Peachy Reads

This was one of those serendipitous finds that can happen when you work in a public library.  I was reshelving some returns on Friday when I noticed a book with my favorite place in Bruges on the front cover, Jan van Eyck Square. “#1 international bestseller” was written in large letters under the title, “European crime sensation Pieter Aspe” on the inside jacket flap, “the Flemish Georges Simenon”.  Well, okay then!  It was a great weekend read.  A fresh plot, good characters, a great sense of place in the wonderful Flemish historical city of Bruges and Flanders and Belgium beyond, even including Wallonia.  This is the first English translation of the Inspector Van In series, the second on the way.  There is a huge backlog of  Van In titles in Flemish just waiting to be translated for a larger world audience. Can’t wait.  Pretty near as good as Wallander.  Crack a Duvel and enjoy this one.  It may be the b...

Okay, so I finished my catch-up reading binge of Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London series with the latest installment Broken Homes , which is number four in the series.  It came out July 25th in the UK (and thus was prominently promoted during our visit this summer), but isn’t set to be published in the US until later.  Obviously I was captivated by this series, which takes the typical police procedural and jazzes it up a bit with some magical and otherworldly phenomena.  It has a great sense of place for Londonophiles, and the humor and sometimes snarky tone of the main character, Peter Grant, are a lot of fun. Broken Homes has a lot going on—murders and mysterious deaths begin to stack up so much so that it confounded me a bit until the very end, when everything suddenly made sense.  There is a surprise ending which is a real cliff-hanger, but Rivers of London no. 5 has yet to be published.  I hate to wait, but it’s probably a good thing, since I need to be...

The UK and US titles and covers In a city as ancient as London there have to be a lot of spirits lurking about, so Peter Grant and his mentor are a sort of “odd squad” police unit that tackles the supernatural.  A series of unexplained murders begins to mirror the plotline of a Punch and Judy script, and the investigation centers on Covent Garden and the Actors’ Church of St. Paul’s on the piazza.  People are literally losing their heads over it, and by the end of the novel the market building at Covent Garden is in flames. The story is fresh, and the contemporary London setting is fascinating.  Peter Grant is a well-developed character, full of London slang, sarcasm, and witticisms.  This might just be Harry Potter for adults. When we were in London this summer, this series of detective novels was prominently displayed in all the bookshops and newsagents.  The cover art is certainly eye-catching.  My wife’s curiosity got the better of her and she bou...

This is the sixth novel in the Saxon Tales series, and I’ve read them all.  I suppose the danger with writing a series of historical novels pegged to real historical events is that not every volume can have a significant tide-turning, earth-shaking battle. After all, Napoleon just had the one Waterloo.   Sometimes there is détente, an uneasy peace reigns for whatever reason, and great warriors like Uhtred of Bebbanburg sit around waiting for war to be called once again so they can do what they do best. These quiet times are just not very interesting to read about. In Death of Kings Alfred the Great dies and his passing leads to a struggle for succession.  The Danes are still a force to be reckoned with, but there are those Kentish men as well who aren’t necessarily keen on a single royal head of a unified England.  There is a lot of hemming and hawing and riding back and forth on horseback, and a little distracting story about “angels” foretelling the future. ...

This wonderful novel, set in the first part of the twentieth century in England, centers on the character of Ursula Todd.  It is a book of alternate histories.  Each chapter takes up a version of her life and frequently ends with “darkness falling”.  She has this sixth sense that she can see the future, it’s all a little déjà vu , and indeed in some instances she tries to sway the outcome of events if she knows it’s going to go a certain way.  It’s a little like the movie Groundhog Day.  Interesting to see how differently things could turn out on the basis of seemingly inconsequential events.

I don’t usually get my book recommendations from Parade magazine, but this time I did.  And a good recommendation it was, too!  Josh Hanagarne is a father, a Mormon, a librarian, and a physical fitness enthusiast.  Oh, and he has a severe form of Tourette’s.  I basically downloaded this book because of the library angle ( it has an absolutely hilarious opening ) ), but was taken in by the other angles, as the author tries to come to terms with all the disparate, clashing, facets of his personality.  He finds that physical training is one way that he can control his Tourette’s, and even tries out Highland games as an extreme way to tame his muscle tics and uncontrollable impulses.   This is an interesting, frequently humorous memoir, mostly about Tourettes, but a lot about the positive influence of family in his struggles.  It’s a little off-beat, but ultimately rewarding.  You really don't need to be a librarian to enjoy this one. ...

Winston Churchill once famously said of Russia, “It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key.”  The same might be said of Ian McEwan’s latest novel, Sweet Tooth , set in 1972 during the Cold War, when the UK was trying to define a new role in a postcolonial world in which the US and the Soviet Union were the key players, and there was money to be spent on culture wars. Muses, literary prizes, and bookstore readings aren’t usually the stuff of spy thrillers, and a novel that starts so promisingly as Serena is drafted as a secret agent, very quickly becomes something quite different.   Sweet Tooth definitely had its moments, and McEwan’s style is always a treat, but as a novel it just didn’t work for me.  The premise was credible enough I suppose, but just not that compelling in the end.  And then the whole unreliable narrator thing—didn’t McEwan already try that with Atonement ?  I used to so look forward to anything ne...