Weekend picks for book lovers
What should you read this weekend? Paste BN’s picks for book lovers include Born to Run, the memoir by rocker Bruce Springsteen, and two new mysteries.
Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen; Simon & Schuster, 528 pp.; non-fiction
Anyone who has attended more than one Bruce Springsteen concert knows that somewhere in the show’s second half, The Boss will wax nostalgic.
He’ll call on a memory from his early — not his glory — days, and deliver a touching anecdote about his mom, his dad, or his hometown of Freehold, N.J., before counting the E Street Band into whatever song best captures the story’s emotion. In their way, those brief spoken tributes are every bit as good as the songs.
Now that narrative gift is on glorious display in Born to Run, a philosophically rich ramble through a rock ’n’ roll life that began like many others, in small-town obscurity and near-poverty.
Springsteen chased that promise, and while still a teen he became a working musician, a fierce guitar-slinger who led his early groups, The Castiles and Steel Mill, to crowd-rousing success in the clubs of the Jersey shore. That was before he found his voice as a singer and songwriter and assembled his multicultural triumph, the E Street Band.
Paste BN says **** out of four stars. “Reading his intimate look back on a remarkable yet troubled life, it’s safe to say that Bruce’s aesthetic wouldn’t be complete without this long-form Song of Springsteen. It’s the lyric he was born to write.”
Razor Girl by Carl Hiaasen; Knopf, 333 pp.; fiction
This new novel about various criminals and shysters trying to con each other in Key West features a hilarious satire of Duck Dynasty and an ingenious redheaded heroine.
Paste BN says ***½ stars. “Hiaasen (is) Florida’s resident master of the sunburnt caper.”
Darktown by Thomas Mullen; 37 Ink/Atria, 371 pp.; fiction
Thomas Mullen’s new mystery is about the first black police officers hired by the city of Atlanta in 1948. They’re met with equal hostility inside and outside of the department.
Paste BN says ***½ stars. “Absorbing… Mullen is a skillful writer.”
The Terror Years: From al-Qaeda to the Islamic State by Lawrence Wright; Knopf, 350 pp.; non-fiction
A collection of reporting on terrorism for The New Yorker that demonstrates Wright’s knowledge of the national security challenge of our time.
Paste BN says ***½ stars. “Few American writers understand the phenomenon of Islam-based terrorism better than Lawrence Wright.”
The Wonder by Emma Donoghue; Little, Brown, 304 pp.; fiction
In a small Irish village in 1859, an English nurse is hired to watch an 11-year-old girl who claims to have gone without food for four months, without detriment to her health.
Paste BN says *** stars. “Deliciously gothic…this is a novel that lodges itself deep.”
Contributing reviewers: Matt Damsker, Charles Finch, Ray Locker, Steph Cha