Library
Additional Information
The library offers books in Polish, books about Poland in English, and some English translations of major Polish writers. The books can be borrowed by members of the Polish Library. Membership to the Library is free to all members of the Polish American Club of Sacramento, Inc.in good standing.
From time to time we show a movie with English subtitles (or in English) on Friday nights. Check the calendar on the Home page or our Events on our Facebook page. We encourage everyone to give us a list of movies that they would like to see.
Library Hours: Upon appointment or during club meetings
Recent Additions to the Library:
- A History of Polish Culture by Bogdan Suchodolski, 1987
- Polish Art and Architecture 1890-1980by Andrzej Olszewski, 1989
- Poland - Insight Guides, 2002
- Double Vision: My life in Film by Andrzej Wajda, 1989
- The Devil Tree by Jerzy Kosiński, 1973
- Communicating in Polishby Bernard Penny & Krystyna Malinowska
- Advanced, Polish dialogs with Polish-English Dictionary - Department of State - Foreign Service Institute Publication, 1974
- Pulaski: Hero of Two Continents by Anthony Zaleski - short note, printed in Chicago
- The Great Powers and Poland, 1919-1945: From Versailles to Yalta by Jan Karski
- The Polish Peasant in Europe and America by William Thomas and Florian Znaniecki, vol. I & II
- Travellers Poland by Marc di Duca - Thomas Cookseries
- The Peasant Prince: Thaddeus Kosciuszko and the Age of Revolution by Alex Storożynski
- They Came in Ships: Finding Your Immigrant Ancestor's Arrival Recordby John Philip Colletta
- Katyn (DVD) - directed by Andrzej Wajda, 2007
- The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler - Hallmark DVD (2009)
- In Search of Your European Roots by Angus Baxter
- World War II: Behind Closed Doors: Stalin, the Nazis and the West DVD, produced by BBC
- The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569-1999 by Timothy Snyder
- Polish Proverbs by Joanne Asala
- Lost in Translation: A Life in a New Language by Eva Hoffman
- Polish Heritage Cookeryby Robert and Maria Strybel
- Mastering Polish, with two accompanying CDs, by Albert Juszczak
- Madame Curie: A Biography by Eve Curie
- Testaments: Two Novellas Of Emigration & Exile by Danuta Mostwin
- Polish Touches: Recipes and Traditions by Jacek Nowakowski
- DVD The Rape of Europaby Menemsha Films
- A Concise History of Poland by Jerzy Łukowski and Hubert Zawadzki (revised edition 2007)
- Basic Polish: Learn to Speak and Understand Polish by Simon & Schuster's Pimsleur Audio CDs
Recommended Reading
Memories of Smoke and Ashes - A World War II Story by Andre Pohlman
The Peasant Prince: Thaddeus Kosciuszko and the Age of Revolution by Alex Storozynski
The Peasant Prince: Thaddeus Kosciuszko and the Age of Revolution by Alex Storozynski
Andre (Andrzej) Pohlman was born in pre-war Poland and today lives in Northern California (he has got his own website http://www.andrepohlman.com). Here is what he says about himself and his book:
I was born in Przemyśl and both my parents were from Lwów. As a child I experienced the Nazi occupation of Poland and the Red Army Siege and occupation of Budapest. My experiences and the tales my mother told me were part of my being. It was something so powerful that I could not forget it. Finally, encouraged by friends and family who know of my background I wrote a book: Memories of Smoke and Ashes. A World War II Story.
The book is written as a novel. Of course my own vivid recollections and my mother's tales are the backbone of the book. In fact the main character is based on my mother. I also try to keep the story within the historical context and time frame and use the actual names of historical figures.
The Peasant Prince: Thaddeus Kosciuszko and the Age of Revolution by Alex Storozynski
The Peasant Prince: Thaddeus Kosciuszko and the Age of Revolution by Alex Storozynski
The Peasant Prince: Thaddeus Kosciuszko and the Age of Revolution by Alex Storozynski
From Newsweek.com: a sweeping, colorful, and absorbing biography that should restore Kosciuszko to his proper place in history. President of the Kosciuszko Foundation, which promotes Polish-American educational exchanges, Storozynski is also a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who knows how to tell a good story. In his account, Kosciuszko - as soldier in America and then a revolutionary in his homeland - exemplified some of the best ideals of his era. He also experienced some of its worst betrayals and disappointments. ... Emancipation was "a controversial idea ahead of his time," Storozynski writes - just, as this stirring biography makes clear, like the man himself.
Polish Heritage Cookery by Robert and Maria Strybel
The Peasant Prince: Thaddeus Kosciuszko and the Age of Revolution by Alex Storozynski
Testaments: Two Novellas Of Emigration & Exile by Danuta Mostwin
Is considered the most extensive and varied Polish cookbook ever published in English, with over 2,200 recipes in 29 categories (and 887 pages), written especially for Americans with American weights, measures and temperatures. Each recipe is indexed under its American and Polish name. Included are elegant gourmet dishes, simple peasant cookery, and everything in between. Both traditional and simplified versions of Polish classic recipes are provided, together with countless hints and shortcuts to achieving traditional flavors by using commonly available items and modern appliances.
The book includes numerous cultural notes, historical accounts of Polish culinary traditions, and descriptive line drawings. However the recipes are in paragraph format without a list of ingredients so one need to read the entire recipe before gathering all the ingredients. And there are no recipe photographs - only a small section of pictures in the middle of the book. If you are cooking for a Polish-American family, this book will be a help in finding new dishes as well as a reference for the traditional dishes that people of Polish heritage have in their souls.
Testaments: Two Novellas Of Emigration & Exile by Danuta Mostwin
The Great Powers and Poland, 1919-1945: From Versailles to Yalta by Jan Karski
Testaments: Two Novellas Of Emigration & Exile by Danuta Mostwin
Danuta Mostwin is herself a post-World War II Polish immigrant to the United States. She is an accomplished scholar and well published novelist. She devoted her scholarly career to the study of immigrants trapped between cultural worlds. Her books, until now unavailable in English translation, bridge the divide between Poland and America, exile and emigration. Danuta Mostwin has been the recipient of numerous international awards for her f iction and in 2006 she was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature.
The novellas in this volume, The Last Will of Blaise Twardowski and Jocasta, are the first of her works published in English. Deeply melancholic and moving in its unsentimental depiction of ordinary people trying to make sense of their uprooted lives, Testaments presents two powerful and very tragic vignettes of life of Polish immigrants in America.
Mostwin writes how hard it was for Polish immigrants to leave their homeland and to build new lives, how they struggled with loneliness and isolation. She accurately describes the tensions that arose among the different generations of immigrants, and shows the diversity of the Polish American community. This publication provides an introduction to Mostwin's work that will ensure that she is recognized as the creator of one of the most nuanced and deeply moving pictures of emigration and exile in Polish-American literature.
Quiet Hero: Secrets From My Father's Past by Rita Cosby
The Great Powers and Poland, 1919-1945: From Versailles to Yalta by Jan Karski
The Great Powers and Poland, 1919-1945: From Versailles to Yalta by Jan Karski
Emmy Award-winning journalist Rita Cosby wrote the book about her father and his youth as a Polish resistance fighter in World War II. Here's what she says about it:
I knew little of my father's youth when I was growing up: just that he had left Poland after World War II, and that his many scars, visible and not, bore mute witness to some past tragedy. When I was eight years old, I first noticed the scars etched across my father's body as something "different," but when I asked about them, my mother quickly told me, "We don't talk about it."
In Fall 2008, that all changed. It had been several years since my mother's passing and I finally nerved myself to go through the remainder of her belongings. It is a painful task for any child, and I had no idea what I would discover. I found a tattered old suitcase my mother had tucked away full of mementos, including a worn Polish Resistance armband, rusted tags bearing a prisoner number, and an identity card for an ex-POW named Ryszard Kossobudzki. These relics would lead me on a journey that would become the most amazing story of my life.
The Great Powers and Poland, 1919-1945: From Versailles to Yalta by Jan Karski
The Great Powers and Poland, 1919-1945: From Versailles to Yalta by Jan Karski
The Great Powers and Poland, 1919-1945: From Versailles to Yalta by Jan Karski
Jan Karski (1914 - 2000), was a hero of the Polish Home Army. In 1942 and 1943 he reported to the Polish government in exile in London and the Western Allies, including Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Franklin D. Roosevelt, on the situation in German-occupied Poland, especially the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto and the extermination camps. He had firsthand knowledge about that because he was smuggled into the Warsaw Ghetto and also spent a day in a death camp. In 1944 he published the book "Story of a Secret State", which detailed the Polish resistance fight, recounted his exploits, and described the realities of the Holocaust. It became a best-seller book in the United States.
After the war Karski was unable to return to communist-ruled Poland and made his home in the United States. For 40 years he taught at Georgetown University in the areas of East European affairs, comparative government and international affairs, rising to become one of the most celebrated and notable members of its faculty. In 1954, he became a citizen of the United States. In 1974, he was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to inspect Polish, British, and French archives. He spent more than a decade on the historical work "The Great Powers and Poland: 1919-1945", published in 1985 by University Press of America. In this book Karski demonstrated very wise, calm, rational thinking about Polish policy and Poland's international position. He documented Poland's inability to play an independent and effective role in the international arena. It is an opposite view to the "we won't surrender even a shirt button" attitude. The attitude of flexing muscles that, in reality, you do not have. Karski wrote very clearly it was a road to nowhere.