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

Biography

Little Dancer Aged Fourteen
Art
Ann Ronald

Little Dancer Aged Fourteen

Little Dancer Aged Fourteen, Camille Laurens’ intense and personal narrative study of Edgar Degas’s famous sculpture of a young ballet dancer. When I finished reading

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A Marriage Out West
Biography
Ann Ronald

A Marriage Out West

A Marriage Out West The Romance of Anthropology. Subtitled “Theresa and Frank Russell’s Explorations in Arizona, 1900-1903,” A Marriage Out West analyzes the Russell’s 1900

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Rebel Cinderella
Biography
Ann Ronald

Rebel Cinderella

REBEL CINDERELLA Adam Hochschild renews my faith in biographers and the art of biography. Rebel Cinderella models the very best of this sort of intellectual

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Gertrude Stein has Arrived
Biography
Ann Ronald

Gertrude Stein Has Arrived

GERTRUDE STEIN HAS ARRIVED In 1933-34, just after Gertrude Stein published The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas to great acclaim, the writer and her faithful

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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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Biography
Ann Ronald

Loving Eleanor and White Houses

LOVING ELEANOR AND WHITE HOUSES Blanche Wiesen Cook’s three-volume definitive biography of Eleanor Roosevelt inspired both Susan Wittig Albert and Amy Bloom to write novels

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Grant
Biography
Neal Ferguson

Grant

GRANT After reading Ron Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton, I had some trepidation about opening his newest book, Grant. I didn’t think he could surpass Hamilton (see

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Biography
Neal Ferguson

Prairie Fires

PRAIRIE FIRES: THE AMERICAN DREAMS OF LAURA INGALLS WILDER When I saw a publication notice for Fraser’s Prairie Fires, I was immediately intrigued. Put simply,

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Biography
Ann Ronald

What Happened, Miss Simone?

WHAT HAPPENED, MISS SIMONE? Alan Light’s biography of Nina Simone rhetorically asks, What Happened, Miss Simone? The answer turns out to be a complicated one.

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Authors of color
Ann Ronald

Hidden Figures

HIDDEN FIGURES: THE STORY OF THE AFRICAN-AMERICAN WOMEN WHO HELPED WIN THE SPACE RACE I have always argued that equal education for all should be

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Biography
Neal Ferguson

Victoria the Queen

VICTORIA THE QUEEN: AN INTIMATE BIOGRAPHY OF THE WOMAN WHO RULED AN EMPIRE The inevitable question I am asked: is the TV series recently aired

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The Blue Tattoo
Biography
Ann Ronald

The Blue Tattoo

THE BLUE TATTOO: THE STORY OF OLIVE OATMAN Margot Mifflin‘s The Blue Tattoo follows a long history of tales of Indian captivity. A True History

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Biography
Neal Ferguson

The Invention of Nature

The Invention of Nature – Alexander von Humboldt’s New World Territorial Nevadans in the 19th century considered naming their new state-to-be Humboldt. Instead, the famous

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