Dear Great Book Guru, I am looking forward to Celebrate Sea Cliff Day this coming Saturday.  I’ m particularly excited about Great Gatsby Trivia on the Village Green. But I really need a short but compelling read to recommend to my book club.  Any suggestions?  Sea Cliff Day Celebrant

Dear Sea Cliff Day Celebrant, I just finished a fascinating novel - AUDITION by Katie Kitamura. The story opens with a middle-aged actress standing outside a New York City restaurant deciding if she should go in to meet Xavier, a young student. She almost turns away, but no… she joins him and a strange but beautiful story unfolds.  Is he her son (impossible she explains) and is that Toma her husband who she sees across the room and why is he here?  There is a definite sense of mystery and foreboding. With the next chapter a whole new story begins.  In this version she and Toma are home with Xavier who is now their son. While we quickly realize she is an unreliable narrator, we are now forced to deal with two totally different narratives.  Is she acting in two distinct plays and who is her audience? The roles that parents and children play in different stages are described in exquisite detail, but when Hana, a fourth character, joins the family, roles shift once again. Throughout, we are confronted with the reality that “all the world’s a stage, and we are merely players.” A novel that will perplex and delight – highly recommended!

Dear Great Book Guru, Last week my family and I gathered for our annual Spring celebration here in Sea Cliff, and everyone was talking about a new book by a favorite Irish author. It’s about the sea and sounded a bit like The Heart of Darkness. Have you read it? Smitten by the Sea

 Dear Smitten by the Sea, Colum McCann’s TWIST, his newest book, is indeed about the sea but so much more. As many of McCann’s books do, this latest is a story of connections: the enormous undersea cables that connect us to the cyberworld and each other. The book’s narrator is Anthony Fennell, an Irish journalist whose latest assignment is to write about the hidden world of undersea cables that carry all the world’s data and what happens when these cables break.  He waits for notice of a break and, when it happens, finds himself aboard a ship bound for West Africa and commandeered by John Conway, an inscrutable genius with a mysterious history.  Many of the crew also have back stories that connect with the underground sea world – a world more unfathomable than outer space.  Throughout, Fennell refers back to Zanele, the beautiful partner of Conway, and the twists that link her to the mission.  The realization that so much of human connection relies on fragile cables miles below the earth at the bottom of the sea is both startling and horrifying.  A beautifully written book with echoes of The Great Gatsby, Moby Dick, The Odyssey and - yes of course - The Heart of Darkness… highly recommended!

 

 Dear Great Book Guru, One of my favorites places in the world is Venice and I have visited it many, many times over the years. Alas, this year I’m not able to make the journey.  Do you have books that might help me experience Venice while in Sea Cliff?                                        Lover of All Thing Venetian

Dear Lover of All Things Venetian, I too am a huge fan of Venice and often tell my friends that Sea Cliff and Venice are so very much alike. I do admit they usually look puzzled at this comparison!  But I have a perfect solution to your malaise – Donna Leon’s newest literary mystery: A REFINER’S FIRE. This is the thirty-third book in her Commissario Brunetti series. Brunetti is a seasoned lawyer, police commissioner, and Roman scholar. His wife, a Henry James expert, teaches at the university.   This book opens in early spring 2024 and Venice is dealing with the problem of “baby gangs” - young boys all under fourteen - thus too young to be prosecuted.  They stage wild meetups just to appear on social media. When these rival gangs are picked up by the police, parents are called to retrieve them. One of the boys is left and a kindly policewoman walks him home.  This good deed opens up an amazing tale of deceit, corruption and violence going back to 2002 with its aftermath coloring the lives of high-powered government officials and low level mobsters. Throughout this, we see the unique beauty of Venice’s plazas, churches, canals, and byzantine streets.  As always, the crime is secondary to the story - and the story is always Venice - highly recommended! 

 

 Dear Great Book Guru, I am so excited…. the Barbara Pym Society of Sea Cliff will be attending the North American Pym Society’s annual conference in Cambridge Massachusetts next week.  We are putting on a dramatized reading of one of Pym’s novels.  I hope to meet up with Pym fans from around the world. Passionate Pym Player

Dear Passionate Pym Player, What fun awaits you and your friends!  Barbara Pym’s A FEW GREEN LEAVES is the last of the novels written by Pym - completed a few months before her death in 1980.  Set in the 1970’s in  a small village outside of London, the story centers on the changes that society has experienced since Pym’s first novel in 1935, SOME TAME GAZELLE.  The Church’s role has been replaced by the medical offices where prescriptions for the villagers have taken the place of blessings.  Emma Howick has recently moved from London and finds herself studying the villagers through her practiced anthropologist’s eye. The characters include a rather ineffectual widowed clergyman Tom, his sister Daphne who yearns to leave for life on  a Greek island, the local doctor who hands out those prescriptions to the ill and not so ill, a former lover of Emma’s Graham Pettifer who settles in to finish a novel, a former clergyman turned food critic, and numerous other eccentrics  who play  varying roles in the life of the village.  Throughout the often-hilarious encounters, there is a sense of melancholy as one sees the inevitable changes that time has brought to this once vibrant village.  Dan DiPietro’s adaptation, to be performed at the conference, captures this and the cast he has assembled bring it to life. Highly recommended!

 Dear Great Book Guru, We were in Brooklyn recently and visited a great new book store Liz’s Book Bar, in Carroll Gardens.  Some of the customers were talking about a new book written by the owner of the store.  They were very enthusiastic, but I didn’t hear the title of the book.  Any idea? Brooklyn Bookstore Fan

Dear Brooklyn Bookstore Fan, I have been to Liz’s Book Bar too ( Liz is the owner’s grandmother) and read  Maura Cheeks’s debut novel ACTS OF FORGIVENESS.  Set in the near future, the nation is just about to pass the Forgiveness Act - a federal reparations bill by which Black families would be able to claim up to $175,000 if they could prove their ancestors were enslaved. Willie Revel is sure she can gather the necessary documentation but quickly finds there are many obstacles in her way.  The money would be a terrific boon to her and her young daughter as she struggles to save the family construction business from bankruptcy.  Her parents and siblings are not as eager as she is to delve into the past.  Her mother is adopted and uneasy about what might be discovered about her past. Her father is wary of government involvement and is fearful his past business deals could complicate the process. Meanwhile Willie’s young daughter – a scholarship student at an elite private school - dreads the attention her mother’s quest might bring.  The more Willie researches the past, the more she realizes how complicated both history and family can be.  A compelling read and highly recommended!

 Dear Great Book Guru, I am a great fan of Sea Cliff author Michael Sears and his novels with their colorful New York City and Long Island  backdrops. I’m hoping he has a new one in the works …. or possibly out already?    Mystery Maven

Dear Mystery Maven, You are in luck… LOVE THE STRANGER, Michael Sears’ latest book is out, and it is another spectacular take on life in New York City, especially the neighborhoods of Queens - from Hollis to Howard Beach to Astoria - “the most ethnically diverse urban area” in the world. Sears tells the story from the perspective of Ted Molloy, an attorney working to right the wrongs of a society that is brutal and opportunistic. He had been a partner in a high-end Manhattan law firm but his battle with real estate mogul Ronald Reisner brought that to an end. Reisner is known for his neighborhood destroying developments and his latest is a towering giant in Corona that would uproot a huge swath of immigrant families.  Stop the Spike is Molloy and his girl friend Kenzie’s attempt to save the neighborhood.  Aided by a collection of colorful employees and friends, the two encounter massive corruption on many levels. The plight of recent immigrants who are being victimized by unscrupulous attorneys is an intriguing subplot. Mohammed, a Yemini cab driver, Lester - Ted’s felon-turned-partner, the Collins Guards - an armed quasi military security force, all add to the richness of the story.  While there is no absence of mystery and violence, it is the character development and political messaging that make this novel stand out. Highly recommended!

 

Dear Great Book Guru, I am so excited - my favorite author Anne Tyler’s latest book has just  been released, and I can’t wait to read it - just the thing for a cold, blustery Sea Cliff day! Have you read it yet – can’ t wait to hear your thoughts.  An Anne Tyler Fan

Dear Anne Tyler Fan, I too love Anne Tyler and THREE DAYS IN JUNE - her twenty-fifth novel - has my overwhelming approval. The narrator of the story is Gail Baines and from the start we have reason to question her reliability. Like so many of Tyler’s characters, Gail is quirky or as her supervisor says: “she lacks people skills.”  We meet Gail on the day before her daughter’s wedding. She has just been either fired or resigned from her job (depending upon whom you ask) as an administrator at a private school. She arrives home to find, much to her dismay, her ex-husband Max settling in with a rescue cat he has brought along  for the wedding - despite the groom’s deathly allergy to cats. At the rehearsal dinner that night her daughter tells her parents a secret she has just found out that might cause her to cancel the wedding. For the next two days Gail reminisces about the past and questions decisions she herself has made. While there is much humor throughout, Tyler shows such great compassion and understanding for Gail, the reader comes to feel a profound appreciation for her and all her eccentricities.  Highly recommended!