Valeri Drach Weidmann

Starting a book club was "the best thing I ever did in my former town, when my children were small and I had stopped reading," says Michelle.

Not only did she begin reading again, Michelle started hanging out in libraries and eventually went back to school to get her Masters of Library Sciences degree. And her second book club, the one she started in Highland Park, has been going strong for seven years, with 14 members and a plethora of books and good times.

The evening began with snakes and ended with birds, when the Cool Women Poets arrived to perform at the Highland Park Public Library. The performance group, centered in Princeton, has roots that grow as close as Highland Park and as far as Portland, Oregon.

Highland Park is perfectly situated between two fine universities, with Rte. 27 similar to a great literary vein leading you to the finest modern writers. The afternoon readings at Princeton’s James M. Stewart '32 Theater has been pairing the likes of alumni poets Simon Armitage and Tony Hoagland, poet Maxine Kumin, and literary icon Joyce Carol Oates.

You might say that Suzanne Delehanty's last three decades of experience were perfect training for her new position as director of the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum. Taking the reins of one of the largest university art museums in April 2009, with more than 60,000 holdings, she feels as comfortable in the academic world as in the urban community of New Brunswick.

Not so quietly, a grass roots movement is sweeping through the borough to grow food on the lawns, balconies, and even roofs of private homes and in public places. According to organizers from the Edible Gardens Project, each garden helps undo climate change, builds community, and brings healthy, fresh food in to local homes.

Three salty sea ladies, who seem to have emerged fully formed from the shores where they live, drive these novels that are bookclub friendly, literarily worthy, and read well. Not one of these women is to be taken lightly. The men they marry, and throw back in to sea, at times captivate them, or annoy the hell out of them.

Princeton Ballet School, the educational arm of American Repertory Ballet, has found a permanent home on the fourth floor of Crossroads Theatre, a home that is perfect for an institution with deep roots in the city. The school has two other studios, in the Princeton Shopping Center and in Cranbury, but its New Brunswick location has changed several times recently. It was located at 80 Albany Street for almost eighteen years, and then moved briefly to New Brunswick High School before settling at Crossroads, in the heart of New Brunswick's theatre district.

When Sandy and Michael Gildenberg of Highland Park, take their seven year old twins out to dinner each Friday night they always end up at Aposto, a small Italian bistro at 76 Raritan Avenue.

“My kids love the pizza and won’t eat it any place else,” Sandy said. “”My husband and I like the fresh food, the friendliness, and the full menu. the kids will even eat salad here.”

In director Bob Sheridan’s new film adaptation of "Brothers," Sam (Tobey Maguire) returns from the current war in Afghanistan, a broken man. His wife, Grace (Natalie Portman) and his brother Tommy (Jake Gyllenhaal) are left to pick up his pieces. He goes because he’s the kind of guy who does the right thing and while he is at war he’s asked to do unspeakable things.

Brian H. Settles, a former president of the Highland Park Board of Education during the 1970s, has published No Reason For Dying: A Reluctant Combat Pilot’s Confession of Hypocrisy, Infidelity, and War (2009) about his experiences as a fighter pilot during the Vietnam War.