Peachy Reads

The Little Stranger / Sarah Waters Click here to check availability in AFPLS One of the main characters in this neo-gothic novel is a crumbling old manor house in Warwickshire called Hundreds Hall, which has as much of a role in The Little Stranger as the mansion in Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” or Manderley in Du Maurier ’s Rebecca . Hundreds is the home of the Ayres Family, once-distinguished, but now suffering with the changes stirring in England after World War II, all the while trying to keep up appearances with ever dwindling resources. The path of a local general practioner, Dr. Faraday, connects with the landed family, and their fates become ever more entwined as the story progresses. Strange goings-on begin to plague Hundreds. Grievous accidents occur, bells ring unexpectedly, strange writing appears on walls, and unexplained sounds are heard. The Ayres son is the first to fall and is institutionalized with his precarious mental state. Not long thereafter the mot...

Zeitoun by Dave Eggers Click here to check availability in AFPLS Dave Eggers, author of What is the What , A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius , and You Shall Know Our Velocity , writes another wonderful work of human drama. In Zeitoun , presented in the context of a family biography, Syrian-born Abdulrahman Zeitoun chooses to remain in New Orleans during Katrina to watch over the family property while his wife and children flee the storm. In the quiet desolation after the hurricane he paddles around the flooded streets in a canoe, helping out those in need, feeding abandoned dogs, and contemplating the future of the ravaged city. In an unexpected turn of events he is picked up by law enforcement, ostensibly for looting, and is thrown into a makeshift Gitmo-like chain link prison behind the Amtrak station before being transferred (without being allowed a phone call or a hearing, or even having his rights read to him) to a maximum security prison outside of Baton Rouge. Time pas...

Cutting for Stone / Abraham Verghese Click here to check availability in AFPLS The calamitous and sometimes horrifying first chapters of Cutting for Stone explain the unusual circumstances of the arrival of twins Marion and Shiva Praise Stone, originally conjoined by a small fleshy stalk at the head, and born from a secret liaison between a Carmelite nun and an English surgeon serving in a rustic hospital in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.The twins are raised among the colorful characters of the Missing (Mission) Hospital, against a fascinating backdrop of Ethiopian history that includes the charismatic emperor Haile Salassie, the Eritrean independence movement, and the rule of Marxist-inspired dictator Mengistu. Marion is exiled to America to pursue a career in medicine, while Shiva remains behind in Ethiopia. Soon, however, both worlds collide and Marion’s past catches up with him-- all that was set in motion during his boyhood is brought full-circle in another hospital, on another continen...

August Heat (An Inspector Montalbano Mystery) / Andrea Camilleri Click here to check for availability at AFPLS Fans of detective novelists Donna Leon and Michael Dibdin will make an easy transition to Andrea Camilleri’s Italy-based detective series (originally published in Italian for an Italian readership). In August Heat Sicily is suffering with oppressive late summer temperatures when a body is discovered in a trunk in a secret lower-floor apartment of a vacation rental, a rental that Inspector Montalbano had arranged as a favor to his girlfriend. Details about the crime, which happened six years ago, emerge against a backdrop of colorful Sicilian characters operating within a confusing web of Italian bureaucracy and political intrigue. The way Montalbano conducts police business is unorthodox, to say the least, and his unusual approach may be one reason that reading this series is so refreshing. And it would not be a proper Italian detective novel without detailed descriptions ...

Her Fearful Symmetry / Audrey Niffenegger Click here to check for availability in AFPLS It's hard to know what to make of Audrey Niffenegger's much-anticipated follow-up to 2003's huge publishing blockbuster The Time Traveller's Wife . Julia and Valentina are 21-year-old suburban Chicago twins who inherit a flat in London's Highgate Village from an aunt they never met. Her will stipulates that they must live there a year before it can be sold. The flat overlooks the Victorian Cemetery Highgate, which figures largely in the plot and emphasizes the theme of death and life beyond death. The book really takes the reader for a spin at the end with a surprising revelation of switched identity, spirits, reincarnation, and bodyswitching. What starts out as a nice character novel quickly turns into Patrick Swayze inhabiting Whoopi Goldberg's body in the movie Ghost... well not that bad, but close. Be that as it may, this novel is ideal for London enthusiasts-- Niffenegg...