Charles Henry Goren was an American bridge player and writer who significantly developed and popularized the game. He was the leading American bridge personality in the 1950s and 1960s – or 1940s and 1950s, as "Mr. Bridge" – as Ely Culbertson had been in the 1930s. Culbertson, Goren, and Harold Vanderbilt were the three people named when The Bridge World inaugurated a bridge "hall of fame" in 1964 and they were made founding members of the ACBL Hall of Fame in 1995.
Robert's Rules of Order, often simply referred to as Robert's Rules, is a manual of parliamentary procedure by U.S. Army officer Henry Martyn Robert. "The object of Rules of Order is to assist an assembly to accomplish the work for which it was designed ... Where there is no law ... there is the least of real liberty." The term "Robert's Rules of Order" is also used more generically to refer to any of the more recent editions, by various editors and authors, based on any of Robert's original editions, and the term is used more Generically in the United States to refer to parliamentary procedure. Robert's manual was first published in 1876 as an adaptation of the rules and practice of the United States Congress to the needs of non-legislative societies. Robert's Rules is the most widely used manual of parliamentary procedure in the United States. It governs the meetings of a diverse range of organizations—including church groups, county commissions, homeowners associations, nonprofit associations, professional societies, school boards, and trade unions—that have adopted it as their parliamentary authority. Robert published four editions of the manual before his death in 1923, the last being the thoroughly revised and expanded Fourth Edition published as Robert's Rules of Order Revised in May 1915.
The Complete Plain Words, titled simply Plain Words in its 2014 revision, is a style guide written by Sir Ernest Gowers, published in 1954. It has never been out of print. It comprises expanded and revised versions of two pamphlets that he wrote at the request of HM Treasury, Plain Words (1948) and ABC of Plain Words (1951). The aim of the book is to help officials in their use of English as a tool of their trade. To keep the work relevant for readers in subsequent decades it has been revised by Sir Bruce Fraser in 1973, by Sidney Greenbaum and Janet Whitcut in 1986, and by the original author's great-granddaughter Rebecca Gowers in 2014.
Pirkei Avot, which translates to English as Chapters of the Fathers, is a compilation of the ethical teachings and maxims from Rabbinic Jewish tradition. It is part of didactic Jewish ethical literature. Because of its contents, the name is sometimes given as Ethics of the Fathers. Pirkei Avot consists of the Mishnaic tractate of Avot, the second-to-last tractate in the order of Nezikin in the Mishnah, plus one additional chapter. Avot is unique in that it is the only tractate of the Mishnah dealing solely with ethical and moral principles; there is relatively little halakha (laws) in Pirkei Avot.
Ray Comfort is a New Zealand-born Christian minister and evangelist who lives in the United States. Comfort started Living Waters Publications, as well as the ministry The Way of the Master, in Bellflower, California, and has written several books.
A bridge convention is an agreement about an artificial call or a set of related artificial calls. Calls made during the auction phase of a contract bridge game convey information about the player's card holdings. Calls may be "natural" or "artificial".
John Terence Reese was a British bridge player and writer, regarded as one of the finest of all time in both fields. He was born in Epsom, Surrey, England to middle-class parents, and was educated at Bradfield College and New College, Oxford, where he studied classics and attained a double first, graduating in 1935.
Alan Fraser Truscott was a British-American bridge player, writer, and editor. He wrote the daily bridge column for The New York Times for 41 years, from 1964 to 2005, and served as Executive Editor for the first six editions of The Official Encyclopedia of Bridge from 1964 to 2002.
The English Bridge Union or EBU is a player-funded organisation that promotes and organises the card game of duplicate bridge in England. It is based at offices in Aylesbury. The EBU is a member of the European Bridge League and thus affiliated with the World Bridge Federation, which promulgates the laws of the game.
Ron Klinger is an Australian contract bridge player and a leading English-language bridge writer, the author of more than 70 books on the game. He is an Australian Grand Master and a World Bridge Federation International Master.
Richard Wayne Peck was an American novelist known for his prolific contributions to modern young adult literature. He was awarded the Newbery Medal in 2001 for his novel A Year Down Yonder. For his cumulative contribution to young-adult literature, he received the Margaret A. Edwards Award from the American Library Association in 1990.
Mouni Sadhu was the nom de plume of Mieczyslaw Demetriusz Sudowski, an author of spiritual, mystical and esoteric subjects. Although born in Poland and living there until the outbreak World War II, he eventually settled in Australia and became a naturalised Australian citizen in the early 1950s. As a writer his subject matter concerned Western and Eastern spirituality firstly, and also occultism both Western and Eastern, including Hermeticism, and the Yoga tradition of India. His greatest personal influence was Ramana Maharshi. The name "Mouni Sadhu" means "Silent" (Mouni) Holy man (Sadhu) or monk in Sanskrit.
Marc Smith is a British bridge player, columnist and writer. Marc Smith represented Great Britain as a junior, winning the 1985 European Union Junior Teams Championship. He has a host of wins in national events, and reached the final of the World Mixed Pairs Championship playing with his wife, Charlotte. His book, co-authored with Barbara Seagram, 25 Bridge Conventions You Should Know, won the American Bridge Teachers' Association 1999 Shirley Silverman Award for Best Student Book.
Barbara Seagram is a Canadian Registered Nurse and contract bridge writer, teacher, and administrator. She is co-author of thirty-two published bridge books, including co-writing with Marc Smith 25 Bridge Conventions You Should Know, which received the American Bridge Teachers' Association (ABTA) Book of the Year award in 1999. The book is in its 19th printing and has been translated into French, German, Japanese, Portuguese and Danish.
Planning the Play of a Bridge Hand is a book on contract bridge co-written by the Canadian teacher and author Barbara Seagram and the British author David Bird. It was published by Master Point Press in 2009.
Conquest of Mind is a book that describes practices and strategies for leading the spiritual life. Written by Eknath Easwaran, the strategies are intended to be usable within any major religious tradition, or outside of all traditions. The book was originally published in the United States in 1988. Multiple revised English-language editions have been published, and translations have also appeared in several other European and Asian languages. The book has been reviewed in newspapers and magazines.
Why You Lose at Bridge is a book about the game of contract bridge by the Russian-born English bridge player S. J. "Skid" Simon (1904–48), first published in 1945. It contains practical advice directed mainly towards rubber bridge players, and introduces to the world four stereotypical bad players: Mr Smug, the Unlucky Expert, Mrs Guggenheim, and Futile Willie. It has been much admired by duplicate bridge players as well as by rubber bridge players, and Simon's fictional characters have passed into legend.
Candlekeep Mysteries is an adventure anthology for the 5th edition of the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game.
