Weekend picks for book lovers
What should you read this weekend? Paste BN’s picks for book lovers include Don DeLillo's latest novel, and a non-fiction history of Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders.
Zero K by Don DeLillo; Scribner, 274 pp.; fiction
It has always been tempting to think of Don DeLillo (White Noise, Underworld) not only as the brainiest of novelists, but as a writer who deploys his supreme powers of invention to distract us from an essential coldness. An author this cerebral, this dispassionate, this clinical in his dissection of modern life — can he really be in possession of a heart, too?
It turns out that he can.
Zero K is the story of Jeffrey Lockhart, whose billionaire father, Ross, has become involved with The Convergence, a remote compound where ailing but still-living people with significant means are cryogenically frozen to await advances in medicine and nanotechnology that they believe will allow them to return to life someday in rebuilt bodies.
Artis, Ross’s beloved second wife — he abandoned his first wife, Jeffrey’s mother — hungers not only for deliverance from the multiple diseases that are killing her, but for eternal life.
Paste BN says **** out of four stars. “A return to top form … Zero K is anchored in emotions as old and primal as humanity itself.”
Rough Riders: Theodore Roosevelt, His Cowboy Regiment, and the Immortal Charge Up San Juan Hill by Mark Lee Gardner; William Morrow, 336 pp.; non-fiction
The story of Teddy Roosevelt and his legendary “Rough Riders” as they fight major battles during the 1898 Spanish-American War.
Paste BN says ***½ stars. “A must-read for Roosevelt aficionados and those who appreciate compelling stories of military history.”
LaRose by Louise Erdrich; Harper, 372 pp.; fiction
A man hunting deer accidentally shoots and kills his neighbor’s young son; to make peace with the grieving family, he offers his own son, LaRose, as a replacement.
Paste BN says ***½ stars. “Bracing …(written) with a blunt, clear-eyed realism.”
Everybody's Fool by Richard Russo; Knopf, 477 pp.; fiction
The author returns to the town of North Bath, N.Y., in this sequel to his 1993 breakthrough novel Nobody’s Fool.
Paste BN says **** stars. “Reading Russo’s latest is like spending time with a friendly gossip, a chatty observer who is above all interested in the doings of ordinary folk.”
The Violet Hour: Great Writers at the End by Katie Roiphe; The Dial Press, 287 pp.; non-fiction
Roiphe examines the last days of the writers, thinkers and artists Susan Sontag, John Updike, Dylan Thomas, James Salter, Sigmund Freud and Maurice Sendak.
Paste BN says ***½ out of four. “Roiphe paints a series of revealing and intimate portraits of her subjects while pursuing her own very personal search for answers.”
Contributing reviewers: Kevin Nance, George Petras, Mark Athiakis, Eliot Schrefer, James Endrst