By Cathy Ingalls, Albany Regional Museum board member
There’s a mini bookstore in Albany that many probably know nothing about.
It’s located in the lobby of the Albany Regional Museum and includes historical fiction and non-fiction accounts of Oregon and the immediate area.
Anyone who makes a purchase and mentions the city of Albany’s newsletter “City Bridges” will get a 10 percent discount, said museum director Keith Lohse. By offering the price break, the museum wants to recognize the good working relationship it has with the city.
The historical column that appears on the museum’s website also can be found in each edition of City Bridges.
Here is a list of some of the books available at the museum.
Jim Lindsay, who was born in Corvallis in 1947, has written the sequel “Swerve: The Little Bastards 2” to his novel “The Little Bastards.”
Lindsay, who lives on the same farm where he was raised, writes of America in the 1950s, the era of rock ‘n’ roll, fast cars and what seemed at the time like the possibility of eternal youth.
His book sells for $20.
Jennifer Chambers, a free-lance writer, editor, writing instructor and part owner of Groundwaters Publishing, writes about strong women in her book “Remarkable Oregon Women, Revolutionaries and Visionaries.”
Chapters in her book deal with Native American women, women who came across the Oregon Trail, educators, entertainers, women who built ships during World War II and the woman who unseated her husband as mayor of Umatilla.
Chambers also wrote the book “Abigail Scott Duniway and Susan B. Anthony in Oregon”. The two women traveled for months on horseback, carriage, train and boat in their effort to bring the right to vote to women.
Both books sell for $21.99.
Author Tai Stith’s two books “The Heart of Abshire House” and “The Incredible Secrets of Hadley Hill,” are for sale in paperback.
Stith is a writer, researcher, explorer, and she is the creative director of Rocketship Graphic Design. Her stories are inspired by forgotten true stories of the past.
The characters in the Abshire book discover the heartbreaking tale about a family that occupied a house a hundred years earlier.
In the Hadley Hill book, a young girl must move from urban San Francisco to a small rural town and deal with its solitude.
Both books sell for $15.99.
Former Albany-area state senator Mae Yih has written a book titled “East Meets West: A Bridge to Understanding Friendship, Trust, Peace and Prosperity Between My Mother and Adopted Countries.
Yih made history in 1976 when she became the first Chinese-American woman ever elected to a state legislature in the United States.
In her book she shares her story of a privileged life in China, her immigration to America and her political career.
The book sells for $20.
Albany author Ed Loy has two paperback books at the museum: “Gem of the Willamette Valley: A History of Albany, Oregon” and “Tim Burr,” a history of the World Championship Albany Timber Carnival.
The gem of the valley details the Albany area from Native American times to the present. The 417-page book contains more than 100 illustrations and features profiles of citizens who contributed to the city’s development.
The 220-page “Tim Burr” is about the timber carnival, the signature event in Albany for nearly 60 years until 2000. The championship logging sports competition drew more than a million spectators over the years.
The gem book sells for $24.95, and the timber carnival book costs $24.
Tom Luther is the author of articles, poems and technical manuals and the book “In Whose Arms?” The book relates the true story of newborn Judith Gurney, who was kidnapped in 1943 from an Albany hospital.
Luther married that “baby” in 1963, propelling him to find out more about the event by reviewing evidence, police interrogation transcripts, newspaper clippings and family documents.
The book sells for $10.
Available in mid-December will be “Linn County Memories II,” a pictorial of the places and people in the country.
More than 120 photographs are in the book and were contributed by residents and the Albany and Linn County museums. The large-format book is published by Pediment Publishing of Battleground, Wash.
The book will sell for $44.95.
The Albany Regional Museum at 136 Lyon St. S., is open from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturdays.
For more information call 541-967-7122 or visit www.armuseum.com.