Dear Great Book Guru, The streets of Sea Cliff seem quiet and empty. Where is everybody? At least the Sea Cliff Library is open so I can check out some wonderful books and catch up with my remaining fellow citizens. Do you have a favorite book to recommend this week that I can check out? Library Lover

Dear Library Lover, Yes- it puzzles me too- why would anyone leave Sea Cliff ever, but people do. I know many Sea Cliff luminaries and the Great Book Guru herself choose Martha's Vineyard because it is so much like Sea Cliff, they can feel they have never left home at all. Talking about journeys- an interesting novel my book group read recently that you might enjoy was SILK by Alessandro Baraccio. This beautiful, haunting book is really a short novella (146 pages); it is set in France and Japan beginning in the 1840's and ends in 1874. Over his lifetime, Herve Joncour makes four journeys to Japan in search of perfect silkworms for the growing French silk industry. On each of these journeys, he meets with an enigmatic young woman. They never speak or touch, but the rest of Herve's life is dominated by his obsession with her. His beautiful and devoted wife Helene appears unaware of this strange love affair and it is only after her death that Herve realizes how stunted his life had become as a result of this obsession. The minute details of daily life is chronicled here against the sprawling backdrop of nineteenth century European and Asian history. SILK entertains and educates its readers in the most subtle of ways and leaves us pondering the question: can we ever truly know another ?