natural fit for fans of near-future thrillers and for followers of Jeff VanderMeer’s environmentally themed fiction.

Linwood Barclay

Positive Booklist ... an especially good read. The author keeps us guessing right up until the end, wondering which of the novel’s characters might have an interest in convincing people Brie is still alive and just who has it in for Andrew and why. Motives are hinted at and secrets gradually revealed, leading to an ending that will knock your socks off.

Peter Spiegelman

Positive Booklist Spiegelman is a top-notch storyteller, and his latest will appeal equally to those who enjoy mainstream procedurals and to genre-blending readers who relish crime novels set in the future.

James Patterson

Positive Booklist Readers will emerge knowing a lot more about Patterson than they did before, and that seems to be what an ego-biography is all about.

David Yoon

Positive Booklist Slower paced than Version Zero, less light-hearted in its approach to story, this is a book that encourages readers to think deeply about how they might handle the situation of losing their moorings in a world suddenly alien. It’s an ambitious novel that takes some big risks, but they pay off dramatically in the end.

Phillip Margolin

Rave Booklist This novel is almost diabolical in its complexity, and we are constantly being hit with one surprising, what-the-hell-is-going-on-here moment after another. Pairing up two of Margolin’s most interesting characters, series lead Lockwood and the cool, calculating Marjorie Loman, this is not only the best in this series, but one of Margolin’s best novels, period.

Mark Rozzo

Positive Booklist Extensively footnoted and drawing on current interviews and previously published sources, the book paints a detailed picture of the iconic Hopper and his relationship with Hayward, the daughter of legendary producer Leland Hayward and actress Margaret Sullavan.

A J Jacobs

Positive Booklist ... ridiculously entertaining ... [Jacobs] writes in a light, conversational style, as though he were sitting in our living rooms and telling us a story or two. He makes us think without making a big deal about it, telling us what puzzling came to mean to him and inviting us to join him in his voyage of discovery. The book is a lot of fun, but it’s the serious stuff that gives it weight.

Dawn Chmielewski and Dade Hayes

Positive Booklist This excellent book takes readers deep behind the scenes at Netflix and its challengers, showing us the people who had the ideas, made the decisions, and, in some cases, took the blame. In their writing, in their perceptive analyses, and in their vivid portrayal of a large cast of characters, Hayes and Chmielewski’s book easily rivals such business-book staples as Barbarians at the Gate, The Informant, and Too Big to Fail. The authors take a complex subject and make it not only understandable but riveting.

Gilly MacMillan

Positive Booklist ... a real corker. It’s fascinating to watch the three friends’ relationships crumble as they try to figure out whose husband is being targeted and why ... Guaranteed to keep readers on the edges of their seats.

Jo Harkin

Positive Booklist This high-concept debut asks an interesting question: What if we could edit our memories? ... As the focus shifts from one character to another, Harkin builds a picture of a world radically altered by a controversial technology and of people who are learning that you can’t change the past without impacting the present. An intellectually and emotionally satisfying thriller.

Rob Hart

Positive Booklist This wildly ambitious, well-executed genre-bender is suspenseful, clever, and funny.

Kyle Buchanan

Rave Booklist [A] must-have oral history ... It’s as if the entire cast and crew were in a big room, sharing their stories. The book is so good that, even though we know how the story turned out (the movie did eventually get made), we are somehow in a near-constant state of suspense, wondering if Miller and his team will ever get this celluloid beast off the ground. Filled with surprises and illuminating behind-the-scenes stories, this is the book Mad Max fans crave.

Lucy Foley

Rave Booklist Exceedingly clever ... What’s especially interesting about the novel, apart from the deft characterizations and the overall feeling of dread, is the way Foley is cagey about exactly what kind of story this is ... The author keeps Jess and the reader guessing right up to the end. A fine suspenser from a writer who consistently delivers the goods.

Bonnie Kistler

Rave Booklist Absolutely spellbinding ... For almost the entire length of the novel, we really don’t know what to believe ... It’s a brilliant construction ... The novel relies heavily on what the author does not reveal: moments are left open to the reader’s interpretation; clues withheld. Kistler is as careful with her main characters as she is with her story ... This is a gutsy novel; one misstep from the author and the whole thing collapses, but there is not a single misstep. An utterly engrossing and thoroughly entertaining story.

Scott Meslow

Positive Booklist Meslow tells lots of engaging making-of stories...but it’s his overarching theme, that romantic comedies are much more than lovey-dovey fluff, that really holds our interest.

James Rollins

Positive Booklist A familiar format, sure, but in an unfamiliar setting. Rollins’ fantasy world is richly detailed, and, as the story opens, readers find they have a puzzle of their own to solve. Is the book set in an alternate version of our world? In the distant future of our world? In the deep past? Readers will have fun trying to answer these questions as they follow Nix on her adventures. Although it’s not being marketed as a YA novel, its themes and characters should appeal to teen readers, while Rollins’ legion of adult fans will enjoy the way he adapts his successful formula to a new setting. The door is left wide open for a sequel, which is just fine.

John Scalzi

Positive Booklist Scalzi owes a substantial debt to the Japanese kaiju film genre, and to Pacific Rim and Jurassic Park, and he gleefully acknowledges the debt with references scattered through the book. Readers familiar with the early Scalzi novels Agent to the Stars (2005) and The Android’s Dream (2006) will recognize the same energetic writing style and lightning-fast pacing: this is Scalzi having a lot of fun.

John Connolly

Rave Booklist Louis is a fascinating character, a stone-cold killer with a warm personality and a clear-cut sense of right and wrong, and readers will learn a few new things about him as he tracks down the people who killed his friend. As always, the writing is exquisite: Connolly is a supremely talented storyteller, a genuine craftsman, and his books are a joy to read. Libraries should expect high demand for this one.

Kim Newman

Rave Booklist Narrated in appropriately Chandleresque style by Chandler himself, the book is a hell of a lot of fun. The banter between Chandler and Karloff (the pair really did attend the same school) is utterly charming, as is their friendship, which is explored in a rich backstory to the events in the novel. And the story? A convoluted, over-the-top, and deliciously twisted blend of hard-boiled mystery and horror: everything we expect from Newman, who writes as though he is having simply the best time in the world.

Michael Imperioli and Steve Schirripa, with Philip Lerman

Rave Booklist There are plenty of tantalizing bits of trivia...but this isn’t just a trivia collection. Mostly it’s about friends and colleagues getting together to pay tribute to one another and to a series that rewrote many of the rules of television ... For Sopranos fans looking for something a little less overwhelming and more personal than The Soprano Sessions (2019), this one is an absolute must-read.

Ken Follett

Positive Booklist Follett has crafted a story that is politically complex and completely believable. This is a thriller, not a political treatise, so readers should be prepared for action and a certain amount of pyrotechnics, but the novel’s major selling point is its absolutely compelling political intrigue. A smart, scary, and all-too-plausible thriller.

Mark Seal

Rave Booklist [A] detailed, fascinating, and frequently surprising look at the origins and filming of The Godfather ... Few movies have had such tumultuous origins and turned out to be undisputed classics, and Seal does a superb job of telling us exactly how this happened. For fans of books about moviemaking, this is a definite must-read.

Allen C Guelzo

Positive Booklist ... a thoughtful, measured, and deeply absorbing study of a man whose historical status depends on context: as a leader, he was a great man; as a defender of slavery, despicable ... It might have been easier simply to write a book that said Robert E. Lee was a villain and a traitor and that’s all he was, but Guelzo’s approach is far more nuanced and, ultimately, far more accurate and useful in its illumination of a key figure in this endlessly conflictful and impactful chapter in American history.

Lincoln Michel

Rave Booklist Having a baseball scout as an amateur sleuth makes the novel interesting; its near-future setting makes it special ... Michel...makes his long-form debut here, and a spectacularly successful debut it is. Great entertainment for any reader on the mystery/science-fiction spectrum.

Allen Eskens

Rave Booklist ... dramatic ... an especially interesting antagonist: intensely organized, fixated on the small details, arrogant, ruthless, and a stone-cold killer. In chapters written from Gavin’s point of view, Eskens really gets into the man’s head; he’s no standard-issue villain. Lila’s relentless pursuit of the man, driven by her own personal motives as much as by a search for justice, is gripping, as we ponder just how far is she is prepared to go. Intense and satisfying.

Karen Cleveland

Positive Booklist Cleveland turns in another excellent performance with this fast-paced, tense, and downright scary thriller ... There’s a lot to like here: the characters are robust, the story is well constructed, the dialogue zings along, and there is that strong sense of verisimilitude that you often find when an expert writes passionately about his or her own field. It’s worth noting, too, that the book never gets bogged down in minutiae: Cleveland understands that readers don’t need to see a whole lot of technical details and wall-to-wall research on display. Nicely done.

Lexie Elliott

Positive Booklist Elliott outdoes herself here. Readers might feel like they need a notebook to keep track of the threads of the complex plot: who has a secret history with whom, who has been telling lies about what, who really knows what happened on the day Lissa disappeared? Revelation follows revelation, with the pace increasing as the mysteries pile up, leaving us genuinely shocked at the end. A rousing success.

Brian Freeman

Positive Booklist Freeman...is an excellent storyteller, and a fine writer. His two Bourne novels—and we hope there will be more—take a much-loved character and breathe new life into him, giving him new energy and a renewed purpose. Fans of Ludlum’s iconic character will definitely want to read this.

Jeffrey Kluger

Positive Booklist ... just terrific ... This is an ambitious novel; in his role as a science journalist, Kluger has written many times about environmental issues, but using a space-based thriller to tell an environmentally-themed story carries with it a certain amount of risk. Fortunately, in Beckwith, Kluger has created a character the reader can identify with: her motivation is clear, her methods understandable, and her passion contagious. Through Beckwith, Kluger sells the story so well that readers will be flipping the pages as fast as they can to find out what happens next.

Chris McKinney

Positive Booklist Although it has plenty of science-fiction elements (personal artificial intelligences, massive undersea living complexes), this is at its heart a traditional murder mystery ... McKinney gives us a grisly murder; a cop with a history of violence; a surly, dim-witted police captain; an assortment of unsavory supporting characters; and some really effective twists. Readers who like mysteries with a futuristic feel will love this one, but the novel also works as straight-up sf.

Charles Todd

Positive Booklist Like the authors’ Ian Rutledge series, the Crawford series has been consistently strong, each book as crisply written and suspenseful as the last.

T.J. Newman

Rave Booklist Newman...gives this incredibly suspenseful thriller a great sense of verisimilitude. The cockpit dialogue sounds just right; the mechanics of flying a plane, ditto. And the story? Brilliant. You read the book and think: How has no one thought of this scenario before? And how the hell is pilot Bill Hoffman going to keep his passengers and his family alive? With abundantly human characters, natural dialogue, and a plot that unleashes one surprise after another, this could be the novel that everyone is talking about this summer.

Dean Jobb

Rave Booklist Jobb...does a masterful job of following the investigation, which ranged from England to the United States to Canada, and of presenting Dr. Cream not merely as a murderer, but as a complex, unstable, and deeply fascinating individual. True crime doesn’t get any better than this.

Ben H. Winters

Rave Booklist Winters...has proved himself to be one of of our most fascinating genre blenders of crime and speculative fiction, a writer who never fails to challenge his readers to embrace new ideas and new forms of reality. A wonderful, thoughtful book.

Jake Tapper

Positive Booklist ... hugely entertaining ... he book has a thoroughly involving story and Tapper is clearly having a great time re-creating Tinseltown in the Swinging Sixties. Recommend this one to Robert J. Randisi’s Rat Pack series, including You Make Me Feel So Dead (2013).

Andy Weir

Rave Booklist Weir returns with gusto ... Weir’s scientific and technical savvy lends the proceedings an air of authenticity, and his portrayal of an ordinary man full of fear and self-doubt thrust into the role of humanity’s last hope strikes just the right note ... In Artemis, it seemed like Weir was trying too hard, but here his writing flows naturally, and his characters and dialogue crackle with energy. Weir is no longer the self-published wunderkind of The Martian; with this novel, he takes place as a genuine star in the mainstream sf world.

C Robert Cargill

Rave Booklist Cargill is a gifted storyteller, and, with his robotic central character, he pulls off quite a feat: he makes Pounce a sympathetic, compassionate, deeply human protagonist—a real being, not a mere machine. His near-future postapocalyptic world, too, is abundantly real, so firmly anchored in our own reality that we feel as though Cargill’s vision of the future is not merely possible but likely ... Cargill offers a fascinating and intellectually engaging take on the venerable robots-versus-humans theme. An absolute must-read.

Jeff VanderMeer

Rave Booklist VanderMeer is a marvelous craftsman. Every word here feels carefully chosen; every sentence has a purpose; every plot point causes ripples felt through the rest of the story ... The author’s devoted fans will flock to this novel, and they will be richly rewarded. Switching genres with aplomb, VanderMeer knocks his conspiracy thriller out of the park.

Edward White

Positive Booklist There probably will never be a definitive book about Hitchcock (like his movies, he is open to infinite interpretations), but this one adds much to our understanding of the man and his movies. The approach is certainly intriguing, the writing is engaging, and the author provides us with a wealth of new insights into Hitchcock. White engages in some fine detective work, too, trying to get to the truth behind some of the most intriguing Hitchcock legends, including an oft-told origin story that might be more fiction than fact. A solid entry in the voluminous literature of Alfred Hitchcock.

Ronald Brownstein

Positive Booklist ... the depth of this book is quite impressive. Brownstein knits together the threads of history to show that, for the first time in 1974, politics and entertainment were not separate things, that the line between the two was blurred almost to the point of irrelevance. An insightful, expertly written book.

Glenn Frankel

Rave Booklist ... another making-of book that transcends the genre. This is no mere story of the production of a movie ... instead, it offers in-depth portraits of the man who created the characters of Joe Buck and Ratso Rizzo...and the men who gave them cinematic life ... Frankel provides us with the context we need to fully appreciate the film as a vivid snapshot of a specific time and place in American history.

Derek Delgaudio

Positive Booklist Any good memoir includes an element of self-discovery, but this one is all about self-discovery, and the truths unveiled are startling, unsettling, and—strangely, considering their nature—inspiring.

John Marrs

Rave Booklist This near-future thriller has a really wild premise... His world of tomorrow is a logical and perceptive extrapolation from today’s reality, and his characters are fully realized. The story? Well, let’s just say it’s exciting enough to keep you flipping the pages and smart enough to keep your brain fully engaged. Marrs isn’t a name-brand writer yet, but this book might just make him one.

James Carl Nelson

Positive Booklist ... the author transports readers back in time, giving them not just a story about people but also a picture of what their world was like. His intent here isn’t to disprove or debunk the York legend—the man was a true hero, that much is indisputable—but rather to augment it, to add to what we know about Alvin York so that we can better understand what made him a hero. A stirring account of an important incident and time in American history.

Charles Todd

Positive Booklist Todd’s Ian Rutledge series continues to display both quality and consistency in this twenty-third installment ... Regular series readers will note that Ian seems more tortured than usual by his internal companion, Hamish MacLeod ... As usual, Hamish makes only brief appearances in the book, but his presence looms large over the whole story. He’s like a filter: everything Rutledge says and does is colored by guilt over having caused the death of a good man. A must-read for series fans.

Tod Goldberg

Rave Booklist A a collection of character-driven crime stories ... Goldberg understands that the way to write about organized crime is to write about the people who live in that world. Yes, they are criminals, but most of them aren’t villains. A sterling collection that showcases the author’s gifts as a storyteller.

Gregg Hurwitz

Rave Booklist ... this has been one hell of a series, each volume (this is number six) revealing more about Evan’s deeply troubled past. The writing is pitch-perfect, too, which should come as no surprise to followers of Hurwitz’s career ... Nuanced and energetic, this is a great thriller.

Andrea Pitzer

Rave Booklist This is a masterful re-creation of a desperate fight for survival. Based on extensive research, the book takes us back nearly half a millennium and plunks us down in a vividly realized world in which sailing off into the unknown really meant just that ... More than just another book about a disastrous sea voyage, this is a richly evocative story about a particular period in the history of exploration.Icebound deserves a place beside such classics as Alfred Lansing’s Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage and Roland Huntford’s The Last Place on Earth: Scott and Amundson’s Race to the South Pole .

Jeff Lindsay

Positive Booklist Lindsay, creator of the serial killer Dexter Morgan, has created a character who, if not quite as darkly complex as Dexter, is certainly a highly watchable guy with a deep, wide streak of moral ambiguity. A rousing caper novel.

Jonathan Maberry

Rave Booklist Maberry, who has never shied away from serious, complex subjects, here tackles one of the most fundamental themes of them all: the nature and transience of memory. Yes, there is a monster in the book, but this is no one-track monster story, though the idea of people losing pieces of their identities, and how they respond to the loss, packs a monstrous wallop. Maberry, who was no slouch as a storyteller back in the days of the first Pine Deep novel, Ghost Road Blues (2006), continues to hone his craft. What’s especially interesting about Ink is its texture ... strikingly vivid imagery. This tactile realism makes the story’s horror even more visceral and haunting. A brilliant and supremely scary novel.

Kermit Pattison

Positive Booklist an exciting book, full of colorful personalities, momentous discoveries, and new ideas that challenge us to reconsider everything we believed about the evolution of humankind. Although the author doesn’t shy away from technical terminology, the book isn’t written for experts in the field; it’s for the lay reader with a healthy interest in the subject. Lucy became a best-seller, and Fossil Men may well follow in its footsteps.

Lee Child

Rave Booklist ... it’s terrific. Sure, the writing style is ever-so-slightly different (Child’s writing is terser than Child and Grant’s), but the story is just as powerful ... Brutal action mixes with keen-eyed detective work as Reacher metes out his own brand of justice. It’s always a risk when someone who has written a series since its beginning turns over the reins to a new writer, but if this novel is a harbinger of what’s to come, then Jack is in good hands.

Scott Eyman

Mixed Booklist Cary Grant wasn’t a real person. Archie Leach, from Bristol, England, was a real person; Cary Grant was a facade. Eyman attempts to bring the two together, as he did in his excellent John Wayne: The Life and Legend (2014). However, this book isn’t nearly as lively or revelatory as that one. Eyman covers all the biographical bases—Grant’s humble birth, his rise to stardom, his many relationships and marriages—but he never quite gets at the heart of the man. There are tantalizing suggestions of an interesting story to be told, but we sense there’s more going on behind the scenes. Speaking of behind the scenes, Eyman does a nice job of taking us onto the sets of some of Grant’s most famous films painting a picture of Grant as a perfectionist, but also as a generous actor, more concerned about the quality of a movie as a whole than his own star turn. A well-written and respectful biography, but it leaves Grant’s personal story a mystery.

Tom Shone

Positive Booklist ... insightful ... Shone explores the director’s fascination with time, chronology, and structure (both real and metaphorical); he provides a sharp analysis of each of Nolan’s films; and he examines the way the director’s shooting style gives him a unique vision. This is an erudite book, written primarily for serious film fans, but Shone’s prose is easygoing and mostly nontechnical, and the text has plenty to say to readers of all levels of interest. A first-class book about an intriguing filmmaker.

John Grisham

Rave Booklist ... really a very clever setup; the story’s structure bears a slight resemblance to an episode of Columbo, in which the viewer knows more than the detective at the beginning of the episode. Grisham builds a complex, surprising, and, in places, emotionally devastating story around Jake and his teenage client. A Time for Mercy isn’t a whodunit. It’s not even really a courtroom drama, although, of course, Grisham delivers some seriously intense courtroom scenes. Ultimately, it’s a story about a community that values its secrets more than it values the truth, and Grisham tells it with great power and style.

Glenn Kenny

Rave Booklist Film critic and journalist Kenny knocks one out of the park with this thorough, well-documented, sharply written book about the 1990 Martin Scorsese film Goodfellas. More than your typical making-of book, this also offers a critical investigation into the film’s history ... The author also provides an insightful scene-by-scene breakdown of the film and even some trivia (example: one of the bit-part actors was an NYPD detective who later became a hit man for the Mob). A wonderful analysis of, and tribute to, a classic film.

Antony Johnston

Positive Booklist ... a fast-paced and cleverly constructed story that uses many of the familiar spy-novel tropes but does so in exciting new ways. The novel bears a slight resemblance to the author’s 2012 graphic novel The Coldest City, but that was a Cold War–era story, and this one is very much a modern-day spy novel. Johnston makes good use of jargon and technical terminology to give the story an air of realism, although the story pushes itself right to the edge of plausibility, cleverly adding to the suspense. A rousing success.

Bradford Morrow

Rave Booklist This is a crime novel for booklovers; the mystery is solid, but it’s the milieu that sells the book ... Fascinating and vividly rendered.

Christopher Moore

Positive Booklist It takes a certain amount of guts and wild abandon to recast a Shakespeare comedy as a hard-boiled detective story, but if anyone can pull it off, it’s master satirist Moore, whose gift for funny business apparently knows no bounds. What sets him apart from most of his fellow comic storytellers is his determination never to let the story take a back seat to the jokes. And yet, the humor flows from the story; the story isn’t dictated by the jokes. A welcome return of a fan-favorite character in a romp of a tale that will delight not only mystery buffs but also fantasy fanatics, and, of course, Bard lovers.

James Rollins

Positive Booklist Rollins is one of those writers whose name assures certain guarantees. You know you’ll be treated to lots of slam-bang action, larger-than-life heroes and villains, snappy dialogue, and a plot that stretches credibility almost to the breaking point. Like Matthew Reilly, who writes novels in a broadly similar vein, Rollins is a master of the genre, able to sweep us up and carry us along until he brings the story to a riveting conclusion.

Brian De Palma and Susan Lehman

Rave Booklist This is a deliciously deceptive novel ... What begins as a Christopher Buckley–style comedy-drama...transitions to a dark thriller in which, as its conclusion approaches, the authors execute some plot twists and revelations that would be right at home in a De Palma movie ... This is a pleasure to read. The tale has dozens of moving parts, each of which must work in perfect synchronization with the others to avoid bringing the whole enterprise to a screeching halt. The writing is nearly pitch-perfect, too: lightly comic in some scenes, darker and more ominous in others ... A wonderful, immensely satisfying thriller.

Andrew Hunter Murray

Rave Booklist This is Murray’s first novel (he’s a writer for the British quiz show QI), and it is not only readable but also downright impossible to stop reading. The science is believable, the near-future world feels as real as our own, the characters are lively, and the plot is suspenseful. A near-perfect alternate-future thrille

Meg Gardiner

Rave Booklist Readers of the first two Hendrix novels won’t be surprised to hear that the story in this suspenseful thriller is exquisitely constructed. No by-the-numbers thriller here; this one definitely lives up to its predecessors ... Gardiner is on a roll with this series, gathering fans with each installment like a snowball gathering mass as it rumbles down a hill.

Tim Dorsey

Positive Booklist Readers who have not yet met Mr. Storms are in for a real treat: he’s one of contemporary fiction’s most entertaining and idiosyncratic creations ... Dorsey, a former newspaperman, writes economically; the dialogue is sparse and frequently hilarious, and the narrative passages are as descriptive as they need to be but not a syllable more. A fine entry in this consistently strong series.

Susan Cain

Positive Booklist No slick self-help book, this is an intelligent and often surprising look at what makes us who we are.

William Bayer

Positive Booklist The plot is more labyrinthine that it needs to be, stretching credulity at several points, but Bayer has a gift for creating people who feel completely real, and that skill bails him out here. This one isn’t quite as successful as some of his previous novels, but it’s a solid thriller that will hold readers’ interest.

Katherine Addison

Positive Booklist The author combines steampunk and fantasy (this is a world of elves and goblins and the like) to tell an utterly captivating story. Addison has built a completely believable world, with its own language, customs, and history, but there are tantalizingly familiar elements (such as newspapers and pocket watches) that make us wonder from whence this world came and whether it might have sprung from our own, in a distant future. There are lots of unanswered questions here that will likely be addressed in a sequel.

M. J. Rose

Positive Booklist Rose has a string of popular novels to her credit, and this one is sure to appeal not only to her fans, but also to readers who enjoy a solidly plotted, engagingly written thriller set against a vibrant historical backdrop.

Robin Cook

Pan Booklist Cook...has been churning out best-selling medical thrillers for more than 40 years, but his recent work has been mired in formula. Here he again builds a story around ideas harvested from the real world, typically involving cutting-edge medical technology ... Unfortunately, Cook’s prose is at best workmanlike and too often barely serviceable. Dialogue is stilted, plotting is thin, and there is no real suspense because Cook telegraphs every plot twist, every character revelation. Devoted fans will probably find the medical aspects of the tale satisfying, but the novel won’t win the author any new fans.

Michael Crichton and Daniel H. Wilson

Rave Booklist Wilson takes one of Crichton’s most durable story structures—a group of specialists ventures into the unknown—and works numerous variations, some small, some devastatingly large, on the theme. The story’s premise (the justification for the existence of this sequel) is rigorously developed, and the story deftly blends science, suspense, and character interaction in a way that will be familiar to Crichton’s fans ... As the story progresses, Wilson reveals the hidden history of the past 50 years and the truth about the international space program. Oh, and the glorious final-sentence cliff-hanger is just beautiful. In every way, this is a wonderful sequel to a classic novel, written in the spirit of Crichton but in Wilson’s own powerful voice. Terrific.

Tim Maleeny

Positive Booklist Serious mysteries written with a light touch, the Cape Weathers novels have a Carl Hiaasen feel to them, despite being set on the other side of the country from Hiaasen’s Florida.

Charles Todd

Positive Booklist Todd mixes historical verisimilitude with exemplary character design and sharp plotting. Another fine entry in this popular series.

John Connolly

Positive Booklist Connolly pits private eye Charlie Parker against two of the most intriguing villains he’s created ... This is the seventeenth book in the Parker series, and it’s as fresh and surprising as the first ... The key to the series’ success is the way the author approaches the stories: although these are mysteries with supernatural elements, Connolly writes them as though they were traditional thrillers, with completely believable plots and real-world characters (even the otherworldly ones). Series fans will be thrilled, and, since the author provides a goodly amount of background to the current story, newcomers can jump right in.

P J Tracy

Positive Booklist Readers who’ve never sampled the series but who like their mysteries to focus on character as much as on plot should be steered in this book’s direction. Needless to say, existing fans will be well pleased: the series might have reached double digits, but it’s showing no signs of falling into a rut. More, please.

David Koepp

Rave Booklist This is a terrific thriller: ambitious, audacious, gory, scary, flamboyant, and funny. All good thrillers need a villain, and this one has a doozy—a highly adaptive fungus with an evolutionary imperative: reproduce and spread as fast as possible ... In his first novel, Koepp, a deservedly renowned screenwriter...does what many screenwriters have failed to do: make a seamless, massively effective transition from the visual medium to the literary. The book doesn’t read like a modestly beefed-up pitch for a movie; it’s a rich, textured, and downright impossible-to-put-down story that will rock horror-thriller fans’ worlds

Rob Hart

Rave Booklist ... very well constructed; a lot of thought clearly went into Cloud and the near-future world it dominates. It’s an exciting, well-paced, suspenseful tale laced through with insightful commentary on today’s politics and commerce.

Joseph J. Darowski

Positive Booklist The authors follow up their recent Frasier: A Cultural History (2017) with an equally interesting look at that show’s predecessor ... Combining perceptive analysis with infectious enthusiasm, this is a must-read for Cheers devotees.

Jeffery Deaver

Positive Booklist Shaw is a carefully constructed character with a rich backstory that could spark several novels (his own family history features a particularly tantalizing mystery). The story is—this will come as no surprise to Deaver’s many fans—full of twists and right-angle turns, and a second Colter Shaw novel feels not just inevitable but mandatory. Deaver is a hit maker who always delivers the goods.

Steve Berry

Positive Booklist The events unfold at a breakneck pace, as usual, but Berry slows things down once in a while to give the reader some much-needed exposition and historical context. He really is very good at the historical-conspiracy thriller; he’s a skilled writer—much more so than Dan Brown, to whom he’s often compared—and a more dexterous plotter than many of his contemporaries. Fans of the Malone series will give this one an enthusiastic thumbs-up.

Greg Iles

Rave Booklist Iles\' new book, coming in at more than 750 pages is another big one, but—as with the Natchez Burning novels—it contains not an ounce of fat ... Readers who have been eagerly awaiting his first post-Natchez novel needn’t have worried; they will be talking about this one for a quite a while.

Will Mackin

Rave Booklist ...a virtuoso performance ... Mackin does a fine job of showing us not only the realities of living in a wartime environment, but also the deep psychological toll the life of a soldier can take on a person ... With vividly drawn characters and a strong sense of the absurdity of war, this striking debut collection will evoke memories of Tim O’Brien’s classic Vietnam stories, The Things They Carried.

Victoria Riskin

Positive Booklist Fascinating ... necessarily a deeply personal story, informed by the author’s affection for her parents, but it’s also a revealing story about Hollywood in its early years, as the movie business took over the world and turned its players into not just celebrities but also icons ... This, of course, is hardly the first Hollywood bio written by a child of the subjects, but it’s one of the most refreshing: a story about love and respect, not secrets, dirt, and lies.

John Lescroart

Positive Booklist Lescroart’s novels are known as much for their abundantly human characters as they are for their rigorously plotted stories, and this one is a showcase for both of those attributes. Also impressive is the way Lescroart has kept his long-running series fresh by allowing Dismas to grow over the years.

W. K. Stratton

Positive Booklist Stratton does a fine job of putting the film in its historical context—even a handful of years earlier, the movie would probably never have been made—and in exploring the many facets of Peckinpah, a no-nonsense director who always knew what he wanted but was, almost paradoxically, unafraid of letting inspiration and serendipity guide his hand. The book is a valuable addition to the literature of American film history and will be greeted by Wild Bunch devotees with adoration.

Gregory Benford

Rave Booklist A hugely ambitious novel, the kind of book that Benford, with his background in physics and his decades of experience as a writer, is among the few qualified to write. It is, in every way, a brilliantly conceived and executed novel. And it’s not just a great science-fiction novel; it’s a great novel—period.

Tim Maughan

Positive Booklist Maughan’s central thesis—that the global society would shatter into small pieces without online connectivity—is carefully presented and seems chillingly plausible. The novel says something important and thought provoking about such hot-topic issues as privacy, the interconnectedness of the world’s population, and class structure; but, thanks to Maughan’s rigorously developed characters and his ability to tell a compelling story, the book is never preachy. A seriously good page-turner with plenty of meat on its bones.

W.E.B. Griffin and William E. Butterworth IV

Mixed Booklist An interesting, mostly well-told historical adventure, marred by some too-clunky exposition and some bewildering dialogue. Fans of Griffin’s dozens of popular military-themed novels (cowritten, of late, with his son) will want to read this one, but it’s not likely to bring in new readers.

Jeremy N. Smith

Rave Booklist ...riveting ... The world of hacking and cybersecurity still carries a mystique; only the privileged few are permitted to learn the secrets that lie within the close-knit hacker community. This book opens the gates and invites readers inside. It’s not only a powerful story about a specific hacker; it’s also a fascinating look at the hacking world, in general.

Marc Fernandez

Positive Booklist Gracefully translated by Grogan, crime journalist Fernandez’s debut novel is gritty and very realistic, perhaps because it’s told in a style that at times suggests documentary. The author makes good use of political turmoil in present-day Spain—a massive shift is underway with the Socialist government just voted out of power—and readers get a vivid sense of the dangerous world Diego Martin inhabits. A fine novel of crime and conspiracy.

Geoff Dyer

Positive Booklist Dyer is that rare breed of creative nonfiction writer who can take almost any topic and make it his own ... Dyer’s favorites, a movie he’s seen countless times. This insightful, funny, and wildly enthusiastic book is essentially the literary version of live-tweeting a film ... If you’ve never seen Where Eagles Dare, there’s still plenty to enjoy here, thanks to Dyer’s irrepressible style; but if you’re a fan of the film, you can’t ask for a more entertaining companion book.

Kelley Armstrong

Positive Booklist The Rockton novels are fine blends of story, character, and setting. The town of Rockton is not merely window dressing, and its characters aren’t superficially drawn. In fact, the two elements feed off one another, with the vividness of the place adding depth to the people who inhabit it.

Donald E Westlake

Positive Booklist showcases the kind of careful, precise—but seemingly effortless—character-building and devilishly clever plotting that earned Westlake a devoted following among mystery fans. Sporting a spiffy new cover design (Paul Mann’s painting perfectly captures the flavor of the novel), the book will either be a welcome trip down memory lane for Westlake’s older fans or a first-time read for his younger fans. Either way, this delightful mixture of mirth and mystery is classic Westlake.

David Thomson

Positive Booklist \"[Thomson\'s] analyses of how a range of movie stars, from Rudolph Valentino to Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, and dozens of others, have impacted our thinking about sex and relationships are unfailingly provocative. Thomson is pretty much a walking encyclopedia of film history, and this is the kind of subject he can really sink his teeth into. Fascinating and illuminating.\

Ian S Port

Positive Booklist This smartly written and genuinely exciting book walks us through the bitter rivalry between Fender and Gibson and, since there is no way to tell this story without telling the story of rock ’n’ roll itself, also provides a jaunty if necessarily abbreviated history of rock. For music buffs, this one is special.

Tim Dorsey

Positive Booklist Dorsey’s novels are unfailingly entertaining: his characters are meticulously described but slightly larger than life; his dialogue is delightfully offbeat; and Serge is, hands down, the most smoothly charming, irrepressibly goofy, joyfully out-of-his-mind series lead in contemporary mystery fiction. There’s no one quite like Serge Storms, and there’s no one who writes quite like Tim Dorsey. Don’t miss this one, and be sure to catch up on the entire series, if you’re not already up to date.

Matt Zoller Seitz

Mixed Booklist Here is a perfect illustration of too much of a good thing ... laboriously detailed ... the book definitely enriches the viewing experience, but the level of detail becomes a bit overwhelming every once in a while. The text takes us deeply and often perceptively into the stories and themes of The Sopranos, but readers looking for an enthusiastic celebration of the series may be a bit put off by the professorial, film-school style. Even so, for hard-core The Sopranos fans, of whom there are many, it’s probably still a must-read.

Tami Hoag

Positive Booklist Another cleverly plotted, atmospheric mystery ... Hoag puts on quite the juggling act here, dazzling us with multiple theories about the boy’s murder, numerous potential suspects, and plot twists that keep us just slightly off-balance. A welcome return for a compelling investigative duo.

Doug Bock Clark

Positive Booklist This is no dry sociological/environmental treatise. Instead, it’s a gripping story of a community struggling for its very survival, and of the clash between ancient and modern worlds. Clark has a graceful, almost poetic writing style, and his vivid portrait of the Lamalerans and their way of life evokes in the reader a stirring image of a lost world, an ancient society that has somehow stayed virtually untouched by the march of time . . . until now.

Ben Winters

Rave Booklist Another thought-provoking, genre-bending SF thriller ... Winters seems to have a real affection for unusually compelling premises—the events of the Last Policeman trilogy take place as an asteroid is bearing down on the earth, and the annihilation of humanity is a certainty—and he certainly knows how to bring those premises to life in a way that keeps readers flipping pages. Another fine novel from a writer whose imagination knows no bounds.

Matthew Reilly

Positive Booklist It’s all balderdash, of course, but it’s lovingly crafted balderdash, perfectly paced and completely convincing (for balderdash, that is). Perfect fare for fans of James Rollins’ Sigma Force series, although it should be noted that Reilly’s novels are (intentionally) less grounded in reality than Robbins’. A breathless adventure, well told.

Thomas Rayfiel

Rave Booklist \"Over time we come to understand that Ethan is an unreliable narrator—not only isn’t he telling us much, but what he does tell us can’t be trusted. This technique works on multiple levels: it draws us in, creating a powerful thirst to know more about Ethan, and it generates considerable tension (we know what we learn won’t be good). Harms’ Way... is ingenious in its construction, gut-punching in its final moments.\

Clive Cussler and Graham Brown

Positive Booklist Female villains of the evil-genius type are few and far between in the high-concept-adventure subgenre, and it’s refreshing to find one here. And the writing goes less by the numbers than in some of the recent NUMA Files books. Cussler’s devoted readership will find this among the better entries in the series.

Dave Zeltserman

Rave Booklist \"Charlie Husk is a cannibal, a member of a clan of flesh-eaters who live hidden away from the world. His job is to travel into civilization, abduct people, and bring them back to the clan ... When he falls in love with a human girl, Charlie’s whole life changes ... Zeltserman keeps the story grounded in reality, giving Charlie practical problems to overcome, and the story is at once tender, brutal, fantastic, and vibrantly real. A unique and splendid novel. \

Jeff Abbott

Rave Booklist \"You know a writer has talent when he or she can take a rather debatable premise—a woman becomes convinced her mother’s disappearance has something to do with another woman’s disappearance because both are named Beth—and turn it into a seriously spellbinding thriller .... Abbott has a solid track record... and The Three Beths continues his run as a thriller writer who can be counted on to deliver page-turning suspense. \

Laura Thompson

Rave Booklist London, October 1922. Edith Thompson and her husband, Percy, were on the way home from the theater. A man, Freddy Bywaters, came out of the shadows and murdered Edith’s husband. It turned out that Bywaters was Edith’s lover; they were both charged with Percy’s murder, and they were both convicted and executed. In this intense and precise account of the case and its aftermath, the author explores the possibility that Edith was unfairly convicted; Freddy claimed several times that Edith wasn’t involved, and it is quite possible he was telling the truth, not merely lying to save the life of the woman he loved ... A terrific book: compassionate, nuanced, and thought-provoking.

Michael Harvey

Rave Booklist Harvey...gives us a gritty mystery with an element of fantasy that, rather than detracting from the story’s realism, actually supports it: we totally believe in Daniel’s ability, which means that when Harvey starts layering on the twists and turns, we marvel at, rather than disbelieve, the revelations that follow. Harvey takes some risks here—a serpentine, fantasy-tinged plot is always in danger of running off its tracks—but he never loses control of his narrative, and readers just might find themselves a bit out of breath at the end of the ride. An ambitious, brilliantly successful novel and a textbook example of how to make crime fiction and fantasy work as a team.

John Scalzi

Rave Booklist If you’re picturing a plodding tome about intergalactic politics, think again: Scalzi writes, as always, in a lively, occasionally flamboyant style, and his characters are, despite the fact that they live in the far-flung future, as real and human as anyone you’d meet in the here and now. Scalzi once again demonstrates why he is one of the most popular SF novelists currently writing.

Karina Longworth

Positive Booklist Full of insight ... Longworth adopts a conversational tone—this isn’t a treatise on the subject of wealth and power in the first half of the twentieth century as much as it is a story about a man who traded in seduction, mystique, and money. Not a beginning-to-end biography of Hughes, the book is instead a deep dive into a part of his life. Illuminating and memorable.

Neal Bascomb

Rave Booklist Paul Brickhill’s The Great Escape (1950) is widely considered the best nonfiction book about escapes from wartime prison camps. This gripping new volume gives Brickhill’s classic a run for its money ... Based on extensive research, including documents written by the escapees themselves, the book is intensely detailed and written with a prose style that puts readers right there in the camp with the prisoners: when the prisoners hold their breath, terrified of being discovered in a secret activity, the reader will hold his or her breath, too. In the ever-expanding genre of prison-escape sagas, this one joins the top ranks.

Lee Child

Rave Booklist Child expertly juggles a pair of seemingly unrelated story lines, keeping them moving simultaneously, until, inevitably, the lines merge and violence ensues. The twenty-third Reacher novel springs some interesting surprises about Jack’s family and contains one of Reacher’s most cold-blooded acts of violence. As always, the prose is lean and efficient, the action scenes are well designed, and Reacher is as formidable an opponent as one could imagine (just this side of a Transformer). Another first-class entry in a series that continues to set the gold standard for aspiring thriller authors.

Jonathan Green

Positive Booklist \"Green’s portraits of the good guys and the bad guys are richly layered and compelling: this is no simple cops-and-robbers story. It’s a story about an entire way of life and the way people on both sides of the law have been affected by it. A fine piece of crime nonfiction.\

Samantha Barbas

Rave Booklist \"In its heyday it was the biggest-selling magazine in America, read by 16 million people, including many celebrities, though few would admit to reading it. Confidential was a raunchy rag, a sleazy scandal sheet, and it pretty much launched the celebrity-gossip brand of journalism ... Although a highly publicized lawsuit in 1957 rendered the magazine toothless and essentially irrelevant, its impact still resonates through popular culture and the world of Hollywood. A fascinating, highly detailed study of a precursor to today’s celebrity-obsessed media. \

Kim Stanley Robinson

Positive Booklist Robinson plays his own variations on the theme, turning what might have become a been-there-done-that retread into something fresh and exciting. Another stellar effort from one of the masters of the genre.

John Grisham

Positive Booklist \"If Grisham had elected to tell this story in a linear fashion, it would have been a good, if unremarkable, thriller. But spooled out in this deliberately disjointed fashion, it becomes a fascinating literary jigsaw puzzle, with pieces of the story from the book’s multiple sections finally clicking into place in the end. This is Grisham experimenting with the traditional legal-thriller format, and his experiment yields thoroughly engaging results ... The Grisham brand shows no signs of losing its power to draw readers, giving him the leverage to play with the thriller format, as he does successfully here.\

Peter McLean

Rave Booklist \"A pitch-perfect blend of fantasy and organized-crime sagas like Puzo’s The Godfather or Pileggi’s Wiseguy, this novel... is very, very hard to put down ... Expect word-of-mouth support from fantasy fans to turn this one into a genre hit.\

Tom Wright and Bradley Hope

Rave Booklist \"...Written by a pair of Wall Street Journal reporters, this well-researched and well-documented book reveals how Low, who had no credentials apart from a business degree from Wharton, insinuated himself into the Malaysian prime minister’s inner circle, came to control hundreds of millions (perhaps billions) of dollars, and attracted celebrity pals from around the world. It reveals how Low used a bag of tricks, including financial fraud, to make himself seem more powerful, more influential, and more successful than he actually was. And it reveals the deep flaws in the Malaysian government that allowed Low to become an unofficial controller of a billion-plus-dollar development fund from which, apparently, he simply stole huge sums of money. For fans of business books about financial misdealings, this is a must-read. \

Christopher Skaife

Rave Booklist \"This is an utterly fascinating book about one of those subjects you never thought you’d be interested in until, well, you were ... Skaife is a very good storyteller, and the book is full of the kind of anecdote that would make a great scene in a movie (like, for instance, the time one of the ravens orchestrated a daring escape from the Tower). A splendid and constantly surprising book.\

Clive Cussler and Boyd Morrison

Mixed Booklist It’s pretty formulaic stuff—every Oregon Files story has the same ingredients—and, as usual, the writing is functional at best. Cussler’s sizable following, however, remains devoted and will be pleased by something new.

Max Allan Collins and A. Brad Schwartz

Rave Booklist The authors’ intent is to take two men who have been mythologized over decades, strip away the fictions that have been piled on them, and leave us with a clearer sense of the true Ness and Capone. And they succeed admirably. Collins brings all his skills as a novelist to the story, painting in bold strokes a picture of Prohibition-era Chicago, a city almost entirely under the control of Capone’s criminal organization. His writing is about as far from a history text as you can imagine ... Careful research combined with vivid pulp style.

Simon Rich

Rave Booklist \"Rich is a nimble writer, able to whip up a side-splittingly funny moment out of the simplest ingredients (a few brief sentences, a couple of lines of dialogue, an offbeat observation) and to to sustain a remarkable level of hilarity from one story to another. Great fun.\

Sheena Kamal

Rave Booklist Online Nora Watts is faced with the challenge of tracking down the daughter she had put up for adoption 15 years earlier—finds Vancouver, B. C., resident Nora traveling to Detroit to look into the death of her father ... Meanwhile, back home in British Columbia, a private investigator digs into the death of his client’s mistress, only to find an apparent link to Nora ... this psychological thriller is even more sure-footed than its predecessor; the writing is more compelling, the characters deeper and richer, as though Kamal has come to know Nora better since The Lost Ones. Familiarity with that novel is not essential to read this one, which works just fine as a stand-alone, but, at the same time, readers who know where Nora came from will better appreciate where she is going here. Crime-fiction fans should hope for another Nora Watts novel very soon.

Matthew Polly

Rave Booklist It’s difficult to imagine a more comprehensive account of Bruce Lee’s short but influential life than this one ... but the book isn’t an investigation into the kung fu star’s death; rather, it’s a celebration of his life ... Polly charts the course of Lee’s life in careful, precise detail ... His admiration for Lee comes through on nearly every page ... the author doesn’t skim lightly over Lee’s drug use or infidelity, nor does he shy away from the sordid circumstances surrounding Lee’s death ... A fascinating story of a remarkable figure in popular culture, this is the biography Bruce Lee’s legion of fans have been waiting for.

John Perry Barlow and Robert Greenfield

Rave Booklist Online He came from political power, ran a cattle ranch while he wrote rock songs, befriended pop-culture icons and political movers-and-shakers, and became an internet pioneer ... contains one fascinating story after another, a exploration of America’s counterculture, its political underpinnings, its spirit of adventure.

Monte Reel

Rave Booklist It was an event so famous that it’s still widely talked about. In 1960, an American airplane was shot down over the Soviet Union. Although the Americans soon announced that the plane was merely off course, that it had crashed due to pilot error, and that its pilot had died, it soon emerged that the downed aircraft had been a spy plane and that its pilot, Francis Gary Powers, was very much alive and held captive by the Soviets ... A richly detailed, well-researched, and engagingly written book that takes us behind the scenes of one of the twentieth-century’s most nail-bitingly tense episodes.

Andrew Shaffer

Rave Booklist \"Shaffer could have jumped on this opportunity to parody Biden and Obama, but, instead, he presents them as real people, pretty much the way we imagine them to be (allowing, of course, for literary license); and the mystery is genuinely suspenseful and satisfying, not merely a framework for a bunch of silliness. It should be noted, too, that the relationship between Biden and Obama is carefully and skillfully developed and has moments of genuine emotion. An ambitious and completely successful novel.\

Claire North

Rave Booklist Here passages written in a sort of prose-poetic style (sentences end or begin midway through; thoughts are interrupted; punctuation is left out) vividly convey the dramatic tone of the moment. Another captivating novel from one of the most intriguing and genre-bending novelists currently working in the intersection between thriller and science fiction.

Mike Reiss and Mathew Klickstein

Rave Booklist In this always entertaining and frequently laugh-out-loud-hilarious memoir, Reiss and coauthor Klickstein take us behind the scenes not only of the long-running sitcom, but also of Reiss’ own life ... There have been a lot of books written about The Simpsons, some of them good but most not so much, and this is hands down one of the very best.

Edward Tenner

Positive Booklist Efficiency keeps us focused on our goals, which is good, but, on the flip side, a narrow focus can make us miss things we might have seen if we weren’t so lasered in on our goals. It’s a complex subject, but Tenner’s smart organization and user-friendly prose style make it entirely accessible to lay readers.

Dean Koontz

Positive Booklist It works just fine as a stand-alone...as Koontz allows Jane to bring the reader up to speed in a way that doesn’t feel shoehorned into the story. Koontz has had a long and consistently best-selling career ... The Hawk series—there’s a fourth one scheduled to be published in October 2018—is among his best work.

Christopher Moore

Rave Booklist ...weird and oddly hilarious ... This isn’t just a spoof of the kind of noir that Thompson, Cain, and Goodis were writing in the 1940s and ’50s; hiding behind those trappings is a pedal-to-the-metal, exquisitely written comic romp through a neon-lit San Francisco that may never have actually existed, but that, in Moore’s supremely talented hands, sure feels like it could have. The scene in the diner, where the Cheese and her pal call out food orders, is by itself funny enough to have you snorting in public. So beware: you probably won’t get through this one without making a fool of yourself.

Michio Kaku

Rave Booklist \"...[a] deeply fascinating and energetically written book ... Kaku’s writings have garnered a reputation for combining hard science with clever speculation, and his latest book continues that winning trend. A breathtaking voyage through what is almost certainly the next major period in the history of humanity.\

Dave Itzkoff

Rave Booklist \"Itzkoff, who knew the late Robin Williams on a personal level, gives us the biography we’ve been waiting for ... this isn’t one of those skimming-the-surface Hollywood bios. It’s a meaty, well-researched, moving story of a man who could never quite come to terms with his own brilliance.\

Chris Nashawaty

Rave Booklist Online \"Nashawaty’s prose is lively, and his exhaustive research is bolstered by interviews with many of the film’s principle players, including the famously elusive Murray. A wonderful celebration of a passionately loved film.\

John Scalzi

Rave Booklist Scalzi is one of the sf genre’s most popular writers, and it’s easy to see why: his prose flows like a river, smoothly carrying us through the story; his characters are beautifully crafted; and his future world is impeccably designed, at the same time wildly imaginative and wholly plausible. Let’s hope the author doesn’t wait another three-plus years to deliver another book set in this exciting world.

Don Graham

Rave Booklist This splendid making-of book covers everything from casting to on-set clashes between stars (and between stars and director) to the staging of key scenes to choosing filming locations. The book also features in-depth biographies of the film’s three leads, because you can’t tell the story of this classic film without telling the stories of its stars, who were as tortured as their characters in their own ways. A sharp, insightful look at a legendary film.

Jacqueline Winspear

Rave Booklist Maisie, a woman working in what was at the time considered almost exclusively a man’s field, is a wonderful creation, representative of her era while being at the same time a thoroughly modern woman. The mystery in this book is cleverly designed, too, allowing the author to explore the environment in England in the early, quiet days of WWII—the so-called phony war, before the Blitz—and to explore England’s 1940s-era criminal underground. A first-rate historical mystery.

Gilbert King

Rave Booklist This book is every bit as gripping as the author’s Pulitzer-winning Devil in the Grove (2012), which explored an earlier incident involving McCall and Reese. McCall, who served as sheriff until the early 1970s, emerges here as thoroughly despicable, and Reese, who was a supporting player in Devil in the Grove, steps onto center stage here and captivates us with her determination in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. Gripping history, vividly told.

Kirk Wallace Johnson

Rave Booklist The author’s relentless pursuit of a solution to that mystery not only breaks down the crime itself but also follows the eccentric histories of \'feather fever\'—the Victorian fad that turned bird feathers into the height of fashion accessories—and fly tying (which dates back at least to the Macedonians of the third century AD). Way more interesting than you’d think a book about a guy who stole some dead birds could possibly be, this is a remarkably compelling story of obsession and history and a man who so loved his art that he would break the law for it.

Robert Kurson

Rave Booklist Online Kurson has a good dramatic storytelling style ... and his portrayals of the pioneering astronauts, Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders (all of whom were interviewed by the author), turns these men from historical figures into real people. The book is proof that there’s room in the marketplace for more than one book about a well-known event.

Sam J. Miller

Rave Booklist This has the look and feel of science fiction, but the novel tells a timeless story of rebellion against a corrupt master, giving it a kind of Hunger Games resonance that reaches beyond any genre boundaries. Miller is a graceful writer, easing us into the story gently, letting us get acclimated to its time and place, before subtly speeding up the pace and plunging us into the characters’ race for survival. And what fine characters they are: people of the future, yes, but with all the texture and believability of ordinary folk.

Christian Davenport

Positive Booklist Davenport catches us up in the breathless excitement of these men who are trying to launch the biggest start-up in the history of the galaxy. But this is no puff piece; the author faithfully records the heartbreaking failures and the struggles to overcome serious opposition (from the U.S. government, among others). This is, too, a story of ego and the aggressive pursuit of number-one status, and the author does a fine job of capturing the personalities of these famous men. A big story, told through its vividly evoked small details.

Brad Meltzer

Rave Booklist Online Meltzer has based his literary career on conspiracy-themed stories, and he’s very good at them. In Nola and Zig, too, he’s created two of his most compellingly fresh characters. Nola, in particular, represents a high point in the author’s career: a strong, resourceful, mysterious female lead who could go toe-to-toe with Jack Reacher, Bob Lee Swagger, and the other guys. First of a new series, according to the publisher, and that’s just fine.

Michael Benson

Rave Booklist \"Benson is clearly in tune with the film and he follows the story of the movie’s creation with an eye for small, precise detail. In its way, this story about the making of 2001 is as compelling and eye-opening as the film itself.\

Yunte Huang

Positive Booklist \"Huang offers a vivid portrait of two men who did the best they could to live ordinary lives, and a revealing look at a somewhat scandalous side of the prim-and-proper Victorian Era.\

Ryan H. Walsh

Rave Booklist Musician and journalist Walsh writes with the enthusiasm of a fan and the precision and depth of an expert. A first-rate book about a piece of music and the time in which it was created.

Edward J. Larson

Rave Booklist Online \"Larson captures the excitement and danger that were the defining characteristics of this age of exploration ... Larson, who won a Pulitzer Prize in history for his book about the Scopes Trial (Summer for the Gods, 1997), is a meticulous writer, telling us not just what happened on the three expeditions but—whenever possible—why and how the success or failure of these voyages of discovery would impact the very future of exploration itself.\

Sean Penn

Rave Booklist Penn takes on an ambitious challenge here, and he succeeds spectacularly. Bob is a wonderful character, the kind of guy you can’t take your eyes off ... The story is convoluted, sure, and occasionally surreal, but that’s part of the book’s almost immeasurable charm.

Nell Scovall

Positive Booklist Scovell comes across as a smart, energetic, determined woman, someone who is always shooting for greater success and who really hates it when she fails at something. A revealing and timely portrait of a professional writer and the industry in which she works.

Laura Lippman

Rave Booklist \"Lippman answers these questions, and several more besides, but in an especially tantalizing manner, parceling out information slowly, a bit here, a bit there, letting us spend some time processing a new revelation before dropping another one on us. Ingeniously constructed and extremely suspenseful, the novel keeps us guessing right up until its final moments. Lippman is a popular and dependable writer, and this homage to classic noir showcases a writer at the height of her powers.\

A.J. Jacobs

Rave Booklist \"Whimsical but also full of solid journalism and eye-opening revelations about the history of humanity, the book is a real treat.\

Sam Wasson

Rave Booklist There’s a natural flow to the author’s writing—a conversational tone and a way of capturing our interest—that transforms what could have been a dry recitation of people, places, and facts into a compelling, absolutely unputdownable story. Wasson has interviewed a tremendous number of people for the book, and he supplements those interviews with well-chosen material from numerous previously published sources ... A remarkable story, magnificently told.

Scott Eyman

Rave Booklist Eyman follows the two actors’ careers, but he does much more than that. He talks about their contrasting acting styles and personalities—Fonda the 'tightly coiled spring,' Stewart the natural, comfortable fellow—and he discusses their personal lives and their battles to find the right roles to showcase their unique abilities. He also explores the way their experiences in WWII affected their postwar careers. Stewart, in particular, seems to have emerged from the war (he was a bomber pilot) a noticeably more serious and less affable man. Eyman has a real knack for making the celebrity subjects of his biographies come across not only as celebrities but also as real people who live the same kinds of lives as the rest of us, just with different trappings. Another winner from a Hollywood-bio veteran.

John Grisham

Positive Booklist The novel has some strikingly well-drawn characters and a plot that edges tantalizingly close to a full-on caper story, but it also boasts some shrewd commentary on the scourge of fraudulent for-profit universities and the disastrous impact they can have on people’s lives. It feels like this is a subject close to Grisham’s heart, and he makes the most of it.

Tom Hanks

Positive Booklist \"As an actor, Tom Hanks has an understated performance style; the hard work seems to get done under the surface, where we can’t see it. All we see is the truth of the character. The same goes for the 17 short stories in this thoroughly engaging book ... The stories are brief and sometimes seem abbreviated, but they possess a real feel for character and a slice-of-life realism that combine to deliver considerable depth beneath the surface. A surprising and satisfying book from a first-time fiction writer.\

Michael Crichton

Rave Booklist The book is sure to garner a lot of attention—a posthumous book about dinosaurs from the creator of Jurassic Park—but it’s more than just a literary curiosity. It’s also a very good novel; in fact, taken among all Crichton’s novels, it’s one of his best, a beautifully detailed, scientifically engrossing, absolutely riveting story about the early days of paleontology.

Greg Iles

Rave Booklist ...compelling, dark, surprising, and morally ambiguous ... With these three novels, Iles has told an epic story that rips apart the modern history of Mississippi (he lives in Natchez himself), exposing a secret underbelly that, while fictional, feels real enough to have actually happened. This trilogy is destined to become a classic of literary crime fiction.

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November 5, 2024