Dear Great Book Guru,  My friends and I are planning to attend the Sea Cliff Civic Association’s annual Movie Madness this Friday, September 8 at 7pm in Roslyn Park.   Sarah Beaudin, chair of the event, promises us a surprise- filled evening beginning with a showing of the original Disney “Beauty and the Beast.”  The next night we are headed down to Sea Cliff Beach for the Sea Cliff Fire Department’s Music on the Harbor. Sounds like a great weekend,  but I need a good book to read while waiting for the fun to begin.         Lover of Weekends in Sea Cliff

Dear Lover of…. Yes- you have  quite a weekend ahead and I have the perfect book for you: TRAJECTORY by Richard Russo. This is a collection of four short stories linked by a similar theme – the fragility of human nature. We are shown in each story how one incident changes the course of a person’s life.  In “Horseman”  a young academic is confronted with the realization that much of her career has been as fraudulent as her young students’ plagiarized papers.  Will she be able to redeem herself- where will her trajectory take her? In “Voice” a retired academic tours Venice with his brother and finds how estranged they have always been, but will he be able to forgive himself for past missteps?  A real estate broker helps a hoarding client find peace in “Intervention” and in the last “Milton and Marcus”  an aging and struggling writer tries to change the course of his life.   An illuminating collection and highly recommended!