Bridge Table or What's Trump Anyway?

Part pop culture, part history, part cookbook--Bridge Table or What's Trump Anyway? tells the story of this classic--and classy--card game and the decades-lasting bridge clubs it has created ever since the 1890s. This story, from a sociable-bridge-playing woman's viewpoint for the first time, is told in 52 short chapters of notes, quotes, anecdotes, comment, menus and recipes, even a few bits of poetry. It is the perfect gift for your bridge-playing friends whether they play sociable or serious bridge.

The American Contract Bridge League Bulletin said: "...wonderful history of contract bridge...makes a great case for why [sociable bridge] deserves new devotees...an unexpectedly fun read." And Marla Paul, author of Friendship Crisis (about the difficulty of making and keeping friends in this transient world) commented: "Now I know what's missing from my life. A weekly game of social bridge...can provide the social glue of life-long friendships."

Maggy Simony is 90 and, she believes, living witness to the benefits of playing bridge and staying mentally active. She's widowed, with three children, six grandchildren and living independently in Florida after spending almost 20 years, until 2003, in New Hampshire.

Interests--other than Bridge Table--are politics (a C-Span junkie), hanging out at libraries, playing bridge, reading, cooking and cookbooks, beachwalking. She worked as a court stenographer in WWII, and years later as a school secretary. After retiring, she took up typesetting and publishing books. In the 80s she published a 3-volume edition of Traveler's Reading Guide: Ready-made Reading Lists for the Armchair Traveler and later edited two updating single-volume editions of the Reading Guide under contract with Facts on File.

As to education, she quotes Ray Bradbury--"I never went to college, I went to the library."