Brookland

Brookland is a wonderful historical epic with a strong female character. This is the story of the first Brooklyn Bridge. The book was awarded a starred review in Publishers Weekly and by my estimation, deservedly so. Three sisters run a gin distillery, organize and build the long bridge out of wood.......more

i loved this book ... brooklyn heights in the late 1700's. i read it nine months ago or so & i still think about it. emily barton wove so tight and deep a story ... i'm not sure i've ever read something before where i have stepped back and been totally in awe of the writer's endurance ... wondered w......more

The story of a woman who designs then has built a bridge over the East River from Brooklyn to Manhattan in 1800, about 100 years before the actual Brooklyn Bridge was built. This is amazingly well written, and basically a study of small-town people interacting among themselves and reluctantly with th......more

I am completely in love with this unusual, challenging, soothing book. I want to recommend it for so many reasons - as a parameter-defying example of what historical fiction should aspire to be; for all the lovely New York moments; as a blanket rebuke to all the hipsters; for being the only American......more

As a (kind of) writer of historical fiction with female main characters, I was excited to read about Prue Winship's foray into bridge-building and to see what Brooklyn was like over two centuries ago. Instead, it made me nervous that my historical fiction was as trite, long-winded and BORING as this......more