Dear Great Book Guru,  Looking out the window on this snowy day, I wonder if spring is really in the air, but with schools closed and so many fellow Sea Cliffers out of town, I do have time to get into a good book. Any thoughts? 

Springing into a Good Book

Dear Springing into….,  I just finished an interesting novel we will be discussing at my  April book club meeting: THE FRIEND by Sigrid Nunez.  The unnamed narrator is a writer who has recently lost her best friend and mentor and- unexpectedly- inherits his enormous Great Dane.  At two hundred pounds and a standing height of seven feet, Apollo moves into the woman’s tiny rent-controlled apartment despite a very strong no-pet clause in her lease. Suspense builds as she navigates the world of New York City real estate with a very clever outcome.   The narrator recounts in beautiful prose her thoughts on mourning, loyalty, solitude, and death.  At times she seems dangerously obsessed with the dog’s well-being, but we soon see the redemptive powers of this human- canine relationship. The book opens with a Nicholson Baker quote “The question any novel is really trying to answer is, ‘Is life worth living?’ ” - our narrator attempts throughout to do just this. Highly recommended!