Peachy Reads

Look at maps of pre-Napoleonic Europe and while Germany looks like a meatlover's pizza-- a fantastic creation full of bits of sausagelike city-states, pepperoni principalities, and prociutto protectorates, all on a sea of Hapsburgian mozzarella; France in comparison looks like a homogenous white pizza with not a speck of Speck, a leaf of oregano, or a drop of tomato sauce; it's one color from east to west, north to south. The Discovery of France proves that the reality behind this cartographic representation was a bit different. Even though France was technically one unified kingdom, later one republic ruled from Paris, the reality was quite different. Regional dialects made it nearly impossible for even very near-lying towns to understand each other. Mapmakers who were sent out by royal decree to chart the hinterlands were regarded with such suspicion that on occasion they were captured by village mobs and at least on one occasion executed. Areas of France were so isolated th...

Bill Bryson is definitely one of those people you’d want to be seated next to at a dinner party. His latest nonfiction book At Home: A Short History of Private Life is just chock-full of interesting anecdotes and factoids that would make you lean in closer at the dinner table and say, “do tell me more”. In fact, I dog-eared so many pages of things I found interesting or wanted to go back to that I knew I was a huge violator of library book etiquette (though I did go back and smooth out the creases before I returned it). Bryson uses the floor plan of his Norfolk house, a former vicarage or parsonage (I can’t remember which, and there is a difference which he explains) to group historic information related to each of the rooms in the house—kitchen, drawing room, dining room, attic, etc. The historical insights are thematically grouped to the rooms—somehow his digressions on a myriad of topics only remotely linked to the room in focus don’t derail his narrative. It’s all fascinating. And...

The musical Wicked has taken the world by storm. It has a clever story, is endearing, and is filled with roles rich in character. Having seen it performed on stage twice and listened to its signature tunes dozens of times, my curiosity was piqued by certain aspects of the story that I thought certainly must be better explicated in the novel—like, just what was going on with Dr. Dillamond?, what was the spark that brought Elfie and Fiyero together? and what made people call Elphaba wicked? (And yes, don't be confused, this is most definitely an adult novel. You won't want to be reading it to Little Tommy and Suzie at bedtime.) Let’s just say that the musical is very loosely based on the novel, taking a few ideas and concepts and throwing most of the story out. The reluctant friendship of Glinda and Elphaba is the most compelling element of the novel, and the creators of the musical took that nugget and out of it crafted a heartwarming story for their blockbuster Broadway hit. T...