Weekend Picks For Book Lovers

(from usatoday.com
by Jocelyn McClurg)


What should you read this weekend? USA TODAY's picks for book lovers include Anna Quindlen's new novel and a memoir for George Eliot fans.

Still Life With Bread Crumbs by Anna Quindlen; Random House, 252 pp.; fiction

Rebecca Winter is a photographer who moves to a cabin in the country so she can rent out her Manhattan apartment to save money. Rebecca was married to an undermining, narcissistic professor when she snapped a photo of the detritus of a party he refused to help clean up.

The photo she called Still Life With Bread Crumbs made Rebecca a feminist icon and catapulted her to wealth and acclaim. She divorced her philandering husband, but at 60, her Still Life money is running out.

Rebecca's ramshackle cottage has raccoon issues, and she calls on Jim Bates, the town's roofer, for help. Fortysomething Jim is a classic good guy who cares for his fragile sister and anyone else who needs a hand.

USA TODAY says: * * * ½ out of four. "Still Life is a charming read … smooth and comforting about the vulnerabilities of growing older."

Little Failure by Gary Shteyngart; Random House, 368 pp.; non-fiction

Novelist Shteyngart writes a memoir about his life, a story that begins when he comes to the USA with his Russian Jewish parents.

USA TODAY says: * * *. "Alternately moving, irritating and laugh-out-loud funny."

The Kept by James Scott; Harper, 357 pp.; fiction

This novel set around 1900 in western New York is about a woman seeking revenge along with her surviving son after her husband and four of her children are murdered.

USA TODAY says: * * *. An "unsettling but gracefully written debut novel."

My Life in Middlemarch by Rebecca Mead; Crown, 278 pp.; non- fiction

Journalist Mead celebrates George Eliot's most famous novel, which she has loved since reading it as a teenager.

USA TODAY says: * * * *. "Delightful … her passion proves infectious."

The Last Enchantments by Charles Finch; St. Martin's Press, 336 pp.; fiction

The novel is set in 2005 and narrated by a 25-year-old American studying literature at England's class-conscious Oxford University. (It's written by a frequent contributor of book reviews to USA TODAY.)

USA TODAY says: * * *. "Gracefully written and atmospheric."


Contributing reviewers: Patty Rhule, Elysa Gardner, Bob Minzesheimer, Carmela Ciuraru