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!