Dear Great Book Guru, I am feeling very sad today. My friends Deborah and Jay Fossett and their children have moved to Washington, DC. Do you have something for me to read that will help me adjust to the changes that accompany such a loss? Missing My Friends

Dear Missing, I know how you feel- the Fossetts were such wonderful friends to many of us here in Sea Cliff. We can hope the move is not permanent, but I do have something that you might enjoy reading and could help you. Whenever I need literary comfort, I always turn to the author Barbara Pym. Adapting to life's inevitable changes is the focus of many of her novels and SOME TAME GAZELLE in particular. The main characters are Harriet and Belinda Bede, two middle-aged sisters who have never married but are still eager for romance . The objects of their devotion are usually unsuspecting Anglican clerics. Throughout the novel, the Bedes' fierce love of life finds form in food, clothing, poetry, flowers, friends, and all those wonderful things that fill and enrich our daily lives. When the women are given the opportunity to leave their small village, each decides that it is far better to stay and enjoy these pleasures rather than leave. Change will come but the women know that as long as they have something to love "even some tame gazelle or some gentle dove" life is good. While I certainly do not like leaving lovely Sea Cliff ever, this weekend, my husband and I will be in Oxford, England at the annual Pym conference where Pym's characters take on lives beyond their novels in plays, papers, and academic discussions. For a Pym lover, this is close to Paradise!