The Fight for City and Suburban Homes: A Model For Successful Community Action
by Anne Ashby Gilbert (Coalition to Save City & Suburban Housing, $10)

As I write this column, I realize that it has been five years since I began writing this column. So for this issue in the way of celebration, I will feature some of my book reviews from this period of time.

In November of 1999, I wrote: The Fight for City and Suburban Homes: A Model for Successful Community Action by Anne Ashby Gilbert is a wonderfully concise history of dedicated private citizens organizing a group called Coalition to Save City and Suburban Housing to fight for the complete land marking of the fourteen buildings, then owned by Peter Kalikow, located between East 79th Street on the north and East 78th Street on the south. This book is one of thanksgivings for the modern day saint-like people who toiled for a decade to preserve the city and suburban homes complex. Included in the book is an appendix for Ten Elements for Community Action, most helpful principles for community work.” To this day tours are still given of this housing complex by members of the Coalition. Betty Cooper Wallerstein, one of the Coalition leaders is head of the very active East 79th Street Association. This book is available at Logos and a worthy addition to one’s bookshelf of books about New York City.

The Bookshop
by Penelope Fitzgerald (Mariner Books/Houghton Mifflin, $10).

From May 1998, I wrote: “As a bookstore owner, I find Penelope Fitzgerald’s The Bookshop (originally published in Britain in 1978, published for the first time in the United States in 1997) a very haunting tale. The travails of a bookshop owner are many

and Florence Green’s were especially poignant. Living in an old deserted house, running a bookshop and dealing with a small town more interested in a lending library than purchasing books, Green had already major challenges opening a new business without incurring the enmity of a wealthy lady who wanted to turn the site of the bookshop into an arts center. The denouement of this story is quite moving.”

Staurt Little
by E.B. White (Harper Collins Harper Trophy Paperback $4.95).

I conclude in May of 1998 with the following: “A classic for children and adults alike, E.B. White’s Stuart Little is a marvelous book for spring, great adventures and new beginnings. Who can forget the sailboat race Stuart has in the Central Park toy boat with the fat boy named Leroy who wears a blue serge suit with a white necktie stained with orange juice? There is also Stuart’s friendship with Margalo the bird who saves him from a garbage truck and then heads up north when spring comes. Stuart sets out to find her and has more memorable adventures on the road of life.” Happy Spring!

Transit: #4, #5, #6 Lexington Avenue Subway to 86^th St., M15 Bus (First & Second Aves.), M86 Bus (86^th St.), M79 Bus (79th St.), M31 Bus (York Ave.)

Upcoming Events At Logos
Wednesday, May 7, 2003 at 7 P.M., KYTV will discuss Atonement by Ian McEwan
Wednesday, May 14, 21 and 28, Study and Discussion of Augustine’s City Of God at 7 P.M.
Wednesday, June 4, at 7 P.M., KYTV will discuss Daniel Deronda by George Eliot
Children’s Story Time every Monday at 3:30 P.M.

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