​By Carol Van Why, Library Co-Chair

I grabbed Information Hunters: When Librarians, Soldiers, and Spies Banded Together in World War II Europe by Kathy Peiss from my Arizona public library’s Recent Arrivals bookshelf. It dovetailed nicely with my current reading binge, revolving around WWII, bookshops, libraries, and spies. 
 
My addiction began with finding Janet Skeslien Charles’ Paris Library and Madeline Martin’s Last Bookshop in London in the Coffman Library. Both titles share characteristics of good historical fiction—a mix of actual persons and places along with fictional ones. 
 
I’ve since read Madeline Martin’s Librarian Spy, Elizabeth Knight’s Mayfair Bookshop and Michelle Gable’s Bookseller’s Secret. Now my binge reading has expanded to encompass Nancy Mitford and her eccentric family members, some of them, notorious.  Read all of these books to see how they are intertwined.  

By Carol Van Why, Library Committee Co-Chair

When I’m in the mood for a cozy mystery I return to the Cat in the Stacks series by Miranda James.  The series’ reluctant sleuth often refers to his own love of authors associated with the Golden Age of detective fiction.  This period is loosely associated with the years between WWI and WWII.
 
Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers are the big names associated with the period.  Margery Allingham, Ngaio Marsh and Josephine Tey are also 

By Faye Herold, Co-Chair, Library Committee, originally published in the December 2022 issue of  the 1666 Coffman Newsletter

The scene: A housing project in Brooklyn called the Causeway, “where 3,500 Black and Spanish residents crammed their dreams, nightmares…children, parents and…cousins into 256 tiny apartments, all living under the thumb of the wonderfully corrupt New York City Housing Authority….”

The characters: Sister Veronica Gee—wife of the minister at Five Ends Baptist Church; Dominic LaFleur—the Haitian Cooking Sensation; Sister Bibb—the voluptuous church organist; Rufus Harley—maker of King Kong, a specially enjoyable blend of white lightning; the Elephant (Tommy Elefante)—Italian owner of construction and trucking businesses known for legal and illegal movement of merchandise; Deems Clemens, age nineteen—once the best player on the Cause’s baseball team, now the local provider of illegal drugs; Hot Sausage—the Cause House’s janitor and Sportcoat’s best friend; Sportcoat