EX LIBRIS

“Eugene O’Neill, Son and Artist” by Louis Sheaffer. 750 pp. with illustrations and notes. This is the second volume in the biography of the Nobel winning playwright, taking up his life and career with productions of The Iceman Cometh and Mourning Becomes Electra and his residence at Tao House, now a national monument open to the public in Danville, California.
“Care of the Soul” by Thomas Moore. A careful study of means to enrich daily life with more full attention to the ordinary actions that can lead to a sense of the numinous in our lives. The author offers a Jungian perspective that borders on the Buddhist approach to acceptance. In our library shelved at 158.l MOORE; check it out.
“The Broken Tower: A Life of Hart Crane,” by Paul L. Mariani. “Hart Crane’s life is the purest, saddest fable of the artist’s fate. He was our American Orpheus, our ecstatic visionary savaged by demons. With rare sympathy and a vivid narrative the author illuminates the poet’s energies and pathos, the arching, aching firework of his astonishing career.” (from the McClatchy review). The film by James Franco is now on DVD, but not yet in our collection.
“Fidel and Che: A Revolutionary Friendship,” by Simon Reid-Henry. 431 pp. with notes and illustrations. The author presents a sympathetic account of the close collaboration of  two of the most celebrated leaders of the Cuban revolution and their clash with the super powers of Russia and the United States. The book provides an inside view of the American invasion of the island and also the installation of the nuclear missiles which almost brought the cold war to a hot end, with Cuba as a pawn in the game. Better than any novel; check it out.
NEW: “The Village: 400 Years of Beats and Bohemians, Radicals and Rogues, A History of Greenwich Village by John Strausbaugh; 624 pp. with notes and illustrations.  With more emphasis on the last 150 years, the author has compiled an impressive collection of details drawn from contemporary accounts and recent residents. The reader will find plenty of lurid tales of artists who have consistently lead the avant garde in each of the arts and sometimes became an adjunct of Paris’ Left Bank.
“Gellhorn: A Twentieth Century Life,” by Caroline Moorehead; 463 pp. with illustrations. Here is the story of a legendary war correspondent whose life crossed that of many historic figures: Eleanor Roosevelt, Ernest Hemingway (she hated mention of him and their five- year stormy marriage), Maxwell Perkins (her editor), and many others.
The DVD, “Gellhorn and Hemingway,” gives an excellent coverage of their time in the Spanish civil war and led me to this book. Check it out.