Peachy Reads

A chance encounter at a christening party radically redirects the destiny of two families for decades to come.  The dilemmas and issues that confront the two families are largely commonplace, but there is one defining event, the secret of which is painfully revealed in a very public way, that has repercussions that no one expected. The parts of this book, divided by the passage of time, serve almost as stand-alone short stories—the characters and situations are drawn so vividly and so expertly that it almost feels as if the reader has stepped into the scene and has become an active observer.   In Commonwealth Ann Patchett describes life as we know it, and yet, in her hands, the ordinary becomes extraordinary.

Ove is the self-appointed neighborhood overseer, making sure that residents and visitors follow the home owners association rules to the letter.  His daily routine includes checking to see that the recyclables have been sorted correctly, seeing that motor vehicles do not enter the residential area, and that bikes are properly stored in the bike shed.  He takes this role seriously, and it immediately becomes obvious that Ove is an insufferable curmudgeon.   After the recent death of his wife, he contemplates joining her by plotting to take his own life.  In a comedy of errors his attempts to do himself in are always foiled by a last-minute interruption that pulls him in closer to the circle of the living.  Bit by bit the neighborhood community embraces him, and he is no longer a loner, though he is just as grumpy.   The reader learns of Ove’s upbringing and his marriage via flashbacks, and these vignettes provide important glimpses into why his convictions are the way they

The ever-increasing horrors of slavery embolden Cora to flee the Georgia cotton plantation on which she grew up.  She is spirited away on the underground railroad.  In Whitehead’s novel the underground railroad is more than a metaphor for an escape route to freedom, it is an actual subterranean conveyance that transports runaways away from enslavement to an alternative life further north.  The tunnels travel through both space and time, and we find Cora living in different versions of the African American experience post-slavery.  I was motivated to learn more about the different “stations” where Cora disembarked – the settings that may have represented various realities for African Americans after emancipation.  Unfortunately, in the end I found it to be a bit of a slog and I wished for more character development.   I found myself forgetting where some of the characters had been introduced and all of them seemed a bit one-dimensional.  A worthwhile read, but fell short of its po

Two recent graduates of Brown embark on an around-the-world tour, starting in China.  Things  go  downhill rather quickly when the rough standards of a backpacker’s life grate on them, and they are challenged  by the realities of traveling in a communist country in the 1980s where there is virtually no tourist infrastructure and nothing is in English.  Their bumbling attempts to cope are laughable, but become rather tragic as their relationship begins to fray, and one of the pair begins to suffer with psychological episodes.  It all goes rather wrong at the end with an unexpected and rather abrupt return to New York City. I like the nostalgia of this.    The two go abroad in the eighties and listen to the music I remember from college. It was an era before the internet and cell phones, so travelling required a bit more organization and forethought, which may be the reason their trip is doomed from the start.    They seem to want to wing it, succumb to frequent illnesses, and ha

This family saga involves two brothers who grow up in Calcutta.  One is killed by state forces after his clandestine involvement in an anti-government group, the Naxilites, a Maoist force that was active in India starting in the late 1960s.  His brother, who was studying in the United States at the time of his death, marries his brother’s widow and so the uncle serves as father to his unborn child.  The book mainly charts the history of Subhash and Gauri’s strained relationship, and the often difficult growing up of Gauri’s daughter, Bela.   Gauri eventually abandons Subhash and her daughter, and the secret of Bela's real father remains unrevealed for far too long.  Gauri has her own secret, which the reader only finds out at the end of the novel, a secret that might reveal her motivation to flee any vestige of her past and link to her life in India. Once again Jhumpa Lahiri crafts a tale that successfully and beautifully spans cultures and generations.

The Altamaha River drains the southern part of Georgia ending in the salt marshes around the Golden Isles near Brunswick on the Atlantic.  It is sometimes known as the Little Amazon.  Undammed, it still retains a wildness and a relatively unblemished ecology that most “tamed” rivers have lost. There are no major population centers on its banks. There are very few bridges that span it. Of course, there are industrial intrusions, and it is a constant battle to keep development at bay and preserve its unspoiled beauty for future generations.  Janisse Ray, the author of Ecology of a Cracker Childhood , describes it so lovingly that it almost seems like paradise on Earth.  To her it is, but she succeeds in imparting its uniqueness to the reader—its nature, its mystery, its allure. A few factoids I found on Wikipedia that quantify the Altamaha’s extraordinary status:  At least 120 Franklin tree species of rare plants and animals live in its watershed, including eleven species of mus

This is one of those books that when it came out in 2014 was very difficult to find a copy to lend from the library.  Now it’s more readily available.  I started with the hardcover during our beach week and then switched to an electronic copy downloaded from the library when we returned (easier to read on the treadmill this way).  This is historical fiction, based on characters that actually existed—the Grimke sisters who were born as daughters of a privileged slaveholding family in Charleston, SC, and later became abolitionists; and Denmark Vesey, a freeman who organized a thwarted slave rebellion.  It was rather fascinating delving into the dark history behind the beautiful streets and mansions of Charleston.  It’s easy to forget that the wealth and prosperity of the town that you see today was largely built on the backs of slaves.

Mary is a very upper-crusty native of London.  When Britain and France declare war against Germany in 1939, she immediately shushes off the ski slopes of her posh finishing school in Switzerland, gets on a train back to England, and signs up for volunteer war service.  She fancies herself in the role of a wartime spy, but instead is put in charge of a class of school children to fill in for male teachers called to active duty.  This lasts for only a few days at which point the children are evacuated to the countryside and she is let go because she identifies a little too closely with her young pupils.  In particular, she bonds with an American boy whose father is employed by a minstrel show at the London Lyceum, and this bond lasts throughout the novel. Mary first views the war as an adventure, but is nearly done in by it.  Her large family home in Pimlico survives seemingly untouched with its servants and staid butler, almost preserved like a relic from a vanished world.  At th

 It becomes clear that Irenie needs to save herself and her son from an emotionally and physically abusive relationship.  A representative from the USDA offers a solution, first for her son, and soon for Irenie as well. Brodis, her husband, farmer and fundamentalist preacher, looks askance at any kind of assistance from the government outsiders and comes to see the intervention as part of a diabolical plot… quite literally. Set in the Appalachians of western North Carolina in the late 1930s, the author creates a wonderful sense of place and of history.  This was a time when the virgin forests were still being violently scraped off the mountainsides, and farmers were encouraged to turn their fields over to a crop they could not eat-- tobacco.  A way of life families had followed for generations was suddenly upended. The reader is immersed in the world of the novel-- the description of the tortured hills and mountain peaks is exquisite, revealing an insider's knowledge of the l

Will is a travel writer for a publication that has him jetting off to luxurious locations and delivering mysterious packages marked “personal and confidential”.  When he finds himself spying on his own office, things start to get interesting. A post Cold War thriller that introduces so many characters and jumps around so much, that it left my head spinning.   I finished it, but in the final analysis it just wasn’t that compelling.  Pavone’s previous efforts were better, and the ending seems to hint at a series, but I’m not sure I’m up for it.   (Now that I look at my reviews of Pavone's previous books, I see that I made similar criticisms, so that may be the end for me)

Set in a distant Atlanta suburb characterized by brick ranches, sprawling asphalt parking lots, and kids with too much time on their hands, Suburban Gospel chronicles the upbringing of a son who squirms under the strict oversight of his evangelical parents. Attempting to raise a mountain boy in a citified setting, they seem to butt heads during episodes of his mild rebelliousness.   This memoir is a collection of vignettes, snapshots of the author's life as he matures and develops his own identity.  Some chapters like the account of his senior prom seem to be populated with characters from a John Hughes film (save with a southern accent). Other chapters take on a more serious tone with topics like the Atlanta child murders of 1979-81.  By the end of the book, the push and pull between the author and his parents ends in a kind of truce with each side accepting the other for what they are.  As perceived parental disappointment fades and is replaced by love, the reader realiz

During the lead-up to the Oscars we try to see the candidate movies for the best picture award.  This year I think we saw all except Mad Max .  I quite enjoyed Brooklyn with actress Saoirse Ronan ( Atonement and wanted to read the book. It’s sort of an old-timey BBC period piece of a movie, set in the 1950s when jobs were scare in Ireland and many took the trans-Atlantic route to NYC for better prospects.  Nick Hornby ( About a Boy, A Long Way Down, Juliet Naked ) wrote the screenplay based on Tóibín's book.  I really enjoyed the story and, and wondered if the book would be a bit different.  The tone was mostly the same, but there were small differences in plot development, more exposition possible in a book rather than a two hour film.  I enjoyed the movie, and enjoyed the book similarly.  I know it’s unorthodox to watch the film before reading the book, but it can frequently be rewarding.

This is the kind of scientific thriller that takes me back to Michael Crichton when he was at his finest.  I actually saw the movie with Matt Damon first and heard the book was good, but more “science-math-y”.  I also heard an interview with the author who revealed that he researched all the science behind the plot devices, so that the novel was basically scientifically viable (or at least credible), and not pure fiction.  But if it was just the science, it would be a snore.  Like the movie, there’s humor and suspense and some incredible escapes from deadly situations.  It’s so much more than growing potatoes on Mars.

This book received a lot of attention in the library several years ago, was featured as a popular book club choice, but was one I never personally got around to reading.  Now that the buzz has faded, I found that the eBook version was recently available from the library, so I checked it out to satisfy my curiosity. The subject is a compelling one.  Henry, who is Chinese American, meets Keiko, an American-born Japanese, and their friendship represents an unlikely bridge between two cultures.  Being Asian in 1940s Seattle was difficult enough, but being of Japanese descent was even more difficult when Executive Order 9066 dictated the forced evacuation of Japanese Americans to internment camps in the interior of the country.  Henry’s story is told in flashback mode—we first meet him in 1986 as an adult who has just lost his wife to cancer.  One day he walks by the Panama Hotel in former Japantown and learns that the basement holds suitcases and boxes of keepsakes and belongings Japan

What could be more civil than a dinner among family at a highly-rated restaurant where the plates come out of the kitchen looking like works of art and the waiter describes the culinary creations in exquisite detail, pointing out the featured ingredients with his perfectly manicured pinky finger? As the courses are served, a horrible family secret gradually comes to light until an almost unimaginable ending is revealed. Paul is an unreliable narrator, so it isn't clear that his stories all ring true, and the reader is left wondering if he really is the monster that is suggested. No doubt there is a character flaw shared in his immediate family, an apparent genetic predisposition to violence and a cold removal from normal human compassion (reminding me a little of Patricia Highsmith’s character Tom Ripley).  I liked Paul's snarky tone at first, but then realized that he wasn't what he first appeared to be. This book came out a couple years ago.  Since my conscious deci

A modern day Jack the Ripper is the subject of the third installment of the Cormoran Strike detective series. Definitely darker than the first two novels, it is nevertheless a worthy addition to the franchise (if you can stomach the violence and gore).  Cormoran and Robin’s professional footing is tested and her relationship to fiancé Matthew continues with its ups and downs.  Though the last scene is a wedding in Yorkshire, it has more than a hint of “The Graduate” with Strike stumbling in at the last moment.  We’ll have to wait until the next installment to see how this loose end is resolved.