Weekend picks for book lovers
What should you read this weekend? USA TODAY’s picks for book lovers include Alice Hoffman's new novel Faithful and Beatles '66, a look at a pivotal year in pop music.
Faithful by Alice Hoffman; Simon & Schuster, 272 pp.; fiction
It’s impossible not to root for Shelby Richmond, the broken, goodhearted young woman at the center of Faithful.
Shelby, having survived a tragic car accident that puts her high school best friend into an irreversible coma, decides to allow herself to live.
But first, Shelby suffers: in the small Long Island community where everyone whispers about her; in the psychiatric hospital where she is brutally abused; and in her own mind, filled with guilt and remorse.
Why can’t she be dead, and beautiful Helene, breathing only because of a machine, be the survivor?
Fleeing to Manhattan with her boyfriend, Shelby ignores her agonized mother’s concerns and takes a menial job at a pet shop.
And it’s here that Faithful takes off, filling anguished Shelby’s life with animals she can’t help but rescue and love, and a sassy older co-worker who quickly becomes a best friend.
USA TODAY says *** out of four stars. “Poignant… Hoffman exercises characteristic strengths — a wide cast of quirky, believable characters, sly humor and a clear love for the American teenager.”
Alice Hoffman's new novel will reward 'Faithful' fans
Beatles ’66: The Revolutionary Year by Steve Turner; Ecco, 464 pp.; non-fiction
This new biography zooms in on 1966, when everything changed for The Beatles as the weary quartet got off the road and out of the studio. Settling into their own lives in and around London, they sopped up avant-garde culture and experimented with mind-altering drugs.
USA TODAY says *** stars. “What the book does particularly well is glimpsing the bandmates in their unguarded moments.”
For The Beatles, 1966 sparked a revolution
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.
USA TODAY says ***½ stars. A “terrific and surprising collection by a diverse group of writers.”
'Best American' collections speak volumes
The Best American Travel Writing 2016 edited by Bill Bryson; Mariner, 277 pp.; non-fiction
Legendary travel writer Bill Bryson returns as guest editor 16 years after editing the first edition of the series, and includes offbeat pieces such as Dave Eggers exploring Hollister, Calif.
USA TODAY says ***½ stars. “The stories Bryson has chosen prove that there are still writers traveling and producing beautiful stories.”
Ulysses S. Grant emerges a hero in new bio
American Ulysses by Ronald C. White; Random House, 667 pp.; non-fiction
This revisionist biography of Ulysses S. Grant, Civil War general and then president, portrays a deeply introspective man of ideals, a man of measured thought and careful action who found himself in the crosshairs of American history at its most crucial moment.
USA TODAY says **** stars. “The larger point of White’s book…is that Grant was a noble man of vision.”
Contributing reviewers: Emily Gray Tedrowe, Kim Willis, Jocelyn McClurg, Nancy Trejos, Matt Damsker