Peachy Reads

The Year of the Flood / Margaret Atwood Click here to check for availability in AFPLS In her latest book, The Year of the Flood , Margaret Atwood portrays a future, a very close future, in which there has been catastrophic environmental and societal collapse. Atwood explored this theme in 2003’s Oryx and Crake , and revisits the same timeframe with even some of the same characters making appearances, though this is neither a prequel or a sequel (maybe a co-quel?). The "flood" in the title refers to a waterless flood, a global pandemic that has wiped out all but a small percentage of Earth's human inhabitants. Flashbacks reveal the main characters in situations leading up to the flood. In The Year of the Flood Atwood creates a future world that is not so unfamiliar from our own, which may make it all the more terrifying. Reminiscent of Jose Saramago's Blindness or PD James's The Children of Men (both of which have been made into film). Often grim, but always th...

Quarantine / Jim Crace Click here to check for availability in AFPLS Five penitents wander into the Judean wilderness for various reasons, known only to themselves, for a quarantine (40 days) of meditation and fasting. Their planned solitude and prayerful reflection are somewhat derailed when they all convene near a waterhole and their destinies interconnect. One of the penitents is named Jesus, and while Crace’s story doesn’t follow the Gospels, and literalists will not care for it, the figure of Jesus is an enigmatic and a charismatic presence in their midst, even though he attempts to separate himself from the others. The characters are well-drawn and all are interesting in their own right. The ending is a surprise, there is death and resurrection of sorts, and this novel will offer much food for thought for readers of any religious persuasion. Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 1997, Whitbread Novel winner 1997 ©Ken Vesey, 12 Feb 2010

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...