Sunny's bookshelf
Sunny's bookshelf photo by Judy Solomon

Online book reviews since 2011, the very best in reviewing – connecting good readers with equally good writers

Search Results for: John%20Clarkson

Biography
Sunny Solomon

Carol and John Steinbeck

Carol and John Steinbeck, Portrait of a Marriage, Susan Shillinglaw’s ground-breaking portrait of Steinbeck’s first marriage. I’d been on a Steinbeck jag (reviewing Steinbeck’s Ghost, rereading

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Star of the North
Fiction
Ann Ronald

Star of the North

STAR OF THE NORTH D.B. John’s thriller, Star of the North, pulls back the curtain on North Korea’s secretive milieu. The novel explores the terrain

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The Good Lord Bird
Fiction
Sunny Solomon

The Good Lord Bird

THE GOOD LORD BIRD It’s not any wonder that James McBride’s latest book, The Good Lord Bird won the 2013 National Book Award, and I

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My Friend Dahmer
Autobiography/Memoir
Jacqueline Smay

My Friend Dahmer

It’s something of a cliché for a reviewer to warn readers of an especially challenging work that “This is not for everyone;” but sometimes—like now—it’s

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Bonanza King
Biography
Neal Ferguson

The Bonanza King

THE BONANZA KING: JOHN MACKAY AND THE BATTLE OVER THE GREATEST RICHES IN THE AMERICAN WEST Gregory Couch’s The Bonanza King: John Mackay and the

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Fiction
Sunny Solomon

Ape House

For all you Sara Gruen fans who have been patiently waiting for her first novel since Water for Elephants, wait no longer.  Ape House is

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Noah Barleywater Runs Away
Children’s early and middle readers
Sunny Solomon

Noah Barleywater Runs Away

In today’s parlance, Noah Barleywater Runs Away, John Boyne’s return to children’s literature, is a Pinocchio knockoff with a delightful, yet serious, 21st century tone.

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Fiction
Ann Ronald

Silver: Return to Treasure Island

Since its 1883 publication, generations of young adults have fallen in love with Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, its hero Jim Hawkins, and its anti-hero

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Children’s early and middle readers
Sunny Solomon

Steinbeck’s Ghost

  Steinbeck’s Ghost – Lewis Buzbee’s story marketed to middle readers is equally as satisfying to adults, especially to those who love John Steinbeck. If

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History
Neal Ferguson

Five Came Back

Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War December 7, 1941 came and five Hollywood directors went. John Ford, George Stevens,

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Fiction
Sunny Solomon

The Last Good Kiss

The path traveled to a book worth reviewing can be as circuitous as it can be direct. A friend can tell you about a “must

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Fiction
Ann Ronald

Painted Horses

Painted Horses So many thematic threads appear in Malcolm Brooks’ novel, Painted Horses, so many ideas for mulling and musing. The romance of antiquity and

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The Philosophical Breakfast Club
Biography
Sunny Solomon

The Philosophical Breakfast Club

THE PHILOSOPHICAL BREAKFAST CLUB The Philosophical Breakfast Club may be the book to answer questions you never knew you wanted to ask. How did we get from

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