Weekend picks for book lovers
What should you read this weekend? USA TODAY’s picks for book lovers include Chris Bohjalian's new mystery, The Sleepwalker, and a story collection from E.L. Doctorow.
The Sleepwalker by Chris Bohjalian; Doubleday, 304 pp.; fiction
Great mystery writers, like great magicians, have the ability to hide the truth that’s right before your eyes.
The author of Midwives and The Guest Room returns to small-town Vermont for this mystery thriller about a gorgeous sleepwalker, Annalee Ahlberg, who disappears from her bed one night when her husband is away on a business trip.
Annalee’s daughters Lianna and Paige are panic-stricken. It’s been nearly four years since Annalee’s last nighttime escapade; she only sleepwalks when her husband is away and has been in treatment for her parasomnia since she walked naked to the precipice of a bridge before Lianna arrived to rescue her.
Clues are scant: a swatch of blue cloth from Annalee’s nightshirt is found clinging to a branch.
USA TODAY says ***½ out of four stars. “Bohjalian at his best…this is a novel worth losing sleep over.”
Bohjalian's 'The Sleepwalker' will keep you up at night
Doctorow: Collected Stories by E. L. Doctorow; Random House, 321 pp.; fiction
Prior to his death in 2015 at age 84, Doctorow (Billy Bathgate, Ragtime) made arrangements to release one last volume posthumously; these 15 stories all have been previously published.
USA TODAY says *** stars. “Literary recycling at its best.”
E.L. Doctorow, in short form, is a pleasure
The Glass Universe by Dava Sobel; Viking, 266 pp,; non-fiction
In this unintended prequel to Hidden Figures, the real-life heroines are the 19th-century woman who toiled as “computers” at the Harvard College Observatory, interpreting the glass photographic plates of stars made by telescope each night.
USA TODAY says ***½ stars. Sobel “traces a remarkable line in American female achievement.”
A heavenly history of Harvard's female stargazers
Books for Living by Will Schwalbe; Knopf, 288 pp.; non-fiction
The author of The End of Your Life Book Club shares books that have had meaning at critical junctures in his life, from Homer’s The Odyssey to Paula Hawkins’ The Girl on the Train.
USA TODAY says *** out stars. “Books for Living is (a) …gift …that keeps giving.”
Schwalbe's 'Books for Living' is a love letter to reading
Small Admissions by Amy Poeppel; Atria, 356 pp.; fiction
Debut novel about a young woman who gets a job as an admissions officer at a prestigious New York City day school.
USA TODAY says *** stars. Poeppel “delivers a perfect balance between the totally believable… and the truly absurd.”
Contributing reviewers: Patty Rhule, Don Oldenburg, Matt Damsker, Kevin Nance, Mary Cadden