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
ADULT BOOKSTORE – WHY POETRY TODAY? I love books, poetry, and bookstores (especially ones with used books). I write poetry, I read poetry, but I
A PIECE OF THE WORLD Any review of Christina Baker Kline’s novel, A Piece of the World, must begin with Andrew Wyeth’s masterpiece, “Christina’s World.”
THE ORPHAN MASTER’S SON – A MORE TIMELY READ THAN EVER Totalitarian is an old-fashioned word but then the Democratic People’s Republic of [North] Korea
IN THE NAME OF THE FAMILY I am a great fan of historical novelist Sarah Dunant. When I wrote a “Bookin’ with Sunny” review of
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
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
EDUCATED, A MEMOIR In 2014 at age twenty-seven, Idaho-born Tara Westover received a Ph.D. in history from Cambridge University, UK. Remarkable? Yes. Made more remarkable
WHAT THE EYES DON’T SEE The contributions of immigrants to the articulation of and striving towards the “American Dream” are unassailable. Those contributions are still
ANGLE OF REPOSE Because it is a new year doesn’t mean a reviewed book has to be new. If Wallace Stegner’s Angle of Repose hadn’t
MY KITCHEN YEAR Ruth Reichl: My Kitchen Year was reviewed by Ann Ronald in Bookin’ with Sunny in 2016. Ann’s review set the stage for
IN ANOTHER COUNTRY POEM BY POEM The poem: Prognosis An old man alone in a house full of books who spits in the sink
THE PAINTER OF BATTLES A book worth reading is a book worth talking about, but not always. Arturo Pèrez-Reverte is Spain’s popular author of literary
THE WEDNESDAY SISTERS – Meg Waite Clayton’s novel of a group of young women on the cusp of adulthood. The novel is filled with wisdom
KNOWN AND STRANGE THINGS If a picture is worth a thousand words, then my two photos of Teju Cole‘s collection of essays, Known and Strange
CASTE, MORE OF WILKERSON’S METICULOUS RESEARCH In Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, Isabel Wilkerson invites her readers to reconsider their inherent understanding of American
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