Weekend picks for book lovers
What should you read this weekend? Paste BN's picks for book lovers include a revealing new biography of reclusive author J.D. Salinger, and the story of a dance hall fire from novelist Daniel Woodrell.
Salinger by David Shields and Shane Salerno; Simon & Schuster, 575 pp.; non-fiction
Given his disdain for celebrity and public life, J.D. Salinger likely would have hated Salinger.
Considering Salinger's equal contempt for lazy journalism, though, he may have appreciated this nine-year effort to document his life.
Eloquently written and exhaustively reported, this biography of the author of The Catcher in the Rye marks the most revealing portrait yet of a writer who, in the span of four slight books, became the postwar voice of American adolescent angst.
A companion volume to a new documentary directed by co-author Shane Salerno, the book has made headlines for dozens of photographs and letters from Salinger's friends – and the news that Salinger authorized the posthumous publication of several new works.
Paste BN says *** ½ out of four. "Shields and Salerno have struck journalistic gold. Salinger is a revelation."
The Maid's Version by Daniel Woodrell; Little, Brown, 164 pp.; fiction
In 1965, the novel's 12-year-old narrator is dispatched to spend a summer in West Table, Mo., with his grandmother – who insists on telling her grandson the story of the town's Arbor Dance Hall explosion.
Paste BN says ****. "Woodrell knows how to command a reader's attention — not so much with plot twists, but with well-built sentences."
Mother Daughter Me by Katie Hafner; Random House, 268 pp.; non-fiction
In this memoir, a journalist recounts her year of living in a San Francisco apartment with her 16-year-old daughter, Zoe, and her mother, Helen, a 70-year-old alcoholic with a bruisable ego.
Paste BN says ***. "Surprisingly honest… a fresh look a hard situation, one with the message that life truly does go on."
How the Light Gets In by Louise Penny; Minotaur, 404 pp.; fiction
In this ninth mystery in the best-selling Chief Inspector Gamache series, Penny's serial protagonist faces sinister high-level corruption and a career- and life-threatening conspiracy within the Sûreté du Québec (Quebec Police Department).
Paste BN says ****. "Intense.. .if there's a crack in this novel, a flaw, it's that it comes too close to having no crack at all."
The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty; Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam, 394 pp.; fiction
A wife finds a letter her husband (away on a trip) has marked "to be opened only in the event of my death" – thereby opening a proverbial hornet's nest.
Paste BN says *** ½. "The Husband's Secret is so good, you won't be able to keep it to yourself."
Contributing reviewers: Scott Bowles, Bob Minzesheimer, Lindsay Deutsch, Don Oldenburg, Patty Rhule