Sotomayor is a history-maker by virtue of her ethnic background and gender: the first Hispanic and only the third woman to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court. Best-selling biographer Felix's biography of Associate Justice Sotomayor is journalistic in tone and treatment, but it is good, responsible, nonsensational journalism, proving to be necessary reading for anyone interested in gathering a solid, accurate picture of this remarkable woman. Bronx-born and -raised, she benefited from her mother's emphasis on the importance of education. (Sonia has been unstinting in her praise of her mother as the locus of her success in school and after.) Her undergraduate years at Princeton informed the rest of her life; law school at Yale gave her a professional focus. Five years in the district attorney's office in New York City “did nothing less than imprint her with the legal skills and approach to the law that would define the rest of her career.” Later, she transitioned from corporate lawyering to the federal bench, and the rest is history—though a history yet to be concluded. --Brad Hooper