Weekend picks for book lovers, including Zadie Smith's 'Feel Free'
What should you read this weekend? Paste BN’s picks for book lovers include the latest collection of essays by novelist Zadie Smith, and two compelling new mysteries.
Feel Free by Zadie Smith; Penguin Press, 435 pp.; non-fiction
Zadie Smith’s second collection of essays brims with a wide-ranging enthusiasm — she’s stoked by everything from highbrow art to TV sketch comedy. But her excitement is tempered by a concern over what politics has done to the cultural landscape.
In the opening pages, she laments public libraries at risk of closing in her native England and the ugly tribalism fueled by Brexit. Smith likes to keep musical and artistic metaphors handy — her 2016 novel, Swing Time, was a study of race framed around dance and pop music — and she bemoans the lousy symphony she’s hearing these days. “At this moment, all over the world — and most recently in America — the conductors standing in front of this human orchestra have only the meanest and most banal melodies in mind,” she writes.
The stakes are high for cultural consumers, she argues, especially if what we value is diversity. She’s comfortable diving into controversy to make that point: She defends a white painter’s rendering of Emmett Till against accusations of cultural appropriation. Any firm dictate about what identity is, who should make art of it and how leaves her skeptical. (Note the book’s title.)
But at heart she’s more a booster than a warrior, inclined to praise her chosen subjects, among them Jay-Z, Joni Mitchell, Key & Peele, J.G. Ballard, Hanif Kureishi and Philip Roth.
Paste BN says ★★★½ out of four. “Lively…enchanting.”
Sunburn by Laura Lippman; William Morrow, 304 pp.; fiction
In the summer of 1995, two good-looking strangers arrive separately in a tiny Delaware town. Lippman slowly metes out the truth of why Polly and Adam are lying low, as they circle each other and wonder the same.
Paste BN says ★★★½. “Seductive and gripping…worthy of Raymond Chandler or Alfred Hitchcock.”
Grist Mill Road by Christopher J. Yates; Picador, 352 pp.; fiction
This psychological thriller, set in 1982 and 2008, begins with two boys responsible for a horrific incident, in which a girl named Hannah is tied to a tree and shot dozens of times with an air rifle, then left for dead. In 2008, Hannah is married to one of them.
Paste BN says ★★★½ . “Superb, powerful…Yates is the real deal.”
Jefferson’s Daughters: Three Sisters, White and Black, in a Young America by Catherine Kerrison; Ballantine, 448 pp.; non-fiction
Tells the stories of three of Thomas Jefferson’s children (including a daughter by the slave Sally Hemings), who, due to their gender or race, lived lives whose most intimate details are lost to time.
Paste BN says ★★★ . “Poignant… offers a fascinating glimpse of where we have been as a nation.”
All-American Murder: The Rise and Fall of Aaron Hernandez, The Superstar Whose Life Ended on Murderers’ Row by James Patterson with Alex Abramovich and Mike Harvkey; Little, Brown, 400 pp.; non-fiction
Billed as “the definitive, never before told account” of the Aaron Hernandez story, All-American Murder investigates the case of the New England Patriots star who was convicted of murder and committed suicide in prison.
Paste BN says ★★★½ . “Patterson fans will be delighted…this disturbing true-crime thriller is another fast and captivating read.”
Contributing reviewers: Mark Athitakis, Charles Finch, Charisse Jones, Don Oldenburg
