Book Guru #1020 Dear Great Book Guru, I was at the Love Your Neighbor Project’s Porchfest last weekend. What fun! With twenty-two bands and close to a thousand people attending, the event was a huge success. While listening to one of my favorite bands - Hunt and Hughes - I overheard someone going on about a book she had just read - set on Martha’s Vineyard and in Manhattan, it was a tale of a fairytale marriage abruptly ended. Any thoughts? Porchfest Fan ................................ Dear Porchfest Fan, STRANGERS by Belle Burden is a fascinating memoir and literary mystery. Burden had been happily married twenty years to James, a very successful attorney when she learns he has been involved with a much younger woman and wants a divorce. The couple and their three young children were sheltering during Covid in their home on Martha’s Vineyard when this is revealed. The story itself is compelling as she tries to understand how they had once been so happy and now were strangers, but Burden’s family lineage brings this book to a different level of interest. She comes from immense wealth and is a descendant of a host of iconic figures such as John Jay, the first Supreme Court Justice, the Vanderbilts, and the Paleys, As she goes through the various stages of grief, she finds solace in work and her children, but she remains plagued by the realization she knew so little about this man with whom she had shared such happy moments. It’s a beautifully written “memoir of a marriage.” Highly recommended!

Dear Great Book Guru, With the Sea Cliff Baseball/Softball season about to begin - I’m throwing out the opening pitch - I cannot contain my excitement! However, while I’m a great fan of the game, I do like to have a good book with me at all times. Do you have something to recommend for me when things slow down on the field? Ardent Book and Baseball Fan.................................. Dear Ardent Book and Baseball Fan, Emma Straub, one of my favorite authors and owner of my absolute favorite bookstore “Books Are Magic” in Brooklyn, has just come out with a new book: AMERICAN FANTASY. Set on a cruise ship hosting three thousand fans of a 1990’s fictional band, BoyTalk, this three-hundred-page novel introduces us to the world of aging boy band fandom from the perspectives of Sarah, the cruise ship manager, Keith, the fifty year-old member of the band, and Annie, one of the band’s multitude of fans. Annie is on the cruise reluctantly – her sister Katherine, a diehard fan, had convinced her to come along. Things were going badly for Annie - she was recently divorced, her daughter had moved out, and she had just learned her job of two decades had been given to a young intern influencer. When her sister breaks her leg and is unable to go on the cruise, Annie tries desperately to get out of the trip to no avail. Very soon into the four-day voyage, her spirits lift, she relives the exuberance of her teen years, and a shipboard romance develops. This is a fun read that contains some profound insights into what it means to revisit one’s past and revive earlier passions - highly recommended!

Dear Great Book Guru, It has been a wonderful week of celebrations: Easter and Passover feasts, family and friends gathering for seders, egg hunts, and lots of chocolate! As always when we are together, the topic of good books comes up. One of the partygoers recommended a book set in a nail salon… any thoughts? Holiday Book Lover.......................... Dear Holiday Book Lover, PICK A COLOR by Souvankham Thammavongsa is a beautifully written look into a world many of us think we know …but do we really? Set over one day in a small nail salon, this short novel (under two hundred pages) introduces us to a myriad of characters described by a first-person narrator, Ning, owner of the shop. Her five employees all wear Susan name tags, identical black dresses, and have the same hairstyles so that their privileged clients assume their “Susan” is always ready, always available to meet their needs. There is a practiced script the workers follow – carefully enunciating “pick a color” twice and quickly offering a “ten dollar” special if a customer objects to a price. Throughout the day, Ning and her employees talk in their native language about their customers with great humor, insight, and – yes - crudity. Ning lives alone above the shop in a sparse studio apartment, and we learn that she had been a famous boxer in her earlier years. Lessons she had learned in the ring come back to her as she maneuvers the intricacies of her daily existence. This book is a subtle look into the immigrant experience, workplace relationships, and the shifting dynamics of power. Highly recommended!

Dear Great Book Guru, I was at the Coalition to Save Hempstead Harbor’s exciting Crawl for a Cause where someone mentioned a new book. People couldn’t decide whether it was a novel and a collection of short stories, but all agreed it was a great read. Does it sound familiar? Fan of the Coalition................. Dear Fan of the Coalition, Over the years, I have read Allegra Goodman’s short stories in “The New Yorker” magazine so I was delighted to discover she had brought many of them together and added some in THIS IS NOT ABOUT US. She describes it on the cover as “fiction”- not exactly a novel or a collection of short stories but something quite unique. Told from the perspectives of multiple family members, the book opens with a defining event: the death of Jennie - the youngest (73 years-old) of three sisters. Sisters Helen and Sylvia have a bitter, years-spanning feud over an apple cake that is served at the funeral, and the remaining sixteen stories are about the sisters, their husbands, children, and grandchildren. We get to see these characters in a myriad of situations: applying for college, Nutcracker auditions, divorces, new glass frames, job interviews…It’s a great treat to meet up with peripheral characters we have met earlier who reappear telling their versions of events. Interestingly, the stories confirm that yes – it IS all about us - as we see ourselves in the complex fabric that makes up this and every family. Highly recommended!

Dear Great Book Guru, I am very excited about an upcoming event here in Sea Cliff at St. Luke’s Community Hall - “A Dinner and Play!” Apparently, the play is based on a Barbara Pym novel. Do you know anything about the novel? Interested in Pym....................................................... Dear Interested in Pym, Barbara Pym’s 1930’s novel CRAMPTON HODNET has been adapted by Dan DiPietro, directed by Fred Stroppel, and will be performed with over twenty Sea Cliff folks taking part. Pym has written twelve books - any of which I would highly recommend - but I must admit this is one of my favorites. Set in Oxford with its ancient colleges and medieval rituals and written decades ago, the novel has a surprisingly modern tone. It is a very funny take on village life - a village peopled by quirky characters including pretentious professors, young romantics, philandering spouses, and interfering relatives. There are two intersecting plot lines: the middle-aged Francis Cleveland’s dalliance and the lonely but very witty Jessie Morrow’s passionless affair with Stephen Latimer - a young curate (he forgets her name as he is proposing to her). Crampton Hodnet is the name of a fictional village invented by Latimer to cover for an early misadventure. Tangled romances, misread moments, and furtive escapades all make for a great read and a hilarious evening of theater. Highly recommended!

Dear Great Book Guru, I was having a delicious breakfast with friends at Matt’s Deli here in Sea Cliff, when one of the group mentioned a book we might all enjoy- a family drama about a train wreck, business ethics, aging parents, and the dangers of medical googling. Needless to say- we were intrigued…Book Lovers and Breakfasters............................................... Dear Book Lovers and Breakfasters, WRECK by Catherine Newman does indeed cover a myriad of subjects. Rachel aka Rocky is the lead character and the novel opens with a inexplicable rash that she obsessively googles, with each piece of information offering a more dire diagnosis. Her husband Nick is a patient, loving mate as her recently widowed father weighs his future housing options while staying with them. Her anxiety ridden daughter Willa has returned home after finishing college and son Jaimie has taken on a new job in New York City. Everything seems pretty normal except for the family members’ obsession with a train/car fatality that happens shortly before the book opens. Was it suicide …was it human error… or was it corporate malfeasance? We soon learn that Jaime’s new job involves representing the train company and as the story unfolds it appears there is a strong likelihood the company bears much blame. Throughout we see how everyone shoulders some guilt about this incident but the question remains – how will they find absolution? A complex ethical dilemma and highly recommended!

Dear Great Book Guru, I was at a fabulous Mardi Gras celebration at St. Luke’s here in Sea Cliff where someone mentioned a book that sounded interesting - lots of great discussion points: artificial intelligence, sibling rivalry, self-driving cars, parental guilt… perfect for my next book club meeting. Are you familiar with it? Book Club Searcher............................................... Dear Book Club Searcher - CULPABILITY by Bruce Holsinger would be a great choice with its myriad of ethical dilemmas. The story opens as the Cassidy-Shaw family is driving to a lacrosse tournament. Seventeen-year-old Charlie - the eldest child - is in the driver’s seat. Noah, his father, is riding next to him… in their self-driving minivan. The mother, Lorelei, an internationally respected researcher of AI ethics, is in the back seat on her computer, and the two younger siblings Alice and Izzy - also in the back - are texting on their phones. Suddenly the car crashes into another vehicle killing an elderly driver and her passenger. Each of the family members harbors secret guilt over the accident, but what about the role of the car? While Noah is the narrator, we are privy throughout to conversations Alice has with her AI chatbot, Blair, and also included are passages from Lorelei’s book about the ethics of artificial intelligence. When the parents decide to spend a week in a Chesapeake Bay beach house to recover from the trauma, the pressure mounts with the prospect of Charlie going to prison. None of the family is guilt-free and their only hope is… will AI absolve them? A fascinating book for our times and highly recommended!