Weekend picks for book lovers: 'Daily Show' edition

What should you read this weekend? Paste BN’s picks for book lovers include Trevor Noah's new memoir, and an oral history of The Daily Show With Jon Stewart.

Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah; Spiegel & Grau, 304 pp.; non-fiction

Some readers may be thrown a little by the title of Trevor Noah’s memoir.

But when The Daily Show host explains what Born a Crime means, an alternate universe — at once distant and yet uncomfortably close to home — opens up before your eyes: A world where the absurdity of race is institutionalized into authoritarian rule.

Noah was born 32 years ago in a South Africa under the rigidly, often brutally enforced system of apartheid, the son of a white Swiss father and a black Xhosa mother.

Apartheid was by then in its waning days and would be voted away in 1994. But as Noah came of age in Soweto as a light-skinned mixed-race person, he still had to negotiate his way through nettlesome, often cruelly patrolled barriers of caste and color.

Paste BN says ***½ out of four stars. “A soul-nourishing pleasure, even with all its darker edges and perilous turns.”

The Daily Show (The Book) by Chris Smith; Grand Central, 459 pp.; non-fiction

In this oral history, the main players during Jon Stewart's years hosting The Daily Show explain how the fake news show started making real news.

Paste BN says *** stars. “An insider's look…artful.”

The Chemist  by Stephenie Meyer; Little, Brown, 518 pp.; fiction

Meyer (Twilight) writes a thriller for adults pitting a scientist against the shadowy government figures who once employed her, then tried to eliminate her.

Paste BN says ***½ stars. “Consistently fast-paced fun... a terrific ride.”

The Best American Short Stories 2016 edited by Junot Díaz; Mariner, 288 pp.; fiction

Editor Junot Díaz vividly expand the horizons of what we think of as an “American” story in this collection featuring writers such as John Edgar Wideman, Louise Erdrich and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

Paste BN says ***½ stars. A “terrific and surprising collection by a diverse group of writers.”

Faithful by Alice Hoffman; Simon & Schuster, 272 pp.; fiction

The story of teenage Shelby Richmond, who, having survived a tragic car accident that puts her high school best friend into an irreversible coma, decides to allow herself to live.

Paste BN says *** stars.  “Poignant… It’s impossible not to root for Shelby Richmond.”

Contributing reviewers: Gene Seymour, James Endrst, Charles Finch, Jocelyn McClurg, Emily Gray Tedrowe