Dear Great Book Guru, This looks like another fun-filled weekend in Sea Cliff. On Saturday, there is the Mutual Concerns Holiday House Tour followed on Sunday (December 6) by the first ever Sea Cliff Civic Association’s Scrooge Stroll directed by esteemed  playwright Fred Stroppel  and featuring a cast of 20 actors.  Starting across the street from the Children’s Library at 2pm and strolling through the Village, the cast will enact scenes from  Charles Dickens’ “Christmas Carol.”  Then at 5pm, the annual Tree Lighting and Visit from St. Nick will take place on the Village Green.  Since I plan on being at all these events, I am looking for a short but worthwhile book to read.  Any thoughts?  Lover of the Holidays

Dear Lover of the Holidays,  I have just the book for you: THE BEAUTIFUL BUREAUCRAT by Helen Phillips.  Set in Brooklyn sometime in the near future …thriller, mystery, existential quest, theological study, cyber drama-  all in 192 pages! Josephine and Joseph are newly married and working at jobs that are bizarrely yet crushingly boring… or maybe not? Nothing is as it seems.  There is something very, very strange going on in their workplace, and their quest to find a decent home takes a sinister turn as they move  from one dingy apartment to another.  This is a beautifully written, very funny book that ends up asking and answering questions that define our very existence.  Recommended!