Weekend picks for book lovers
What should you read this weekend? USA TODAY's picks for the weekend include Candice Bergen's new memoir and historical fiction about French novelist George Sand.
A Fine Romance by Candice Bergen; Simon & Schuster, non-fiction; 350 pp.
You've got to love Candice Bergen.
Despite her patrician good looks, Swiss boarding school upbringing, Beverly Hills credentials and hefty collection of shiny Emmys, she's a regular woman who's hauling around the usual overflowing cartload of guilt, insecurities, disappointments and embarrassments.
In A Fine Romance, her second autobiographical work (the first, Knock Wood, chronicled her early years), she describes life from her 30s — when she met and married the much-older French director Louis Malle and her years on the hit sitcom Murphy Brown — to current-day adventures and misadventures.
With nearly every page you can almost see her, shoulders squared, eyes leveled directly at yours, taking a deep breath and letting loose with details and confessions most of us share with only our very closest girlfriends (and only after we've had two — or five — too many glasses of wine).
USA TODAY says ***½ out of four. "Stunningly candid… funny, insightful."
The Dream Lover by Elizabeth Berg; Random House; fiction, 345 pp.
Historical novel about George Sand is told in the French writer's voice: melancholy, intimate, self-aware and heartbreaking.
USA TODAY says ****. "Exquisitely captivating."
Michelle Obama: A Life by Peter Slevin; Knopf, non-fiction; 432 pp.
Revealing biography of the first lady examines her childhood in Chicago and education, and how she and her parents confronted institutional racism.
USA TODAY says ***½. "Many new details, combined with a keen sense of the political and social dynamics at work during Michelle Obama's formative years, make this book a standout."
The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro; Knopf, 317 pp.; fiction
An elderly couple setting off on a journey to find their long-lost son in early medieval England, where Briton and Saxon communities co-exist in an uneasy truce after decades of war.
USA TODAY says **** out of four. "A literary tour de force so unassuming that you don't realize until the last page that you're reading a masterpiece."
The Harder They Come by T.C. Boyle; Ecco, 384 pp.; fiction
Novel seemingly inspired by the saga of Christopher Dorner, the former LAPD officer whose killing spree in 2013 led to a massive manhunt across California.
USA TODAY says ***½. "Marvelous …a thrilling, intense book, (Boyle's) finest since Drop City."
Contributing reviewers: Sharon Peters, Patty Rhule, Ray Locker, Kevin Nance, Charles Finch