GAMBLE LIBRARY NEWS

GAMBLE LIBRARY: BOOKS

·         FICTION additions:

1.    Acqua Alta by Donna Leon; Commissario Brunetti faces rising waters in Venice . --and murder during a winter tempest.

2.    The Spy and The Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War by Ben Macintyre; the story of Oleg Gordievsky and Aldrich Ames.

3.    Q is for Quarry by Sue Grafton; large print

·         NON-FICTION additions:

#100 – Grieving with Hope: Finding Comfort As You Journey Through Loss by

Samuel Hodges IV & Kathy Leonard

#100 – Pointed Reflections by Vartkes Kassouni

#700 – MUSIC: The Definitive Visual History – This lavishly-illustrated book is a gift

from Catherine Thompson, a professor at Pasadena Community College,

who has taught a music class here at MVGH for numerous years.

#900 – Brave Companions: Portraits in History by David McCullough

·         Two marvelous ART BOOKS have been donated:

#700 – William Morris, edited by Linda Parry

#700 – Arts & Crafts Gardens by Wendy Hitchmough, photos by Martin Charles

Note: These two books will be shelved to the right of the Fireplace, alongside similar books.

A gem of a book I recently discovered in the #920 section is: Shantung Compound: The Story of Men and Women Under Pressure.  The author, Langdon Gilkey, was a young American teacher at a university near Peking (now Beijing) when in March 1943, the Japanese military rounded up 2,000 foreigners into the Weihsien civilian internment camp, where they were kept for the last two and a half years of WWII. The mixed group of missionaries (including several Presbyterians), businessmen, teachers, etc., included Eric Liddell, the famous Scottish athlete and missionary, who died at the camp. (His story was told in two movies: Chariots of Fire and On Wings of Eagles.)  Gilkey wrote this book 20 years after the war after becoming a Protestant theologian.  The book is “a fascinating memoir that is both a vivid diary of prison life and a theologian’s mature reflection on the condition of man in times of stress” (Time Magazine).  This copy of the book is tattered, but the book is well worth the read.

Finally, it’s worth mentioning last month’s non-fiction additions once more:  

·         Lincoln in Private: What His Most Personal Reflections Tell Us About Our Greatest President by Ronald C White.  The book “walks readers through 12 of Lincoln's most important private notes.”  

·         Dinners with Ruth: A Memoir on the Power of Friendships by Nina Totenberg.  The celebrated NPR correspondent “delivers an extraordinary memoir of her personal successes, struggles, and life-affirming relationships, including her beautiful friendship of nearly 50 years with Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.” 

 Rachel Lausch