Dear Great Book Guru,  This Friday, March 25 at 10:30am in Spooky Park,  Mike and Gwynn Lennon will be hosting their 21st Annual Egg Hunt. Afterwards  I will be meeting up with friends to celebrate Daniel DiPietro’s  birthday and I would love to have a thought-provoking book to discuss.   Egg Hunter Extraordinaire

Dear Egg Hunter Extraordinaire,  I just finished a very interesting but troubling book: A LITTLE LIFE by -Hanya Yanagihara.  I couldn’t decide whether it was a moral fable, a Dickensian melodrama, or a serious study of human suffering…. but definitely a very disturbing read. Four young men meet in a small, elite college, form a deep friendship, and move to New York City where most of the story takes place.   The thirty year time span is hard to place but probably mid-  twentieth century to the present.  All four achieve fairytale successes in their careers: prominent attorney, celebrated actor, renowned artist, awarding-winning architect.  While we learn much about all four, it is the physically and emotionally scarred Jude who remains center stage throughout.   The author’s description of  luxurious apartments, manor homes, travels abroad, drivers, servants, fine restaurant dining, beautiful clothes-  all fueled by an endless supply of money and well-connected caring friends- imbues the novel with a sense of magical realism. Nominated for both the National Book Award and the Booker Prize, this book has many fans and equally as many detractors. I am not sure which camp I would put myself in, but it is surely thought-provoking.