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

U.S. History

Fiction
Ann Ronald

Jarrettsville

Jarrettsville fictionalizes a true event that occurred on the fourth anniversary of the Confederate surrender at Appomattox. The novel opens with the traumatic, climactic scene.

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History
Neal Ferguson

One Summer: America 1927

One Summer: America, 1927 As advertised in the title, 1927 is the hook that Bill Bryson embeds in his engaging historical perspectives. If you are

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History
Neal Ferguson

Men of War

Men of War: The American Soldier in Combat at Bunker Hill, Gettysburg, and Iwo Jima As a former soldier in the American Civil War, Oliver

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Biography
Ann Ronald

Book of Ages

Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin Virginia Woolf, writing A Room of One’s Own, invented a sister for Shakespeare. Judith Shakespeare,

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Brown Girl Dreaming
Autobiography/Memoir
Sunny Solomon

Brown Girl Dreaming

Award-wining author Jacqueline Woodson’s Brown Girl Dreaming may have been published for middle and young adult readers, but this is a book for every reader,

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Fiction
Sunny Solomon

Two Civil War Novels

Two Civil War Novels: I Shall Be Near to You    and    Neverhome Erin Lindsay McCabe and Laird Hunt each envision the American Civil

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Historical Fiction
Ann Ronald

The Wives of Los Alamos

TaraShea Nesbit made a stunningly smart decision when she wrote The Wives of Los Alamos. She chose to tell their stories through a collective consciousness

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Biography
Neal Ferguson

Fierce Patriot

Fierce Patriot: The Tangled Lives of William Tecumseh Sherman The American Civil War lives on in our imaginations. A few of the war’s events can

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Military History
Ann Ronald

Drift

Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power If you enjoy watching “The Rachel Maddow Show” each evening on MSNBC (and I do), you will relish

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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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History
Neal Ferguson

Empires, Nations and Families

Empires, Nations & Families: A History of the North American West, 1800-1860 Although my professional life as a historian has been devoted almost exclusively to

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