Dear Great Book Guru, I just checked my calendar of special events and noticed next week is Bloomsday.  Do you know of any local celebrations of this Joycean wonder?                    Bloomsday Bon Vivant

Dear Bloomsday Bon Vivant, The James Joyce Jaunt is the event for you! As most of my readers know, Bloomsday is celebrated every year to commemorate the day James Joyce’s ULYSSES takes place: June 16, 1904.  Joyce spent most his life in self-imposed exile, but he wrote obsessively about one place and one place only - his birthplace: Dublin, Ireland.  In ULYSSES, we follow three main characters through day into night- seeing and experiencing Dublin as they did. But ULYSSES is more than the portrait of one city on one day - it is also a study of the epic wanderings of the Greek hero Odysseus (Ulysses) - mocking the wanderings of the most unlikely of heroes: Leopold Bloom.  On Wednesday, June 12 at 7pm the James Joyce Society of Sea Cliff led by Fred Stroppel and Dan DiPietro will walk the streets of Sea Cliff/Dublin stopping at parallel locations along the way. Beginning at the Sea Cliff Water Tower/Martello Tower, the group will stop among other places: Still Partners/Davey Byrnes Pub, Headless Park/Nelson’s Pillar, Memorial Park/Sandymount Strand and finish up 76 Main Avenue/7 Eccles Street. There will be dramatized readings by costumed actors at each of the stops with period music throughout.  If you are planning on attending the James Joyce Jaunt, stop by 76 Main Avenue to pick up a handy guide to this iconic event. Copies will be in a basket on the porch.  Highly recommended!