So Josh Milstein, one of the Park Slope 100, for his dedication to (and interesting emails about) the The Modernist Book Club has apparently moved away from Park Slope. I assume he’s gone off to grad school somewhere. If anyone knows, let me know.

Seems that the group, which meets at the Community Bookstore every month or so, will continue. I just got this email from the CB with this reassuring news.

Neither heat nor humidity stays our readers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds through the reading list. Raymond Chandler’s The Long Goodbye, spurred on our discussion last Wednesday, June 25th. Daniel Valdez, a dedicated reader of The Long Goodbye, helped ease the transition as Josh Milstein, our long-time and deeply appreciated facilitator, has now moved on.

Next book? Next time?

We will meet on July 23rd at 7:30 p.m. to discuss Rebecca West’s The Fountain Overflows (1957). Community Bookstore has ordered copies for your convenience, so be sure to drop by to pick up your copy. We have voted on West’s book in months past, but it has never won the prize! This time, the book made it through our rigorous selection process (we vote early and often) and squeaked by on a two vote margin. The edition on order is a reprint from the good people at the New York Review of Books (NYRB).

The NYRB website describes the book in this way:

“The lives of the talented Aubrey children have long been clouded by their father’s genius for instability, but his new job in the London suburbs promises, for a time at least, reprieve from scandal and the threat of ruin. Mrs. Aubrey, a former concert pianist, struggles to keep the family afloat, but then she is something of a high-strung eccentric herself, as is all too clear to her daughter Rose, through whose loving but sometimes cruel eyes events are seen. Still, living on the edge holds the promise of the unexpected, and the Aubreys, who encounter furious poltergeists, turn up hidden masterpieces, and come to the aid of a murderess, will find that they have adventure to spare.”