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Book picks for the weekend

Compiled by Jocelyn McClurg
The Serpent of Venice by Christopher Moore

What should you read this weekend? USA TODAY's picks for book lovers include a funny Shakespearean "mash-up" from Christopher Moore, and a new bio of the late novelist John Updike.

The Serpent of Venice by Christopher Moore; William Morrow, 326 pp.; fiction

During the reign of Queen Elizabeth, an Englishman set down the stories of characters so memorable that their names endure to this day: Macbeth, King Lear, Richard the Third. No, not William Shakespeare – Raphael Holinshed, a minor historian who is chiefly remembered now for providing the source material for Shakespeare's plays.

So in a sense the playwright himself inaugurated the literary tradition of appropriating and reimagining his characters.

Four centuries later, the most recent offering in this tradition is The Serpent of Venice, a mash-up of Othello and The Merchant of Venice. The hero is Pocket, an acrobatic and acerbic jester who was also the hero of Christopher Moore's Fool, a similar retelling of King Lear. Pocket finds himself now not in England but in Venice; there, two sets of adversaries are facing off simultaneously, the merchant Antonio against the Jewish moneylender Shylock, and the general Othello against his malevolent subordinate, Iago.

USA TODAY says *** out of four stars. "Serpent is a bright, quick novel… Readers of a certain Monty Python nerdiness will rejoice in its hundreds of insults."

Updike by Adam Begley; Harper, 558 pp.; non-fiction

Five years after John Updike's death comes a biography that roots for a surge in the novelist's "posthumous reputation."

USA TODAY says ***. A "sympathetic yet thorough biography."

Under Magnolia: A Southern Memoir by Frances Mayes; Crown, 336 pp; non-fiction

The author of Under the Tuscan Sun remembers coming of age in small-town Georgia.

USA TODAY says ***½ out of four. "With perfect-pitch language, Mayes unblinkingly describes her growing-up years."

Frog Music by Emma Donoghue; Little, Brown, 403 pp.; fiction

The author of Room returns with historical fiction set in 19th-century San Francisco, about the friendship of two young women, one of whom is murdered.

USA TODAY says ***. "With rich, well-researched details, Donoghue evokes a multicultural, rough-and-tumble San Francisco."

Life, Animated: A Story of Sidekicks, Heroes, and Autism by Ron Suskind; Kingswell, 368 pp.; non-fiction

Suskind tells the touching story of how his autistic son learned to communicate with his family through Disney movies.

USA TODAY says ****. "An amazing memoir …Eyes will tear. Hearts will cheer."

Contributing reviewers: Charles Finch, Bob Minzesheimer, Sharon Peters, Martha T. Moore, Don Oldenburg
https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/books/2014/04/26/book-picks-for-the-weekend/8023749/
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