Weekend picks for book lovers
What should you read this weekend? USA TODAY's picks for the weekend include magazine editor Kate Betts' memoir of her days in Paris.
My Paris Dream by Kate Betts; Spiegel & Grau, 223 pp.; non-fiction
Even if your summer travel plans don't include a stroll on the Champs-Élysées, you'll always have My Paris Dream.
Kate Betts became the youngest editor of Harper's Bazaar at age 35, but this book is the prequel to her storied career. Fresh out of Princeton in 1986 and yearning to break free from her splintered family, Betts packed her acid-washed jeans and gold hoop earrings and moved to the city of dreams to pursue a career covering the fashion industry.
It wasn't all madeleines and miniskirts. Betts lands a job at the influential Fairchild Publications, led by the imperious and impetuous John Fairchild, who sends her over the French countryside to cover boar hunts and "run through the lavender fields" of Provence. (We should all be so lucky to get this assignment.) His 24/7 demands will remind some of The Devil Wears Prada's editor in chief.
Besotted with France and the French, and despite her feelings for back-home boyfriend Will, Betts falls in love with Hervé, an insurance salesman who provides an entrée to French life and a comfortable home for the work-obsessed reporter.
USA says *** out of 4. "As light and refreshing as an ice cream cone from the legendary Berthillon."
Girl in the Moonlight by Charles Dubow; William Morrow, 352 pp.; fiction
Wylie Rose falls for the stunning Cesca Bonet in this tale of the rich set in the Hamptons and around the world.
USA TODAY says ***. "Seduces readers with a tantalizing, salacious tale set in a world of lovely people untroubled by money matters — but troubled nonetheless."
Hold Still: A Memoir With Photographs by Sally Mann; Little, Brown, 496 pp.; non-fiction
The photographer who courted controversy with nude photos of her children tells her life story through words and pictures.
USA TODAY says ****. "Troubled and triumphant, Hold Still is a memoir that never shrinks from life's damage as Mann keeps finding a way to steer us toward the light. "
The Hidden Man by Robin Blake; Minotaur, 344 pp.; fiction
This new mystery starring Fidelis and Cragg — a doctor and a coroner in England during the 1740s — begins with a local crime and takes on broader issues, including Britain's slave trade and the emerging concept of banking.
USA TODAY says ***. "Smart, absorbing, funny and beautifully researched."
Early Warning by Jane Smiley; Knopf, 476 pp.; fiction
This one's for Boomers. Early Warning, the second volume in Jane Smiley's trilogy of masterful novels about an Iowa farm family, opens in 1953, at the height of the Cold War, and takes us through 1986.
USA TODAY says ***1/2 out of four. "Smiley's brilliance is twofold. In telling the story of an American family, she unfurls the troubled trajectory of 20th century America."
Contributing reviewers: Patty Rhule, Don Oldenburg, Matt Damsker, Charles Finch, Jocelyn McClurg