The Stacks
All book reviews
402 honest reviews across fiction, non-fiction, mystery, sci-fi, romance, and more.
Showing 361-384 of 402
So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish
by Douglas Adams
The fourth Hitchhiker's book. Adams writing a love story disguised as an SF comedy. Calmer, sadder, surprising.
Life, the Universe and Everything
by Douglas Adams
The third Hitchhiker's book. Cricket-themed apocalypse. Funnier than its reputation and a small structural marvel.
The Alphabet House
by Jussi Adler-Olsen
Adler-Olsen's pre-Department Q standalone. Two British airmen hiding in a Nazi psychiatric hospital. Very different from his crime novels.
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.
Indian Killer
by Sherman Alexie
Alexie's darkest novel. A serial killer is targeting white men in Seattle. The book is not interested in being a thriller.
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.
Man In His Time
by Brian W. Aldiss
A second short fiction collection. The title story alone earns the entry.
Best SF Stories of Brian W. Aldiss
by Brian W. Aldiss
A career retrospective of one of British SF's most distinctive voices. Worth reading even if you already own Hothouse.
The Song Is You
by Megan Abbott
Abbott on a real cold case: the 1949 disappearance of Jean Spangler. Hollywood publicist as accidental detective.
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.
Pelagia and the Black Monk
by Boris Akunin
The second Sister Pelagia mystery. A ghost on a Volga island, an Athanasian monastery, and Akunin in full Dostoyevsky mode.
The Death of Achilles
by Boris Akunin
The fourth Fandorin novel. Boris Akunin doing the political thriller, with a wonderful villain and the most action-heavy of the early entries.
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.
Double Eagle
by Dan Abnett
Warhammer 40,000 air-combat novel by Dan Abnett. Yes, really. Yes, it is much better than that description suggests.
A Poisoned Season
by Tasha Alexander
The second Lady Emily book. London Season jewel thefts and a Marie-Antoinette obsessive. Alexander hitting her stride.
And Only to Deceive
by Tasha Alexander
The first Lady Emily Ashton mystery. Victorian widow discovers her late husband's secret life among Greek antiquities.
Eliza's Daughter
by Joan Aiken
Joan Aiken's sequel to Sense and Sensibility, told from the point of view of the illegitimate daughter Austen left as an afterthought.
A Perfect Crime
by Peter Abrahams
Peter Abrahams writing the modern Strangers on a Train. A wronged husband and a wronged ex-husband strike a deal.
Remembrance of the Daleks
by Ben Aaronovitch
Aaronovitch novelizing his own Doctor Who script from 1988. Rare case where the novel outperforms the broadcast.
The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul
by Douglas Adams
The Dirk Gently sequel, with Norse gods stranded in modern London. Funnier than its predecessor, slightly less ambitious.
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
by Douglas Adams
Douglas Adams writing comic SF detective fiction with time travel, an electric monk, and the fundamental interconnectedness of all things.
The Turkish Gambit
by Boris Akunin
Fandorin on the Russo-Turkish War. War-correspondent mystery with deep affection for Tolstoy.
Murder on the Leviathan
by Boris Akunin
Akunin doing locked-room mystery on a Suez-bound steamer in 1878. Multiple narrators, a French detective, and Fandorin in supporting position.
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.