Dear Great Book Guru, Next Sunday, January 26 from 3 to 4pm at the Sea Cliff Children’s Library, parents and next year’s kindergartners will gather to get together and share thoughts about the upcoming school year.  Sara Jones – president of the North Shore School Board - will be there to answer questions about the school experience.  I’m planning on being there and wondered if you had a book I might enjoy while waiting for the program to begin.  New Kindergarten Parent

Dear New Kindergarten Parent, I just finished a debut novel: SUCH A FUN AGE by Kiley Reid. The title could refer to the young preschooler Emira babysits ….or it could be Emira herself - a twenty-six year-old black woman trying to navigate her post-graduate life and find a “real” job….one  with benefits as she approaches the moment when she is no longer covered by her parents’ insurance. A fun age indeed! The novel opens with Emira and the child in a high-end grocery store where the security guard accuses her of kidnapping the child. The blatant racism is caught on camera by an onlooker who wants to share it on social media. Emira is horrified while her employer Alix awkwardly attempts to make amends. What we see is a detailed study of class and race, affluence and arrogance as Emira and Alix see their lives intersect in many surprising ways. Questions of privacy, parenting, morality, friendship, memory, and racism are but a few of the topics the author addresses.  Recommended!

Dear Great Book Guru, While attending the Sea Cliff Civic Association’s first event of 2020 - Dinner & THE DEAD - last weekend at the Metropolitan Bistro, friends at our table mentioned a recent novel they had all read. It was set in the future but had strange medieval overtones. Any thoughts?                  Reader at the Feast

Dear Reader at the Feast, I was at Dinner & THE DEAD too and it was a magnificent evening. Kudos to Fred Stroppel and Dan DiPietro, the fine cast of actors and singers, Billy and Anita Long of the Metropolitan Bistro and Sleepy Jean’s delectable desserts.  Robert Harris’s THE SECOND SLEEP is a strange tale of life in England set eight hundred years in the future, but in its very first pages we are led to believe we are in the Middle Ages. The church rules every aspect of life… and life is very harsh. There is no electricity, food is scarce, and the life span is short with people typically dying in their fifties.  We soon realize an apocalyptic event or series of events has ended civilization as we know it. In the story, young priest Christopher Fairfax travels to a remote rural village in Britain to preside over the burial of the local pastor. He soon unearths a collection of artifacts the man had hidden - lots of plastic, an iPhone, smashed TVs, human bones.  He is baffled by this assortment and sets out to unravel the mystery of humankind’s past and present. A terrifying take on how fragile the veneers of civilization are - recommended!  

Dear Great Book Guru, This coming weekend my friends and I are attending the sold out, first ever event: the Sea Cliff Civic Association’s “Dinner & THE DEAD “ a dramatization  of James Joyce’s iconic short story followed by a sumptuous dinner Joyce so wonderfully described.  Talking about the dead, I just read one of my favorite mystery writers M.C. Beaton died this week.  Have you enjoyed her works as much as I have?  Mystery Maven

Dear Mystery Maven, I had just finished her latest: BEATING ABOUT THE BUSH - the 30^th in the series - when M.C. Beaton’s death was announced.  Over the years my feelings for her Agatha Raisin series have varied.  The early books were wonderful, but then there were some that were mediocre. However, I truly enjoyed this last adventure. Agatha Raisin is the antithetical Agatha Christie detective - brash, politically incorrect, self-absorbed, insecure, jealous of her friends and colleagues, but oh so very clever!  After selling her successful public relations firm in London on her 53^rd birthday, Agatha fulfills a longstanding dream of moving to a small village in the Cotswolds.  She quickly develops a reputation for attracting trouble - a poisoned quiche she accidentally enters in the local pie contest is her first foray into village life.   All her novels are filled with humor, local color, and outrageous coincidences. In BEATING ABOUT THE BUSH, she is hired to investigate an industrial espionage incident. Soon murder and mayhem follow.  A light, clever series that is a perfect antidote for long dark winter months…. M.C. Beaton will be missed.  Recommended!

Dear Great Book Guru, We celebrated New Year’s Eve in our traditional manner: a movie (this year it was the highly acclaimed LITTLE WOMEN) followed by dinner, dessert, and the ringing of the bell on the Village Green. One of our New Year’s resolutions was to read more in 2020.  Do you have any recommendations to get us started?

Reading Reveler

Dear Reading Reveler, A great idea and I have a list of ten favorite Great Book Guru recommendations from 2019.  My #1 choice would be SAY NOTHING by Patrick Radden Keefe. This remarkable book chronicles the Troubles in Ireland - from 1972 until now.  It is a mystery, a true crime tale, a study of Anglo-Irish history, a biography of three unforgettable characters but it is ultimately a depiction of the horrors, futility, and banality of war. The others are listed in no particular order but were all great favorites and highly recommended. For more information check out greatbookguru.blogspot.com

SAY NOTHING

RIOT AND REMEMBRANCE

OLIVE, AGAIN

CATCH AND KILL

A DOOR IN THE EARTH

THE AFFAIRS OF THE FALCONS

NICKEL BOYS

THE PERFECT NANNY

RED AT THE BONE

THE GIFTED SCHOOL                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

Dear Great Book Guru, All over Sea Cliff there are holiday parties and some of the most fun are cookie swaps, and the oldest and best of these is Elizabeth Weinstein’s. For 29 years, Elizabeth has been hosting her elegant celebration of friendship and sweets. Well, this year I have my cookies baked and ready to go, so I have time for a good book.  Do you have something in the spirit of the holidays? Cookie Swap Connoisseur

Dear Cookie Swap Connoisseur, Ah… a book about the spirit of the holidays? MARLEY by Jon Clinch is about one of history’s most maligned of spirits: Jacob Marley from Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol.” Here we get the back story of Scrooge’s long dead business partner. We meet him as a boy, teenager, and man - at all stages a cruel, deceptive conniver who preys on his schoolmate - the then innocent Scrooge.  As men, they form a business partnership that amasses fortunes many times over.  The British slave trade forms a large part of their business. The young women characters, Fan and Belle from A Christmas Carol, play important roles in the lives of both men. As the two partners become more and more enmeshed in a dark world of greed, deception, forgery, and theft, the hope for redemption seems illusory. Marley’s ghostly return takes on deeper meaning as he tries to share the lessons he has learned.  A chilling and fascinating take on this perennial holiday tale …  a very intriguing read!

Dear Great Book Guru, My book club meets every month and we are always looking for our next good book. We recently read the 1980’s classic THE HANDMAID’S TALE and some members mentioned there is a sequel. Do you think we would enjoy it?  Sequel Searchers

Dear Sequel Searchers, I just finished Margaret Atwood’s THE TESTAMENTS - the sequel to THE HANDMAID’S TALE – and I found it fascinating.  The novel begins fifteen years after the end of THE HANDMAID’S TALE. The Republic of Gilead maintains its tyrannical control and international politics is in chaos. Canada plays a pivotal role as the former United States of America continues its theocratic repression of women. The story is told from three viewpoints:  Aunt Lydia who might well be a totally unreliable narrator and two first-generation children of the Gilead - Daisy and Agnes. Of the three, Aunt Lydia is the most interesting. An accomplished, highly educated lawyer and judge before the coup, she became part of the new regime. The choices she recounts could be altruistic but there is always doubt as to her true motivations. With the younger girls, we see the effects of this cruel regime, but we also see their irrepressible spirit.  Your book club will have a lively discussion about the ending- is there cause for optimism or…pessimism?  Recommended!   

Dear Great Book Guru, The month of December is filled with a myriad of Sea Cliff holiday events, and I attend them all - but my favorite is the Scrooge Stroll. Fred Stroppel creates a magnificent reimagining of Charles Dickens’s A CHRISTMAS CAROL with costumed characters walking the streets of Sea Cliff. I will have some free time afterwards,  so if you have a good book to recommend, I would be grateful.  Scrooge Stroller

Dear Scrooge Stroller, My book club recently read Edna O’Brien’s GIRL; we found it very compelling and very disturbing.  It is the story of one girl, but Maryam is a composite of many. It opens as men claiming to be soldiers invade the dormitory of a girls’ high school. They pretend to have come to save them but instead capture and enslave them - these are the Boko Haram girls. We follow the brutal history of the young Maryam as she endures horrific torture - physical and mental - at the hands of these religious zealots.  When she finally escapes, her family and community are far from welcoming.  O’Brien who is eighty-eight years-old has been writing about the subjugation of women and girls for over sixty years. Most of her novels have been set In Ireland, but for this latest book she traveled to Nigeria to underscore the universal oppression of women. This is a painful book to read, but very worthwhile. Highly recommended!