The FOL bookcase faces the volunteers’ desk. (Photo by Joan Pursley)
Joan Muyskens Pursley
Friends of the Library (FOL) recently purchased a number of new books for our library. They supplement the many donations we get from residents and help round out our collections. For example, most FOL purchases include large print books, which are rarely donated. FOL’s current purchase included 13 large print books, all fiction. They are:
- Sandra Brown’s Blood Moon
- Elise Hooper’s Angels of the Pacific: A Novel of World War II
- Piper Huguley’s By Her Own Designs
- Judith Keim’s Waves of Hope
- Sharon Kurtzman’s The Lost Baker of Vienna
- Jo Jo Moyes’s Night Music
- James Patterson’s Emma on Fire
- Louise Penny’s A World of Curiosities
- Everett Percival’s James (This re-imagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn received a 2024 Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award for Fiction and an Audie Award for Literary Fiction and Classics.)
- Jo Piazza’s Everyone Is Lying to You
- Jodi Picoult’s Wish You Were Here
- Kate Quinn’s The Rose Code
- Jeanette Wall’s’ Hang the Moon
Thirty-two additional fiction books were purchased. Among them were John Steinbeck’s Cannery Row, Ruth Reichl’s The Paris Novel, Colum McCann’s Twist, Robert Dugoni’s Killing on the Hill, and four Freida McFadden novels.
New nonfiction books cover a variety of topics. For instance, Chloe Dalton’s memoir Raising Hare (a finalist for the 2025 Women’s Prize) is a meditation on freedom, trust, loss, and our relationship with the natural world, explored through the story of one woman’s unlikely friendship with a wild hare. Vastly different is Alexie Navalny’s memoir Patriot. Published posthumously, it chronicles his youth leading to his movement against Vladimir Putin and subsequent imprisonment.
Then there’s Golden Years: How Americans Invented and Reinvented Old Age, by historian James Chappel. It covers how old age first emerged as a distinct stage of life and how it evolved over the last century.
New books for history lovers include Taking Manhattan: Events That Shaped America, by Russell Shorto; Waiting Game: The Women Who Served the Tudor Queens, by Nicola Clark; Dictionary People, by Sarah Ogilvie; Somewhere Toward Freedom: Sherman’s March and the Story of America’s Largest Emancipation, by Bennet Parten; Night Flyer: Harriet Tubman and the Faith Dreams of a Free People, by Tiya Miles; and Last Gangster in Austin, by Jesse Sublett. An extraordinary true story, Last Gangster in Austin paints a picture of the Texas capital as a place that was “wild, wonderful, and as crooked as the dirt road to paradise,” writes Amazon. These and other new purchases are on the FOL bookcase.
Our library, located in the CATC building, is open daily from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. Helpful volunteer staff are available Monday through Thursday from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., Fridays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and weekends from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. For more information, visit www.RobsonLibrary.org. Note: You need a PDK phone app or card to enter and exit the library. If your app does not work during staffed hours, knock, and a volunteer will admit you. The app and card are available at the HOA office in the clubhouse.