Weekend picks for book lovers
What should you read this weekend? Paste BN’s picks for book lovers include a new fiirst novel, The Wangs vs. the World.
The Wangs vs. the World by Jade Chang; Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 368 pp.; fiction
This much is clear from the first page of Jade Chang’s bright and funny debut novel: The Wangs vs. the World is not your parents’ immigration novel. Charles Wang, the incorrigible patriarch of the title family, cares nothing about assimilating into the America where he built — and is on the brink of losing — a mega-fortune in the cosmetics industry.
Neither he nor his second wife, or his three children — Saina, an art-world celebrity; Andrew, a would-be comedian; and Grace, a belligerent teenage fashion-blog star — struggle to “fit in” or waste time worrying what Americans think of their Chinese-ness.
All are too busy scrambling up to the peak of success and then out of the trough of despair. American Dream? This family chases the Wang Dream.
When the 2008 financial crash hits, Charles loses his makeup empire as well as his bank accounts, Bel Air estate, and his dignity.
Paste BN says ***½ out of four stars. A “sharply comic novel…When the Wangs take on the world, we all benefit.”
Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen; Simon & Schuster, 528 pp.; non-fiction
The iconic rocker, now 67, writes a memoir and reveals his battle with depression and difficult relationship with his father.
Paste BN says **** 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.”
Darktown by Thomas Mullen; 37 Ink/Atria, 371 pp.; fiction
A mystery 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.”
Hero of the Empire by Candice Millard; Doubleday, 381 pp.; non-fiction
New history tracks Winston Churchill to early adulthood, as he proves his worth on the regional battlefields of the Edwardian era — most spectacularly in South Africa, where the British fought the Boer rebels in a brutal struggle for supremacy.
Paste BN says *** stars. “It’s a rich narrative, given Churchill’s mythic date with destiny, and so a reader is carried along breezily.”
Commonwealth by Ann Patchett; Harper, 322 pp.; fiction
A christening party in 1960s California, and a “gift” bottle of gin, will reconfigure two families and impact six step-siblings for decades.
Paste BN says **** stars. “Splendid… both tenderhearted and tough, dryly funny and at times intensely moving.”
Contributing reviewers: Emily Gray Tedrowe, Matt Damsker, Charles Finch, Jocelyn McClurg