Bob Duffy
Former academic Bob Duffy is a Maryland author and brand consultant. His writing credits range from scholarly articles about literary history and film to commentaries on business strategy and emerging online technologies. As an ad agency vice president, Bob founded and led a national research and strategy practice serving large organizations He has spoken and led workshops on digital branding throughout the U.S., Europe, and the Far East, and his articles have appeared in Social Media Today, Literature-Film Quarterly, Government Executive, and Public Relations Quarterly, among many other periodicals. He also makes occasional forays into short fiction, with half-a-dozen stories appearing or forthcoming online or in print.
129 entries by Bob Duffy
Rot: An Imperial History of the Irish Famine
By Padraic X. Scanlan
An exceptional account of a crippling, long-ago blight.
A Noble Ruin
By W. Jeffrey Tatum
This vivid biography pulses with energy and erudition.
Thorns, Lust, and Glory: The Betrayal of Anne Boleyn
By Estelle Paranque
An overly narrow focus hobbles this otherwise solid work.
Beatrice’s Last Smile
By Mark Gregory Pegg
A winning antiquarian primer for the rest of us.
Bear: A Novel
By Julia Phillips
Sisters in the Pacific Northwest grapple with threats real and (possibly) metaphorical.
The Summer of 1876
By Chris Wimmer
A fascinating rundown of the frontier’s famed good and bad guys (and girls).
The Britannias: An Archipelago’s Tale
By Alice Albinia
A charming sojourn to isles both familiar and foreign.
The Fox Wife: A Novel
By Yangsze Choo
A wise, folktale-like romance set in 1900s China.
A Noble Ruin: Mark Antony, Civil War, and the Collapse of the Roman Republic
By W. Jeffrey Tatum
This vivid biography pulses with energy and erudition.
Homer and His Iliad
By Robin Lane Fox
Did the blind poet really pen the ancient epic by himself?
Emperor of Rome: Ruling the Ancient Roman World
By Mary Beard
It’s lonely (and occasionally perverted) at the top.
Opposable Thumbs: How Siskel & Ebert Changed Movies Forever
By Matt Singer
A thorough, repetitive ode to the erstwhile irascible duo.
Happiness Falls: A Novel
By Angie Kim
This stellar, nuanced mystery transcends typical whodunit tropes.
Beatrice’s Last Smile: A New History of the Middle Ages
By Mark Gregory Pegg
A winning antiquarian primer for the rest of us.
The Summer of 1876: Outlaws, Lawmen, and Legends in the Season that Defined the American West
By Chris Wimmer
A fascinating rundown of the frontier’s famed good and bad guys (and girls).
The Lock-Up: A Novel
By John Banville
Familiar tropes are cast aside in this outstanding pseudo-whodunit.
Shakespeare’s Book: The Story Behind the First Folio and the Making of Shakespeare
By Chris Laoutaris
A superb account of how the Bard’s compendium came to be.
Ghost Girl, Banana: A Novel
By Wiz Wharton
A Chinese Brit hears from her mysterious benefactor in Hong Kong.
Small Mercies: A Novel
By Dennis Lehane
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A tough-as-nails Southie mom searches for her missing teen.
Christendom: The Triumph of a Religion, AD 300-1300
By Peter Heather
A bold reinterpretation of the faith’s nascent days.
Finders: Justice, Faith, and Identity in Irish Crime Fiction
By Anjili Babbar
Sussing out the throughline among popular Gaelic gumshoes.
A Mystery of Mysteries: The Death and Life of Edgar Allan Poe
By Mark Dawidziak
The subject’s demise, like his tales, was spooky and unsettling.
The Tudors in Love: Passion and Politics in the Age of England’s Most Famous Dynasty
By Sarah Gristwood
An intelligent, astute account of those randy royals.
A Dangerous Business: A Novel
By Jane Smiley
Winning elements fail to coalesce in this disappointing frontier whodunit.
Watching Darkness Fall
By David McKean
A riveting look at some of the men who did — or didn’t — sound the alarm.
Hollywood: The Oral History
By Jeanine Basinger and Sam Wasson
A chatty, affectionate ode to Tinseltown.
Anvils, Mallets & Dynamite
By Jaime Weinman
An affectionate, erudite look back at Bugs and Daffy’s reign.
Shrines of Gaiety: A Novel
By Kate Atkinson
A raucous, Dickensian jaunt through Jazz Age London.
Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne
By Katherine Rundell
An affectionate look at a complex renaissance man.
Matrix
By Lauren Groff
Banished to a nunnery, a headstrong 12th-century girl discovers her strength.
The Life of Crime: Detecting the History of Mysteries and Their Creators
By Martin Edwards
Whodunit fans should dive into this broad, if not deep, informative pool.
Dream Girl
By Laura Lippman
This subversively witty tale starts off as a mystery in search of a crime.
The Monster’s Bones: The Discovery of T. Rex and How It Shook Our World
By David K. Randall
The rip-roaring race to put dinosaurs on display.
Ethel Rosenberg
By Anne Sebba
This riveting biography of the infamous “spy” makes a persuasive case for its subject’s innocence.
City on Fire: A Novel
By Don Winslow
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This piercing tale’s emotional precision distinguishes it from its author’s recent bestsellers.
The Man Who Invented Motion Pictures: A True Tale of Obsession, Murder, and the Movies
By Paul Fischer
It’s this book’s account of history, not homicide, that’s truly riveting.
Red Widow
By Alma Katsu
This gripping, authentic spy procedural is made even stronger by its mostly female cast of characters.
Buster Keaton: A Filmmaker’s Life
By James Curtis
An exquisitely produced ode to a long-ago comic genius.
An inspired look at two of our nation’s masters.
A riveting look at some of the men who did — or didn’t — sound the alarm.
The Gilded Page: The Secret Lives of Medieval Manuscripts
By Mary Wellesley
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An illuminating examination of enduring, aged texts.
An affectionate, erudite look back at Bugs and Daffy’s reign.
Matrix: A Novel
By Lauren Groff
Banished to a nunnery, a headstrong 12th-century girl discovers her strength.
The Irish Assassins: Conspiracy, Revenge, and the Phoenix Park Murders that Stunned Victorian England
By Julie Kavanagh
A superb true-crime narrative set in fulsome historical context.
Dream Girl: A Novel
By Laura Lippman
This subversively witty tale starts off as a mystery in search of a crime.
Ethel Rosenberg: An American Tragedy
By Anne Sebba
This riveting biography of the infamous “spy” makes a persuasive case for its subject’s innocence.
Red Widow: A Novel
By Alma Katsu
This gripping, authentic spy procedural is made even stronger by its mostly female cast of characters.
The Falcon Thief
By Joshua Hammer
A wild tale of crime and punishment amid the world of raptors and rapscallions.
Devils, Lusts and Strange Desires: The Life of Patricia Highsmith
By Richard Bradford
Though ably capturing his subject’s life, this biographer seems dismissive of her work.
Snow: A Novel
By John Banville
The traditional manor-house mystery is turned on its head in this cheeky whodunit set in mid-20th-century Ireland.
Richard III
By Michael Hicks
Was the notorious stage villain really such a bad guy?
The Talented Miss Farwell: A Novel
By Emily Gray Tedrowe
A hardworking, filial young woman in small-town Illinois isn't quite what she seems...
A Castle in Wartime
By Catherine Bailey
A captive German mother’s tribulations amid the final throes of the Reich.
A Private Cathedral: A Dave Robicheaux Novel
By James Lee Burke
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The latest installment in the entertaining series takes an unexpected — and not entirely successful — turn toward the supernatural.
The Rise of the G.I. Army, 1940-1941: The Forgotten Story of How America Forged a Powerful Army Before Pearl Harbor
By Paul Dickson
A detail-rich, engaging account of the United States’ WWII preparations.
Caligula
By Stephen Dando-Collins
An entertaining, modern-day look at a notorious long-ago ruler.
In West Mills
By De’Shawn Charles Winslow
This debut brings rural American culture into vibrant, emotion-grabbing focus.
The Deep: A Novel
By Alma Katsu
A survivor of the Titanic tempts fate and faces down her ghosts.
Ten Caesars
By Barry Strauss
A wild, thoroughly enjoyable ride through four centuries of imperial rule.
The Triumph of Christianity
By Bart D. Ehrman
From Paul to Constantine, a modest faith’s stunning rise to prominence.
No Beast So Fierce
By Dane Huckelbridge
The thrilling clash of man versus monster, told in evenhanded detail.
Deacon King Kong: A Novel
By James McBride
A National Book Award winner’s uplifting tale of life, death, and redemption in the Brooklyn projects.
The Falcon Thief: A True Tale of Adventure, Treachery and the Hunt for the Perfect Bird
By Joshua Hammer
A wild tale of crime and punishment amid the world of raptors and rapscallions.
The Truants: A Novel
By Kate Weinberg
This beguiling homage to Dame Agatha Christie plays out in a proper British university.
Cesare: A Novel of War-Torn Berlin
By Jerome Charyn
A haunting, dystopian tale of the Third Reich.
Richard III: The Self-Made King
By Michael Hicks
Was the notorious stage villain really such a bad guy?
All That’s Bright and Gone: A Novel
By Eliza Nellums
Her family fractured, a 6-year-old detective searches for answers surrounding her brother’s disappearance.
A Castle in Wartime: One Family, Their Missing Sons, and the Fight to Defeat the Nazis
By Catherine Bailey
A captive German mother’s tribulations amid the final throes of the Reich.
Betrayal in Berlin: The True Story of the Cold War’s Most Audacious Espionage Operation
By Steve Vogel
A dazzling, true-life saga of the spy-versus-spy underpinnings of the Cold War.
War at Sea: A Shipwrecked History from Antiquity to the Twentieth Century
By James P. Delgado
A sprawling chronicle of ocean-going warfare from a scholar and hands-on explorer.
French Exit
By Patrick DeWitt
A witty (and somewhat soulless) postmodernist comedy of arch understatement.
We, the Survivors: A Novel
By Tash Aw
A third-world tale starkly relevant to our own plight today.
Caligula: The Mad Emperor of Rome
By Stephen Dando-Collins
An entertaining, modern-day look at a notorious long-ago ruler.
Barnum: An American Life
By Robert Wilson
A clear-eyed new look at the 19th-century huckster.
Kingdom of Lies: Unnerving Adventures in the World of Cybercrime
By Kate Fazzini
A befuddling, fragmentary plunge into the realm of computer criminals.
In West Mills: A Novel
By De’Shawn Charles Winslow
This debut brings rural American culture into vibrant, emotion-grabbing focus.
Ten Caesars: Roman Emperors from Augustus to Constantine
By Barry Strauss
A wild, thoroughly enjoyable ride through four centuries of imperial rule.
A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II
By Sonia Purnell
An engrossing, even spectacular, true story that reads like a thriller.
Richard III
By Chris Skidmore
Misunderstood? Maligned? Maybe so…but still as ruthless as the age in which he lived.
No Beast So Fierce: The Terrifying True Story of the Champawat Tiger, the Deadliest Man-Eater in History
By Dane Huckelbridge
The thrilling clash of man versus monster, told in evenhanded detail.
Blood Orange: A Novel
By Harriet Tyce
A bad-girl barrister tries to find justice before it’s too late in this formulaic thriller.
El Norte: The Epic and Forgotten Story of Hispanic North America
By Carrie Gibson
Chronicling the ebb and flow of Latin culture over half a millennium.
The Current: A Novel
By Tim Johnston
A fatal road trip dredges up a small town’s memories of a decade-old murder.
The Day the Sun Died: A Novel
By Yan Lianke; translated by Carlos Rojas
From today’s China, a sardonic fable about social conformity and the impulses it suppresses.
A revealing, maybe shocking, consideration of three Irish literary patriarchs.
Everything Under: A Novel
By Daisy Johnson
This Man Booker-nominated retelling of the Oedipus tale brings a wrenching, transcendent relevance to the myth.
Thomas Cromwell: A Revolutionary Life
By Diarmaid MacCulloch
Everything you wanted to know about Henry VIII’s trusted fixer.
The Burning Time
By Virginia Rounding
An authoritative chronicle of the gruesome era when religious dissenters met their end at the stake.
French Exit: A Novel
By Patrick DeWitt
A witty (and somewhat soulless) postmodernist comedy of arch understatement.
Dinner with Darwin
By Jonathan Silvertown
A fascinating discussion of the science and anthropology behind today’s human diet.
Scarface and the Untouchable: Al Capone, Eliot Ness, and the Battle for Chicago
By Max Allan Collins and A. Brad Schwartz
A deep and detailed dive into a staple of American popular mythology.
Two familiar critters from folklore have their day in these cultural histories.
Rome Resurgent: War and Empire in the Age of Justinian
By Peter Heather
A scholarly overview of the once-mighty realm’s last hurrah in the West.
Since We Fell
By Dennis Lehane
A compulsively readable — if formulaic — thriller from a master of the genre.
Rome: A History in Seven Sackings
By Matthew Kneale
This accessible chronicle of the Eternal City is ideal for lay readers.
Richard III: England’s Most Controversial King
By Chris Skidmore
Misunderstood? Maligned? Maybe so…but still as ruthless as the age in which he lived.
Four Princes
By John Julius Norwich
A famed historian offers a fascinating look at the intersecting reigns of several powerful rulers.
The Plague of War
By Jennifer T. Roberts
An erudite retelling of the brutal long-ago clashes.
Chicago
By David Mamet
A premier American dramatist tackles the whodunit…after his fashion.
The Triumph of Christianity: How a Forbidden Religion Swept the World
By Bart D. Ehrman
From Paul to Constantine, a modest faith’s stunning rise to prominence.