Peachy Reads

I heard an interview with author John Hodgman on NPR and his new title piqued my interest.   John Hodgman, it was pointed out in the interview, was the actor who portrayed the personification of the uptight inflexible PC in the popular Apple television commercials from a few years ago. His resume goes deeper than this though, he has frequently had various TV appearances, and his books apparently have attracted attention when they were published in the past (though not so I noticed).   Vacationland is essentially a loosely linked series of essays on a middle-aged family man / minor celebrity living in the Northeast.  It’s mildly entertaining-- there was some humor to be sure, but if you are expecting David Sedaris-like belly laughs (as I think I was) you might be disappointed.  The most interesting thing for me was the final portion on Maine (of said painful beaches), and identifying the town where he now has a house.  The mystery literary icon who once...

I picked up this book after I had heard several positive reviews, and then there was the added hook that the action takes place largely in Cleveland, Ohio (specifically Shaker Heights), a place near and dear to my heart.  The plot was intricate and tightly woven and the characters so multidimensional and believable that it was a pleasure to read from start to finish.   Plus it was fun to recognize touchstones of Cleveland life like Heinen’s, the 100 th Bomb Group Restaurant, and other landmarks. Mia and Pearl, mother and daughter, follow an itinerant lifestyle that suits Mia’s artistic pursuits.  They arrive in Shaker Heights, a well-established suburb of Cleveland, and become tenants of a duplex owned by the Richardson Family.  The lives of Pearl and the Richardson children, and soon Mia and the entire Richardson family, become intertwined to such an extent that in the end it all implodes rather catastrophically.  Suffice it to say, more than one s...

I grew up on Agatha Christie, and this was like a little return trip to the genteel English world of the simple village life of yesteryear with the vicar and his wife, the local nobleman in his treasure home, an erudite detective with a European accent and a sidekick, and a double (maybe triple) murder.  If it all sounds derivative, it’s meant to.  The Christie-like story is sandwiched within the more modern tale of its publishing, and the sudden and perplexing suicide of its author, or is it murder? The UK cover actually has a magpie on it!

In this gritty tale from the Second World War, two sisters follow quite different paths of resistance that challenge them to the core.  When the Nazis invade France Vianne tries to hold things together in her small town in the Loire Valley, her husband a POW.  Her always rebellious sister Isabelle pursues a seemingly more dangerous calling with the French Underground, traveling around France and crossing the Pyrenees repeatedly to Spain, guiding downed English pilots to safety. This novel is so jam-packed full of history and events, that the reader barely has time to process one thing before something else more tragic and catastrophic comes along.  It is war after all.  I suppose I wish there had been a bit more character development instead of broad brush strokes that defined the different personages.  And I sort of think Ari didn’t speak with the voice of a three-year-old, which mildly bothered me.  From a history standpoint this was a good rea...

This was a serendipitous find on the library’s downloadable service.  Commissaire Dupin is a Parisian who was shipped out to the “boonies” on the Celtic fringe of France to continue his police detective career after he apparently stepped on some toes in the capital city with his sometimes unorthodox approach.  Brittany is as much of a character as any human character in this book—its landscape, its history, its culture, its language, its food.  I really liked Dupin and his constant need for quality coffee and a good entrec ô te.   The murder plot was captivating,  taking place in Pont Aven, the artists’ colony that most famously is associated with Gauguin before he went to Tahiti.  I had the feeling that I was reading a native’s view of the province, but found out later that Jean-Luc Bannalec is a pseudonym for a German author.  And so popular is the series in Germany that it has even been made into a television series.  I felt like it was...

OK, so only progressives are likely to pick up this book.  But Al Franken’s story is unique.  An outsider with a long background in show business, Franken  tries his hand at national politics.  Sound familiar?  Maybe it’s the new normal.  As funny as Franken is (and he does try to put a lid on it to give his office the serious tone it deserves), he’s extremely smart, and seems to have an excellent political sense, reaches across the proverbial aisle, and sees the “big picture”.  And, at least in the book, he inserts a lot of levity into everything.  I found it interesting to see how his campaign was organized, how at first he didn’t have the blessing of the Democratic leadership, how he clawed his way up the polls (without the apparent help of foreign agents), and suffered through a months-long recount, before finally being seated as the junior Senator from Minnesota.  It’s also interesting to get an insight into how Congressional offices ...

A food writer is on the rebound after a broken relationship (she ran off with her personal trainer).  A working trip to Montalcino, a hill town in Italy, is the kind of restorative getaway that he needs to put his life and career back on track.  Except the start of the trip seems to go so wrong.  After finding himself in an Italian jail after a rental car agent tries to hoodwink him, and due to an undersupply of available  cars owing to a holiday weekend, he has no other option than to drive a bulldozer from Pisa to his hilltop pension.  It’s  a humorous  prologue which nearly hijacks the entire story, but luckily there’s much more to the novel once the bulldozer is parked in the municipal lot at Montalcino.  As with most McCall Smith’s novels, there’s a lot of talk about life and about nothing, but human relationships are front and center, and by the end of it, Paul has things sorted out satisfactorily.