Book Recs for the World-Weary!

BookWag Files From the Danube Bureau

Dear Wags,

Distressing things keep happening. Wallowing in a destructive information ecosystem won’t improve matters. Recent events remind us that platforms that hyped themselves as virtual town squares are in an irrevocable slide. Your “feed” became Love Canal because that’s exactly how it’s designed to work. If agitation is your thing, scroll away, but a digital rage spiral is sound and fury signifying ugatz.

BookWag’s Bethanne Patrick is on assignment with Viking River Cruises this week. Luckily, she filed this week’s recommendations while drifting down the Danube. Her publishing insights, as always, are excellent. So is our advice to abandon those nasty algorithms at customs. Happy reading.

Viele Grüße,

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Bournville by Jonathan Coe

Decades ago, I read a book that surprised, delighted, and challenged me. Jonathan Coe’s fourth novel, What a Carve Up, combined a family saga with savage political commentary. His subsequent books were excellent, if not quite as stunning. His latest, which involves the Cadbury chocolate dynasty, is an engaging return to form. The candy empire began in Bournville, a village on the outskirts of Birmingham, and was founded by Quakers, which made their approach to capitalism a bit sweeter. Protagonist Mary, an octogenarian with a bad heart, looks back on a life from World War II through the global pandemic. Coe — now published by the crackerjack Europa Editions — is a virtuoso storyteller, spinning a rich yarn that about the humble people who made modern Britain. It’s a superb read.