Dear Great Book Guru, I am looking forward to Celebrate Sea Cliff Day this coming Saturday.  I’ m particularly excited about Great Gatsby Trivia on the Village Green. But I really need a short but compelling read to recommend to my book club.  Any suggestions?  Sea Cliff Day Celebrant

Dear Sea Cliff Day Celebrant, I just finished a fascinating novel - AUDITION by Katie Kitamura. The story opens with a middle-aged actress standing outside a New York City restaurant deciding if she should go in to meet Xavier, a young student. She almost turns away, but no… she joins him and a strange but beautiful story unfolds.  Is he her son (impossible she explains) and is that Toma her husband who she sees across the room and why is he here?  There is a definite sense of mystery and foreboding. With the next chapter a whole new story begins.  In this version she and Toma are home with Xavier who is now their son. While we quickly realize she is an unreliable narrator, we are now forced to deal with two totally different narratives.  Is she acting in two distinct plays and who is her audience? The roles that parents and children play in different stages are described in exquisite detail, but when Hana, a fourth character, joins the family, roles shift once again. Throughout, we are confronted with the reality that “all the world’s a stage, and we are merely players.” A novel that will perplex and delight – highly recommended!

Dear Great Book Guru, Last week my family and I gathered for our annual Spring celebration here in Sea Cliff, and everyone was talking about a new book by a favorite Irish author. It’s about the sea and sounded a bit like The Heart of Darkness. Have you read it? Smitten by the Sea

 Dear Smitten by the Sea, Colum McCann’s TWIST, his newest book, is indeed about the sea but so much more. As many of McCann’s books do, this latest is a story of connections: the enormous undersea cables that connect us to the cyberworld and each other. The book’s narrator is Anthony Fennell, an Irish journalist whose latest assignment is to write about the hidden world of undersea cables that carry all the world’s data and what happens when these cables break.  He waits for notice of a break and, when it happens, finds himself aboard a ship bound for West Africa and commandeered by John Conway, an inscrutable genius with a mysterious history.  Many of the crew also have back stories that connect with the underground sea world – a world more unfathomable than outer space.  Throughout, Fennell refers back to Zanele, the beautiful partner of Conway, and the twists that link her to the mission.  The realization that so much of human connection relies on fragile cables miles below the earth at the bottom of the sea is both startling and horrifying.  A beautifully written book with echoes of The Great Gatsby, Moby Dick, The Odyssey and - yes of course - The Heart of Darkness… highly recommended!