Weekend picks for book lovers
- Behind-the-scenes intrigue at Marvel Comics earns 3.5 stars
- A fascinating life of the man who photographed Native Americans
- 'Best American' collections are solid bets
What should you read this weekend? USA TODAY's picks for book lovers include the intrigue-filled story behind Marvel Comics, and a biography of photographer Edward Curtis, the "Shadow Catcher."
Marvel Comics: The Untold Story by Sean Howe, Harper, 496 pp., non- fiction
The iconic superheroes of Marvel Comics have had grand adventures for decades, yet their tales pale in comparison to the behind-the-scenes drama involving their creators.
Marvel Comics: The Untold Story is a history featuring trivia, memorable moments, a cast of real-life characters both ordinary and oddball, and the kind of backstabbing and intrigue one usually only finds on a daytime soap opera.
Author Sean Howe takes both true believers and comic-book neophytes from the beginnings of Marvel and of comics themselves in the early 20th century up to the start of the company's box-office stranglehold with the boffo success of the X-Men, Spider-Man and Avengers movies.
USA TODAY says *** ½ out of four. "A superpowered must-read for anyone hooked on comics."
Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher: The Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward Curtis by Timothy Egan, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 325 pp., non-fiction
A biography of pioneering photographer Edward Curtis, who beginning in the 1890s took thousands of indelible portraits of vanishing North American Indian tribes.
USA TODAY says *** ½. A "fascinating biography … challenges the age-old ratio of a picture's worth to a thousand words."
The Best American Mystery Stories 2012 edited by Robert Crais; series editor Otto Penzler, Mariner, 416 pp., fiction
Provocative short mystery stories from the likes of T. Jefferson Parker, Charles Todd, Mary Gaitskill and Thomas McGuane, chosen by Robert Crais.
USA TODAY says **** out of four. "Every story dazzles."
The Best American Travel Writing 2012 edited by William T. Vollmann; series editor Jason Wilson , Mariner, 222 pp., non-fiction .
Nineteen essays about travel, with discoveries such as a cave in Vietnam that's as deep as a skyscraper, and new species of mammals that may be evolving near Chernobyl.
USA TODAY says ***. "Is there still a need for old-school paperbacks such as The Best American Travel Writing, now in its 13th edition? Of course."
The Round House by Louise Erdrich, Harper, 317 pp., fiction
On a North Dakota reservation in the late 1980s, an Ojibwe woman is viciously attacked and raped. Her 13-year-old son, Joe, narrates the story years later as an adult reflecting back on a horrific summer of his youth. Nominated for this year's National Book Award in fiction.
USA TODAY says ****. "Among Erdrich's best work… impossible to forget."
Contributing reviewers: Brian Truitt, Don Oldenburg, Carol Memmott, Jerry Shriver and Carmela Ciuraru.