Dear Great Book Guru, With just a few weeks until school reopens, I’d like to get some serious reading time in, but there are two great concerts coming up in the next few days: Chicken Head at Memorial Park on Thursday and The Rusty String Band opened by Boehm and Barker at the Beach on Friday. Do you have a fast moving, thought-provoking novel I can get into over the next week?       Not Wanting Summer to End

Dear Not Wanting Summer to End,   I have just the thing to cap off your summer:  the Sea Cliff Civic Association’s newest event : Muppets Movie, Music, and More- a family social on Sunday, August 30 from 6:30 to 9:30pm at Roslyn Park- but make sure you give yourself enough time to finish THE NEW NEIGHBOR  by Leah Stewart, this week’s recommendation. Ninety-year-old Margaret  Riley lives on a mountaintop in Sewanee, Tennessee- lonely, angry, and  reclusive-  when a new neighbor moves in across the way.  This new neighbor is Jennifer- also lonely and angry- and guarding a dangerous secret.  In alternating chapters, the women begin to reveal intimate details of their lives  - from Margaret’s World War II  horrific battlefield memories as an army nurse to Jennifer’s painful years with an abusive addict husband. The local librarian whom Margaret finds intrusive, the helicopter parent Jennifer befriends, Milo her young son, Margaret’s aggrieved niece… all make for wonderful background stories, but the book’s greatest strength lies in its ability to create an aura of darkening suspense. Highly recommended!