As the summer reading lists start to appear and you start to think about a few blissful days on the beach with a good book consider that this fall Jamaica Plain is going to be reading...'The Night Circus'.

A new organization called JP Reads has formed and is bringing the concept of One City One Book to Jamaica Plain.  The hope is that all JP residents will read the book and come to any of an array of activities (author readings, thematic events, book discussions) planned to talk about the book and share in the wonder of reading. Events will occur from late September to mid October and many different organizations are going to be involved.  It should be an amazing community-wide experience.  There is even a rumor that JP Licks is thinking up a new flavor...

The author of 'The Night Circus', Erin Morgenstern, will be on hand in early October to do a reading. The library branches are getting in lots of copies of the book, so we hope every single JPer will be able to get their hands on a copy and participate. If you have ideas about events or partners who could host something, please be in touch.

And here's a little something to whet your appetite:

The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night.

But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway—a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them, this is a game in which only one can be left standing, and the circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will. Despite themselves, however, Celia and Marco tumble headfirst into love—a deep, magical love that makes the lights flicker and the room grow warm whenever they so much as brush hands.

True love or not, the game must play out, and the fates of everyone involved, from the cast of extraordinary circus per­formers to the patrons, hang in the balance, suspended as precariously as the daring acrobats overhead.

Happy Reading!