I've always been a fast reader, faster than most people. I've read and reviewed 176 books in just over two years, or about two books a week. That doesn't count newspapers, magazines, blogs, and other online reading.

When I was 10, I had an operation on both my feet and I spent all summer with my legs in plaster. My mother had to go to the library every day because they'd only let her take out three books at a time for me. On the flight back from Ireland two weeks ago, I read two 500-page books. My personal best, though, was the long, long night that I read seven short …continue.

Sequel to The Purity of Blood.

Captain Alatriste has rejoined the Spanish army in Flanders, besieging Breda in 1625. Íñigo, his follower and later biographer, is still too young to bear arms, and serves as a forager for Ala­tris­te's squad.

There's no glory in this war—Pérez-Reverte is a former war cor­re­spon­dent. The Spanish empire is on the decline. Spain has been fighting in the Spanish Nether­lands for sixty years to suppress the Protestant heretics. The Spanish troops are mutinous and close to starving; they haven't been paid in a …continue.

Thomas Shield is a school­mas­ter in Regency England who becomes entangled in the affairs of the Frant and Carswell families, as tutor to the Frant boy and his friend Edgar Allan. Old Mr. Carswell is a domestic tyrant and the former business partner of Mr. Frant. Frant swindles his own bank and is found murdered; the beautiful Mrs. Frant becomes indebted to Carswell.

Shield slowly, almost un­wit­ting­ly untangles what really happened while he is drawn to both Mrs. Frant and Carswell's il­le­git­i­mate daughter. Edgar Allan, who will one day …continue.

Terry Pratchett was diagnosed with a rare form of early onset Alzheimer's in 2007. For­tu­nate­ly, it's not evident in this Discworld book.

Moist von Lipwig, con man ex­tra­or­di­naire, finds himself in charge of the Royal Bank of Ankh-Morpork and the Royal Mint. The people don't trust the banks much. In an effort to get money flowing, he introduces paper money to Ankh-Morpork. Lipwig, like his creator, is an acute observer of people, and pulls it off against the odds.

Pratchett does his usual trick of holding a fun-house mirror up to …continue.

Rozan weaves together two stories here, past and present.

Seven children, four boys and three girls, grow up together on Staten Island in the 1960s and 70s. In early adulthood, one of the young men ac­ci­den­tal­ly kills another, then is killed in prison. A third boy, Jimmy McCaffrey, becomes estranged from the others and moves to Manhattan where he rises in the Fire Department.

Jimmy dies in the Twin Towers on 9/11, doing what he did best: saving people. A month later, a washed-up newspaper reporter writes a story in­sin­u­at­ing that …continue.

This book takes place about ten years after A Meeting at Corvallis. The focus has switched to a younger set of characters, the first generation to grow up after the “Change”, the event that knocked the world back into the Dark Ages.

A traveler arrives in Oregon from the East, bearing a compelling prophecy that requires Rudi Mackenzie to travel to Nantucket, the apparent source of the Change. A group of nine (the number is tra­di­tion­al) head eastwards. But the fanatical Church Universal and Triumphant wants to stop …continue.

Sequel to Dark Fire. The hunch­backed lawyer Matthew Shardlake has been sent to York by Archbishop Cranmer to meet the Royal Progress, where Henry VIII is to accept formal surrender from those who had earlier rebelled. Shardlake is to hear petitions on the king's behalf, but really he is there to ensure that a high-ranking con­spir­a­tor is brought safely back to the Tower of London. He stumbles upon a cache of secret papers, which leads to a series of attempts upon his life.

Shardlake, once an ardent support of the reform of the …continue.

Trou­ble­mak­ing cops–the Res­ur­rec­tion Men–from all over Scotland have been sent to the Police Training College to make them into team players. DI John Rebus is one of them, though his real job is to get the dirt on three bent cops. The senior officers who sent Rebus in seem to mistrust him too, since the Res­ur­rec­tion Men have reopened an old case where Rebus's behavior was ques­tion­able.

Back in Edinburgh, DS Siobhan Clarke is in­ves­ti­gat­ing the murder of an art dealer, where Rebus's old nemesis, the crime boss Big Ger …continue.

Captain's Fury is the fourth book in Jim Butcher's fantasy series, Codex Alera, and the sequel to Cursor's Fury.

Tavi is still undercover as the captain of a legion fighting the Canim invaders; an ambitious senator arrives from the capital to take over. Tavi finally comes into his own, learning that he is Gaius Octavian, the hitherto un­sus­pect­ed son of the First Lord's long-dead heir. Far to the south, Amara and Bernard accompany the First Lord, Gaius Sixtus, on a secret mission, walking into the rebellious Kalare. Their journey bears not a little …continue.

Jeremy Wheale is ‘a grey little man in a grey little job’ who doesn't fit in well in swinging London. His brother is murdered and he finds himself embroiled in the search for a lost Mayan city in the Yucutan peninsula. His companions are a rich old ar­chae­ol­o­gist, a paranoid young ar­chae­ol­o­gist, and his attractive wife. Somewhere out in the jungle is a Mafia don who's convinced that there's a hoard of gold in Uaxuanoc.

Wheale is an ordinary man who rises to the occasion. As the tension grows, he …continue.