Dear Great Book Guru, The streets of Sea Cliff always grow a little quieter in August with people going off on vacation.  Where do they go when we all know Sea Cliff is the perfect vacation spot? Oh well… do you have a good novel for me to read during these lazy, hazy August days and nights? Summer Sea Cliff Sojourner

Dear Sea Cliff Summer Sojourner, Yes, it would be interesting to do a survey of our fellow citizens’ vacation whereabouts, but first I have a great book to recommend: THE MURDER RULE by Dervla McTiernan.  The story opens with Hannah Rokeby transferring to the University of Virginia from Maine where she lives with her mother Laura. Her goal is to join the university’s prestigious Innocence Project program which is currently trying to exonerate convicted killer Michael Dandridge. We soon realize Hannah’s object is to sabotage his chance to be freed. She quickly develops strong friendships with her fellow law students who are totally unaware of her subterfuge. As the group investigates other cases, Hannah begins to see patterns of guilt and -yes - innocence she had refused to acknowledge, while we begin to wonder if she has been a reliable narrator.  Who should be punished and who should be forgiven are questions that loom throughout this compelling book - highly recommended!

Dear Great Book Guru,  We Were in Brooklyn’s Carroll Gardens for a great birthday party with delicious treats and a fabulous pirate theme. Many of the partygoers were talking about a new book they had read recently.  It was about three sets of families that come together over the years for holidays, birthdays, vacations with varying outcomes.  Have you heard of it?  Brooklyn Birthday Party Fan

Dear Brooklyn Birthday Party Fan,  I just finished reading Eleanor Brown’s latest book ANY OTHER FAMILY . When their grandmother dies, Phoebe and her siblings are adopted by three sets of parents. The adults decide on a novel arrangement - they will form a super family so that the children will continue to see each other regularly. They will live near each other and be together for holidays - large and small - throughout the year.  We meet them as they begin on their first vacation together and we soon see the challenges that arise. The mothers have very different parenting styles and expectations.  Tabita is a perfectionist who enjoys controlling all aspects of this family adventure.  Ginger is an older single woman who prizes her privacy and has strong feelings about how she wants to raise her daughter.  Elizabeth finds coping with an infant overwhelmingly difficult but is reluctant to let the others know of her struggles.  The book is told in alternating chapters that allow each of the women to voice her thoughts to events in a Rashomon fashion, offering us a fascinating look into parenting and the myriad meanings of family.  A quick read and highly recommended! 

 

 Dear Great Book Guru, Last week I went to a great celebration at the Metropolitan Bistro. After being closed for over two months, Billy and Anita Long hosted a reunion of staff and devoted customers and what a wonderful night it was! While there, someone mentioned a new thriller about two women with an ingenious scheme involving…counterfeit handbags! Have you heard of it?  Happy to be Back

Dear Happy to be Back, I just finished Kristin Chen’s COUNTERFEIT and it is a winner on many levels.  The story is told from the alternating perspectives of Ava Wong and Winnie Fang. The women had met as students at Stanford twenty years before. Winnie dropped out mysteriously after only a few months while Ava graduated with honors, went on to Harvard Law School and was hired by a prestigious law firm.  When we meet the women, Ava is married to a successful surgeon, has a young toddler, and is on maternity leave.  A now very glamorous Winnie reconnects. She is a spectacularly successful entrepreneur running a luxury handbag company (think Hermes, Prada, Marc Jacobs…) and she needs a partner with an American passport and a circumspect life. The novel takes us to multiple Chinese cities where we meet an assortment of characters - some comic, some threatening, but all fascinating. While a compelling adventure story, this is also a feminist tale upending the myth of mild mannered, compliant women plus a dissection of what is real and what is fake…. and we are not just talking about handbags - highly recommended

 Dear Great Book Guru,  We were at Sunset Serenade last week and despite a horrific storm earlier in the day,  the band LOVEPEACE performed to a delighted audience. It was a magical evening, and as is often the case in Sea Cliff - after the music ended - talk turned literary! Someone mentioned a mystery series set in Cambridge University with a formidable lead detective.  Any thoughts?  Lover of LOVEPEACE

Dear Lover of LOVEPEACE, I just finished the first in the series: MISSING, PRESUMED by Susie Steiner and it is terrific. Manon Bradshaw is a thirty-nine year old detective, incredibly skilled in her professional life but very lonely and struggling to find meaning outside of work. The novel opens with her recounting a series of disappointing online dating encounters. In alternating chapters, we also meet the parents of the missing person, Edith Hind, Helena -her best friend - and Davy, Manon’s colleague. Each of these people brings a different take to the case.  Who was Edith? Her mother presents a picture quite different from the facts that the police uncover while her friend offers yet another side. The more we learn the more confused this picture becomes.  The various suspects are described in such sympathetic detail, we find ourselves hoping no one is guilty.  Because of Steiner’s colorful description, the University itself becomes a cherished character. A wonderful literary mystery and a sizzling summer read - highly recommended!

 Dear Great Book Guru, This past weekend, I attended my first Progressive Dinner - what fun! Every Fall the Sea Cliff Civic Association hosted this event… until 2020 when the world changed, but with the idea of an all-outdoor event, Progressive Dinner BBQ came into being. With over eighty people participating, an array of beautiful gardens and patios and perfect weather, the event was a spectacular success. While at dessert, someone mentioned a short, very funny book about the art world - are you familiar with it?  Progressive Dinner Devotee

Dear Progressive Dinner Devotee, I am still laughing days after having read ST. SEBASTIAN’S ABYSS by Mark Haber. This very short (150 pages) novel deals with obsessions, friendship, and art in a hugely comic manner. We meet our unnamed narrator as he is flying to Berlin to meet up with his dying friend, Schmidt. The two men had met as students at Oxford while studying art history. They had noticed a cheap reproduction of a 16th century forgotten masterpiece, St. Sebastian’s Abyss, in a textbook.  Both men were transfixed by this fictional painting of the apocalypse.  Their careers (20 plus books on the subject) were based entirely on this one painting.  The narrator attributes his two divorces to disagreements over the worth of the work and his wives’ inability to share his passion. Schmidt and himself have also been estranged because of the painting. As the two men meet and have their final debate, the reader is caught up in this comically passionate absurdity.  Highly Recommended!  

 

Dear Great Book Guru, We just came back from a great Juneteenth celebration at the Children’s Library. Families enjoyed stories, music, a craft, and a parade on a beautiful afternoon. Now I have the rest of this holiday weekend to get into a good book. A novel set in the present and not too long, please. Juneteenth Celebrant

Dear Juneteenth Celebrant, I just finished Tom Perrotta’s latest novel, TRACY FLICK CAN’T WIN, and I loved it! Tracy is a forty-one year-old assistant principal in a suburban high school and she is vying to take over for the retiring principal, Jack Weed. In alternating chapters, we hear from ten characters - all of whom are part of this school saga. Kyle Dorfman is a wealthy former tech developer and now school board president with ambitious to make his mark by creating a Hall of Fame for the high school. He is intent on having Vito Falcone – a retired football player and recovering alcoholic – as the first honoree. Principal Weed has been having an affair with the school secretary Front Desk Doris who he nominates as the other Hall of Famer. Doris gives her version of the relationship, quite different from Weed’s.  Students Lily Chu and Nate Cleary tell their stories of teenage angst while we learn the back story of Tracy and her derailed ambitions going back to her teenage years. Questions of power, politics, and memory are addressed with a dramatic conclusion. Highly recommended!

 

 Dear Great Book Guru,  I just got back from the Village-wide Garage Sale-always a favorite event of mine! The Sea Cliff Civic Association does such a great job and I found some wonderful books including a huge number of Grisham novels.  Do you have a favorite I should begin with? Fan of Village Garage Sale

Dear Fan of the Village Garage Sale, I recently reviewed SOOLEY which was not in the Grisham legal thriller tradition, but this week I read THE GUARDIANS, definitely a return to the courtroom and a spectacular return, indeed! Set in a small town in Florida, the story is told in the first person by Cullen Post, an Episcopalian priest and lawyer who left his law practice years before, after defending a criminal in a horrific case. Drawn back to the law, he works for the Guardians, a small group of people dedicated to freeing the wrongfully imprisoned.  They have succeeded in eight cases and Post has now taken on their next innocent - Quincey Miller. Miller has been imprisoned for twenty-two years for the murder of a young lawyer who had represented him badly in a divorce suit. All these years, Miller has maintained his innocence and there seems to be much evidence of political interference and judicial malfeasance. Post works hard to gather witnesses - all of whom have much to fear. Throughout we sense the passion Post feels and the injustices faced by many in our prisons. This is a thought-provoking book and highly recommended.