Dear Great Book Guru, I was at a recent celebration  here in Sea Cliff of the famed author Barbara Pym's centenary   when someone at the party mentioned an upcoming trip to Paris.  Everyone had suggestions as to what would be best to read in preparation, but Ed Lieberman, our newest trustee and a great lover of fine literature, insisted there was one book that had to be read. He said it was written by David McCullough, famous for his writings on Harry Truman, John Adams, and, yes, the Brooklyn Bridge, but  Paris?  What do you think?  Lover of All Things Parisian

Dear Lover of All Things Parisian,   McCullough's  THE GREATER  JOURNEY is the perfect introduction to Paris. It opens in 1830 as a group of travelers prepare to depart for an arduous ocean journey to Paris for intellectual, spiritual, and political awakening. His travelers will eventually include among others Samuel Morse, James Fenimore Cooper, Harriet Beecher Stowe,  Mary Cassatt, Elizabeth Blackwell, P.T. Barnum, and  Oliver Wendell Holmes. Their stories develop and intertwine throughout the book but always the main, overarching character is Paris.  We meet the beautiful, exotic, medieval Paris of the 1830's in the early chapters, and we are there to witness its transformation into the Paris we know today which began with Louis Napoleon and  city planner (a rather generic term for such a transformative figure) Georges Haussmann. The book is filled with exquisite illustrations and, yes, Ed is so right: do not visit Paris without having read this book!

Major Literary Event:  Sunday, June 16 at 8:30am the James Joyce Society of Sea Cliff will meet for its annual  Bloomsday  walk, beginning at the Marcello Tower aka the Sea Cliff Water Tower. This event will take about one hour. Hope you can join us!