Dear Great Book Guru, I am looking forward to the New Year celebrations this weekend- the Sea Cliff Civic Association’s annual Holiday Duck Hunt, the Children’s Library noon time ringing of the bells, and the Polar Bear plunge -   but I certainly would like to end the year with a good book to read. Any recommendations?  New Year’s Reveler

Dear New Year’s Reveler,  TRUST by Hernan Diaz has appeared on many best books list for 2022, so I rushed to read it before the end of the year. It truly is a winner !  TRUST is actually four stories or really versions of the same story so the reader is left “trusting” no one. The first hundred pages are a novel within a novel  “Bonds ”featuring  1920’s Wall Street mogul  Benjamin Rask and his wife Helen.  This book was supposedly a vastly successful 1937 bestseller that  mysteriously disappeared from book stores and libraries shortly after publication.  The next section appears to be notes about the story we have just finished – quickly followed by apparently a  biography commissioned by Andrew Bevel- purporting to be the trustworthy version of the “Bonds” tale.  The final piece brings us to the  1980’s where the biographer Ida Partenza discovers a memoir revealing yet another set of facts.  What is the reader to believe or trust ?  An amazing book and highly recommended!

Another book perfect for this time of year is local author Anne Dupre’s WHERE DREAMS LIVE which opens with a hauntingly beautiful description of the Nutcracker ballet and young Sarah’s fascination with the world of dance. 

Here’s to  2023 and a year filled with many  good books!