Book Talk/Book Review Selection List
Directions: Select ONE book from EACH Time Period Grouping (total of 3 books) and complete either a Book Talk of
Review for each book selected.
Group 1: Time Periods 1-3, 1491-1800
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The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and Thomas Jefferson
1776, by David McCullough
Common Sense by Thomas Paine
The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin by H.W. Brands
My Dearest Friend by Abigail and John Adam
1812: The War That Forged a Nation by Walter R. Borneman and Jeffrey Rogers Hommel
Columbus: the Four Voyages, 1492-1504 by Laurence Bergreen
Conquistador: Herman Cortes, King Montezuma and the Last Stand of the Aztecs by Buddy Levy
Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War by Nathaniel Philbrick
Conquest: Cortes, Montezuma and the Fall of Old Mexico by Hugh Thomas
Group 2: Time Period 4-6, 1800-1898
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The American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House by Jon Meacham
American Colossus: The Triumph of Capitalism 1865-1900 by H.W. Brands
The Gangs of New York by Herbert Asbury
Killer Angels: The Classic Novel of the Civil War by Michael Shaara
Blue Eyed Soldier of Fortune: Civil War Letters of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw by Robert G. Shaw
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave by Frederick Douglas
The Strange Career of Jim Crow by C. Vann Woodward
Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northrop
The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriett Beecher Stow
Grouping 3: Time period 7-9, 1898-present day
1) The Tycoons: How Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Jay Could, and JP Morgan invented the American
Supereconomy by Charles R. Morris
2) Born on the Fourth of July by Ron Kovic
3) The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
4) Sophie’s Choice by William Styron
5) All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
6) The Triumph of Improvisation: Gorbachev’s Adaptability, Reagan’s Engagements, and the End of the Cold War by
James Graham Wilson
7) The Help by Kathryn Stockett
8) The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X
9) A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry
10) We were Soldiers Once and Young by Hal Moore