The Stacks

All book reviews

239 honest reviews across fiction, non-fiction, mystery, sci-fi, romance, and more.

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Showing 217-239 of 239

Down in the Flood

by Kenneth Abel

The third Danny Chaisson novel. Kenneth Abel writing Hurricane Katrina before Katrina happened.

The Rainaldi Quartet

by Paul Adam

Paul Adam's classical music mystery at its best. Four amateur musicians, a stolen Stradivarius, and a story that takes its setting fully seriously.

All Things, All at Once

by Lee K. Abbott

Lee K. Abbott's career-spanning story collection. One of the great American short story writers of the late 20th century, finally collected.

Hard-Boiled: An Anthology of American Crime Stories

by Jack Adrian

The Jack Adrian and Bill Pronzini-edited hard-boiled crime anthology. One of the best curated anthologies of the form ever assembled.

Cold Steel Rain

by Kenneth Abel

The first Danny Chaisson novel. Kenneth Abel writing New Orleans politics and corruption with a New Orleans-specific moral exhaustion you cannot fake.

River Of Darkness

by Rennie Airth

The first John Madden mystery. Post-WWI English countryside, a returning detective, and a serial killer whose methods come straight from the trenches.

The Plague Dogs

by Richard Adams

Richard Adams's third novel. Two laboratory dogs escape in the Lake District. The book that broke me as a 12-year-old.

Shardik

by Richard Adams

Richard Adams's 1974 follow-up to Watership Down. A religious epic about a hunter and a giant bear. Difficult, devastating, deeply serious.

The Purity of Vengeance

by Jussi Adler-Olsen

The fourth Department Q novel. The Danish eugenics program at Sprogo, four decades on. Adler-Olsen at his most morally serious.

The Keeper of Lost Causes

by Jussi Adler-Olsen

The first Department Q novel. Detective Carl Morck goes down to the basement and finds a five-year-old missing-politician case. The series begins here.

The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven

by Sherman Alexie

The Alexie short story collection that made his career. Some of these became Smoke Signals. All of them earn their place.

The End of Everything

by Megan Abbott

Megan Abbott writing a thirteen-year-old's point of view as her best friend disappears. Quiet, devastating, almost too uncomfortable to recommend.

Last Argument Of Kings

by Joe Abercrombie

The final First Law book. Abercrombie sticks every landing he had been setting up for two books, and the result is bleak in the best way.

The Winter Queen

by Boris Akunin

The first Erast Fandorin novel. A young clerk in 1876 Moscow investigates an apparent suicide and falls down a labyrinth.

Before They Are Hanged

by Joe Abercrombie

The second First Law novel. Three plot threads in three different countries, all going progressively worse. Abercrombie at his peak.

A Conspiracy of Faith

by Jussi Adler-Olsen

The third Department Q novel. Carl Morck investigates a message in a bottle written in blood. The best book in a great series.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

by Sherman Alexie

YA semi-memoir about a kid who transfers off the rez to a white school. Funny, brutal, repeatedly banned, deserves to be read.

Reservation Blues

by Sherman Alexie

Sherman Alexie's first novel. Robert Johnson hands his guitar to a kid on the Spokane Reservation. Magic realism with grief in the bones.

Bury Me Deep

by Megan Abbott

Megan Abbott rewriting a real 1930s Phoenix murder case as a fever dream. Period noir with a feminist undertow.

The Blade Itself

by Joe Abercrombie

Grimdark fantasy with a beating heart underneath the cynicism. Abercrombie writes the kind of characters you would cross a kingdom for.

The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide

by Douglas Adams

The collected Hitchhiker's books in one volume. If you have not read these, you have a treat ahead. If you have, you already know.

Deep Work

by Cal Newport

A wake-up call for knowledge workers everywhere. Newport makes a compelling case that the ability to focus deeply is the superpower of the 21st century.

Atomic Habits

by James Clear

The single best book on building good habits. Clear breaks down the science into a practical system anyone can follow - and actually stick with.