5 New Contract Bridge Books for Your Reading List
By Alex J. Coyne © Great Bridge Links 2021
If you’re an enthusiastic bridge reader, here’s the best news you might receive this month: A handful of brand new bridge books have just appeared on eBooksBridge and the BridgeWinners online store!
Convention nuts are covered with KK Relay. Students of bridge culture are sure to love every page of Bridge at the Top: Behind the Screens, a new collection of interviews by Professor Samantha Punch.
Setting up your bridge-related reading list for the month? Don’t know which books to buy the bridge player who already seems to have everything? Once you’ve made your way through most of the bridge classics, it’s time to hit the new releases list.
Check out these 5 new contract bridge books fresh off the press.
1. Bridge at the Top: Behind the Screens
Professor Samantha Punch
Bridge at the Top: Behind the Screens is a closer look at the insider’s world of bridge.
Professor Samantha Punch interviews some of the biggest personalities in modern bridge for their thoughts. Bridge coaches, players, and other experts answer questions and give their best bridge tip. We’re living in changing times, and could very well be in another golden age of cards!
Fans of interviews, documentaries, and popular culture will certainly want to add this one to their bookshelf.
Available after the BAMSA Conference (June, 2021), it’s sure to be an excellent read.
If you’d like to catch up with the professor’s bridge research too, see Bridge: A Mindsport for All).
2. KK Relay
Lovers and students of bridge conventions should take a look at the newest release by Karen McCallum and Kit Woolsey. KK Relay is an in-depth look at their own personalised bridge convention, known as a relay system, which asks for a response rather than states a bid.
Recommended for any bridge players who want to know more, or want to better their advanced knowledge. It’s heavy in bridge theory, but that’s what you can expect when buying a book on a singular bridge convention!
Are you a convention collector?
Well, there’s no other way: KK Relay has to be the next book on your reading list!
3. Test Your Bridge Judgement
Barry Rigal
Test Your Bridge Judgement is a previously released bridge classic. Many readers might already have a first-edition copy of it on their e readers or shelf – and if you do, there are reasons to add the newest release of it.
The book has been reworked and updated for its current version. While not an entirely new book, it’s been added to enough to have even more to teach. Haven’t read it at all yet? That’s an even better reason to get it now!
If you’re into bridge puzzles, questionnaires, and trivia, this is a worthy buy.
4. Parrish the Thought (Book 1): Preempts and Overcalls
Adam Parrish
Parrish the Thought is a clever-named look at preempts and overcalls. Adam Parrish is well-known for his bridge fiction, though this book gets straight into theory – and without the need to terrify the reader with concepts they haven’t learned yet.
Like a good first date, Parrish takes it slow. He eases the reader into it, and lets you control the pace before moving on with the next bit of the book.
Anyone who needs a solid foundation in specific bridge topics will appreciate working through this title.
5. The Partnership Coup
Adam Parrish
The Partnership Coup is also from bridge writer Adam Parrish, but instead a return to card fiction mixed with bits-and-pieces of theory. Fans of mystery fiction, bridge fiction, Poirot or Sherlock, and investigative tales are especially encouraged to check it out!
This one stands out as a sequel. Bridge at the Cranmer Club is first, released in 2014 and available from Amazon. Just in case you haven’t read the first one, its second makes perfect sense as a stand-alone plot.