Dear Great Book Guru, This weekend is the annual Sea Cliff Civic Association’s Progressive Dinner. Over twenty families open their homes to fellow Sea Cliffers with appetizers and dinner followed by dessert at the Sea Cliff Yacht Club - what a great evening! I would love to add a good book to the conversation. Any recommendations? Delighted Diner……… Dear Delighted Diner, One of my favorite authors - Ian McEwan (think ATONEMENT, THE CHILDREN ACT, NUTSHELL, etc.) - just came out with a new novel – WHAT WE CAN KNOW. The story is set in two distinct time periods - the opening chapters take place in 2119. A nuclear misfiring has changed the world’s topography. England and the Americas are largely submerged under sea, and Nigeria has become the financial and cultural capital of the world. Scholars are fixated on a poem written and read at a party in 2014. Tom Metcalf is first-person narrator and the poem’s chief researcher. He thinks he has found the missing clue to this mystery. Suddenly the book takes a dramatic turn back to 2014 and our narrator is Vivian, the woman for whom the poem was written. As she tells the story of that night, we realize how wrong we have all been. The motives, infatuations, and romantic entanglements provide us with a glimpse of the world we now live in and a world we might well be forging. Nothing in the past, present, or future can be trusted in this novel - highly recommended!

Dear Great Book Guru, Is there any time more beautiful in Sea Cliff than autumn? The light is perfectly diffused, the homes are bathed in magical colors, and the streets are abuzz with excitement- fairs, festivals, socials… Do you have a good book for me to read that captures this season? Fall Fanatic....... Dear Fall Fanatic, While I’m not sure this book captures all the joys of Fall, it is a great book and not to be missed: CLEAN by Alia Trabucco Zeran, an international prize-winning Chilean author. The story is told in the first person by Estela, a young housekeeper who was hired nine years before. Her employers - referred to only as Senor and Senora - have one child and we learn on the first page the child has died, and Estela is being questioned about the events leading up to the death. Estela goes back and forth over the nine years of her employment - the birth of the child, the marital difficulties of the parents, the child’s mysterious behavior, the indiscretions of the adults, and the many familial secrets that she has uncovered. We also learn about her mother, her early life in a remote rural village, and her overwhelming desire to return home. Throughout, we see the class differences that impact Estela’s daily existence plus the power her employers exert over her. She is a decidedly unreliable narrator, but our sympathies lie with her as we try to solve the mysterious death that is at the heart of this novel. A troubling but highly recommended read!

Dear Great Book Guru, What an amazing weekend here in Sea Cliff - first on Friday “Lights, Camera, Sea Cliff!”, the Sea Cliff Museum’s opening of a retrospective of films shot here in Sea Cliff from 1918 until the present! It was a gala celebration and so many of the Village came out to celebrate. Then on Saturday, the Sea Cliff Fire Department had its annual celebration/inspection of its equipment and volunteers. Many of its newest and oldest members were honored followed by a picnic at Tappen Beach. While at this event, I heard talk of a book about young men and the tragic lives they lived. Do you know about it? Lover of Sea Cliff Past and Present Dear Lover of Sea Cliff Past and Present, I too enjoyed the wonderful events of this Sea Cliff weekend and I’m guessing the book discussed was DOGS by C. Mallon. This is Mallon’s debut novel, and it is quite extraordinary. Told from the perspective of Hal, a late teen, this short book (almost a novella) takes place over one evening - an evening that will change the lives of his family, friends, and community. This book is definitely not for the squeamish. Hal and his friends live in Carbon, a small, fictional city, probably in Wyoming. The lives of the boys and a few of the girls are recounted in striking detail as we see the brutality that colors their everyday existence - most of which takes place in a shabby, malfunctioning car gotten under troubling circumstances. As the night goes on, we learn more about each of the characters. The last pages are very difficult to read but are almost poetic as lives explode in horrific detail. A disturbing book but worth the read – recommended.

Dear Great Book Guru, I always feel September is the time of beginnings - the real New Year - certainly not January – such a middling time of year! Saying that, I am looking to start the year off with a very good book, something out of my comfort zone. Any thoughts? Starting in September Dear Starting in September, Charlotte McConaghy’s WILD DARK SHORE might be a good book to start off your year. Set slightly in the future, this novel takes place in a very special place – a tiny island off Antarctica – Shearwater. Once a hub of scientific research, it is now deserted except for the Salt family, caretakers of what remains of the island after rising sea levels have almost destroyed it. The story opens with the Salts – Dominic and his three children - finding a woman washed ashore and near death after the worst storm the island has ever experienced. The woman, Rowan, is saved by them and gradually we learn the secrets that each of the characters is hiding. The five characters look into the future and see their lives off-island, surviving but living in a world coping with horrific climate changes. We learn of Dominic’s tragic losses and his attempts to make things better for his children. And, of course, throughout we have the mystery of Rowan’s strange arrival. The five points of view shift from chapter to chapter giving us a unique perspective into their lives. This plus the description of the incredibly beautiful flora and fauna in this disappearing piece of the world make for an extraordinarily compelling read – highly recommended!

Dear Great Book Guru, Last weekend I was at the Sea Cliff Civic Association’s annual Newcomers Welcoming Party…. such fun! Lots of the guests were talking about a new book about New York City in the 1980’s. It sounded fascinating – thoughts? Newcomer to Sea Cliff Dear Newcomer to Sea Cliff, THE GODS OF NEW YORK by Jonathan Mahler is a truly compelling book. Mahler follows, over four years, a group of New Yorkers who played enormously powerful roles in New York City and the nation - many of whom are still alive and continue to hold positions of huge importance. From a local Queens politician - Donald Manes to real estate mogul Donald Trump - the book is filled with tales of these power brokers who ruled New York City. Al Sharpton, Anthony Fauci, Rudy Giuliani, Ed Koch, Mario Cuomo, Spike Lee, Linda Fairstein and David Dinkins are some of these characters who interact throughout book. This feels like a page-turner of a novel rather than a work of non-fiction. Many of the events were recorded and exploited in the tabloids of the day, and the book has that same fast-paced, feverish quality. Most of the action is focused on the AIDS epidemic, crime, and race with many of the characters playing roles in each. We revisit the shocking cases of Tawana Brawley, Yusuf Hawkins, Bernard Goetz, Howard Beach, the Preppy Murderer, and the Central Park Five and see the roles the “gods” played and the power they wielded, still reverberating forty years later - highly recommended!

Great Book Guru #978 Dear Great Book Guru, I was at the Love Your Neighbor Long Table event and a new friend told me there is a fascinating book recently published about a famous Sea Cliff resident and written by a Sea Cliff author. Any ideas … I’d love to read it! Lover of All Things Sea Cliff Dear Lover of All Things Sea Cliff, What a beautiful past weekend we had here in Sea Cliff, but I did venture a few miles south to Cedarmere - the lovely Nassau County park that houses the home of William Cullen Bryant, 19th century poet, abolitionist, and newspaper editor - where Margaret Brucia was giving a reading of her book THE KEY TO EVERYTHING: MAY SWENSON, A WRITER’S LIFE. May Swenson lived in Sea Cliff for twenty years before her death in 1989. Brucia, a long-time Sea Cliff resident, gives us an intimate portrait of this much acclaimed poet based on her diaries and letters. While not an analysis of her poetry, this book gives us a detailed look into the forces that shaped one of the most important poets of the twentieth century. Her early childhood in Utah, as part of a strong Mormon community, and the role her parents - especially her father - played in creating her strong sensibilities is presented in exquisite detail. The bulk of the book however focuses on 1936 to 1959 - her time in New York City - during the Depression, her work with the Federal Writers’ Project, her life in Greenwich Village, and her friendship with NEW YORKER editor Harold Ross among other literary notables. Over sixty of her poems were published in the NEW YORKER, a record-breaking number. The immense number of personal anecdotes Brucia gleaned from Swenson’s diaries and letters make for a fascinating look into the life and creative process of this iconic figure. Highly recommended!

Dear Great Book Guru, Now that we coming to the last weeks of summer, I realize I have not reached my goal of reading ten books by August 31- I’m one short. At the Sea Cliff Civic Association’s Gatsby Great Gala at Foster’s this week, people were talking about a debut novel – a courtroom drama of sorts but more a study of sibling interactions. Thoughts? Gatsby Gala Guest Dear Gatsby Gala Guest, HOLLOW SPACES by Victor Suthammanont is the book for you! The novel opens with John Lo waiting for the jury to come back with a verdict on murder charge. John is the only Asian American partner in a prestigious New York City law firm, and there is strong evidence to believe racism is playing a part in the case. We very quickly learn he is acquitted and then are transported thirty years forward. His daughter, Brennan, and son, Hunter, who were young children at the time of the trial, are meeting for the first time in four years. Brennan has followed her father’s career path and is on partner track at another law firm and Hunter is a war time journalist who travels the world. Brennan has always believed her father was unfairly accused while Hunter is sure he was guilty of the murder. This has caused the siblings to be estranged, and it is only their mother’s ill health that brings them together now. As they reminisce about the past, they begin to see how traumatized they have been by that long ago jury decision. They decide they must join together to fill in those “hollow spaces” and learn the truth. Highly recommended!