Weekend picks for book lovers
What should you read this weekend? Paste BN’s picks for book lovers include Ben Winters' new novel about a modern America where slavery still exists, and Julian Fellowes' historical romp Belgravia.
Underground Airlines by Ben H. Winters; Mulholland Books, 322 pp.; fiction
Underground Airlines illuminates all the ways that slavery has endured into the present day — by depicting an alternate world in which it has endured, quite literally. America, 2016: a slave state.
In this alternative history, the dispute between the North and South ends with a fractious truce.
Among the many consequences are a later war to keep Texas in the union, with “swift boats on the Rio Grande,” international disgust depressing the economy until the United States looks something like East Germany, and, most significantly of course, more than 3 million slaves now living in the “Hard Four,” the final states where slavery persists.
The book’s protagonist is a former slave who goes by Jim and works catching runaways. Searching for an escaped slave, he stumbles upon a secret large enough to shake up his enigmatic handler, and just perhaps to shake the larger stakeholders behind him, too.
Paste BN says *** out of four stars. “A swift, smart, angry novel… astonishing.”
Belgravia by Julian Fellowes; Grand Central, 402 pp.; fiction
In 1840s England, Anne Trenchard tells Lady Brockenhurst that they share a bastard grandson; from the creator of Downton Abbey.
Paste BN says *** stars. “Entertaining…a juicy if lightweight tale of class snobbery, social climbing, lucky orphans and family secrets.”
A Hundred Thousand Worlds by Bob Proehl; Viking, 368 pp.; fiction
In Proehl’s geeky debut, the stories of a former sci-fi TV star and her 9-year-old son, a couple of comic-book creator dudes, and a crew of costumed women intertwine as they travel the nerd-convention circuit.
Paste BN says ***½ stars. “A perfect summer read for the Comic-Con crowd.”
Bobby Kennedy: The Making of a Liberal Icon by Larry Tye; Random House, 608 pp.; non-fiction
Biography looks at RFK’s evolution from a cold-war minion of Sen. Joe McCarthy in the 1950s to the beacon of liberalism he became.
Paste BN says *** stars. “Captures RFK’s rise and fall with straightforward prose bolstered by impressive research.”
Valiant Ambition: George Washington, Benedict Arnold, and the Fate of the American Revolution by Nathaniel Philbrick; Viking, 326 pp.; non-fiction
The award-winning historian studies how Washington’s star general, Benedict Arnold, famously became the Great American Turncoat.
Paste BN says ***½ stars. “A book for the moment… remind(s) us that outsized egos and a dysfunctional Congress were as much at issue in 1776 as they are now — if that’s any comfort.”
Contributing reviewers: Charles Finch, Jocelyn McClurg, Brian Truitt, Matt Damsker