Something for everyone: 5 vastly different page-turners for your long-weekend reading pleasure
Labor Day is finally upon us - and for most, that means a long weekend. And, hopefully, a long weekend means a chance to rest up. And, should your resting up involve reading, you may find yourself wanting a book absorbing enough to distract you from the fact that summer is rapidly reaching its end. Here are five of my favorite quick reads across a number of categories to get you through summer’s last hurrah.
For a thrill(er)-seeker: Whenever I’m looking for a page-turner, the thriller department is typically my first stop. And while I have a number of more niche recommendations in this category, I’m looking to share options that you might be able to find at a Hudson News train station or small-town bookstore. And for that, we have The Silent Patient. This book follows Alicia Berenson, who has murdered her husband - despite their seemingly perfect marriage - and taken a vow of silence in the aftermath of the crime. She’s been in a psychiatric unit since the murder, and hasn’t said a word - but psychotherapist Theo Faber is obsessed with her story and convinced he can get to talk. I audibly gasped at the twist in the book - I promise you won’t be able to put it down.
For the non-fiction fans: Killers of the Flower Moon is coming out as a movie, directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Leo & friends - and there’s been a lot of talk about the 3 hour and 26 minute (!) runtime. Honestly, you could fly through the book within the confines of this timeframe with a few minutes to spare. I read it in 2017 and still think about it often; it’s author, David Grann, has an uncanny ability to pack in a ton of information without ever confusing the reader.
Set in the 1920s, the book opens with white men discovering that the Osage Indians, who had long lived on protected tribal land across Oklahoma and Kansas, are sitting on millions of dollars worth of oil reserves (which, of course, belong rightfully to the Osage). Not long after said discovery, a number of Osage begin to die mysterious deaths. While they get private investigators involved, the case is tough to crack - and the Osage take it to the federal government. The resulting investigation, led by J. Edgar Hoover, became the first big case of what would eventually become the Federal Bureau of Investigation - yes, these murders were one of the instigating incidents that resulted in the creation of the FBI. If you’re looking for a non-fiction page-turner - this is absolutely it. It’s well-written, informative, and reads like a thriller (unfortunately, given real lives were at stake) - and it’ll matter a lot less if you zone out during Scorsese’s 3h26 magnum opus come October.
An old-school pick you may have missed: Rebecca. Published in 1938, it’s highly likely that, unless you had a Rebecca fan in your life, this one passed you by. Lucky for me, a friend of mine effusively recommended Rebecca all the way back in middle school - and, for whatever reason, I clocked it, shelved it, and didn’t return to the recommendation until Easter 2016 (I remember the date solely because it was the last time in my career I had Good Friday off…tbt!). Rebecca follows an unnamed narrator from the lower classes who is shocked by a sudden proposal from a wealthy and handsome man named Maxim de Winter, whom she meets in the South of France. He spirits her away to Manderely, his gloomy estate, where she discovers that the proposal was, in fact, too good to be true. It’s one of those books that unfolds a bit languorously at the beginning - but once it gets going, you’ll be glued to the page. It’s a page-turning classic I always forget to recommend because it’s so old - don’t wait 10 years to take the rec like I did.
For short story fans (and even those who aren’t): Girl, Woman, Other. I’m actually not typically a short story fan, so I think the fact that I’m recommending GWO speaks to how gripping I found it. I absolutely loved this book (and so did the Booker Prize committee, because it won in 2019) of 12 interlocking stories about Black British women. Each character is in a vastly different place in life, from a social media influencer to a nonageranian to a crisp and polished investment banker, yet, by the end of the book, their stories all weave together in clever and intricate ways. It’s a unique, witty book in a style unlike anything I’d typically read and it was hugely satisfying to see typically marginalized voices centered throughout the entire narrative.
For an entirely unique (and somewhat mind-bending) reading experience: Trust Exercise
I read Trust Exercise by Susan Choi couple years ago, and I still think about the ending. Trust Exercise does what it says on the tin: it tests the limits of your trust in Choi. It starts in a 1980s performing arts school (fun! simple! page-turning!) and follows two theater kids, Sarah and David, who become inextricably bound during a weird (yep!) trust exercise that their theater teacher, Mr. Kingsley, makes them do in the dark during drama class. The first part of the book mostly tracks David and Sarah’s relationship, and the ways Mr. Kingsley gets in the way. Something bad happens at the end of part one, but, almost immediately at the start of part two, we’re told by a new narrator that we have reason not to trust the tellings of part one (still with me?). By the time we get to part three, we’re introduced to yet another narrator, who throws some additional information about the previous two parts our way that seem to do nothing but confuse and confound. I, for one, had to head online to read countless theories and explanations as to what the hell had actually happened at the end of the book (once you finish, check this primer out) - and, while it’s somewhat frustrating to read a baffling book (especially one with a darkness to it - which Trust Exercise has in spades), it’s also satisfying to begin to retroactively connect the dots, with the help of some handy internet sleuths. It’s a theater kid predecessor to Hernan Diaz’s hit of last summer, Trust, with less density and more darkness.