Weekend picks for book lovers, including Walter Isaacson's new da Vinci bio

Compiled by Jocelyn McClurg | USA TODAY

What should you read this weekend? USA TODAY’s picks for book lovers include a big new biography of Leonardo da Vinci, the Renaissance painter very much in the news for smashing auction records.

Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson; Simon & Schuster, 624 pp.; non-fiction

Best-selling biographer Walter Isaacson has tackled Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein and Steve Jobs, and now he’s cast his considerable storytelling skills on an Italian Renaissance giant with Leonardo da Vinci. And don’t laugh, but the movie rights have already been bought by Leonardo DiCaprio, whose namesake he’ll honor by taking the leading role.

Isaacson’s biographical choice is a shrewd one. Leonardo might have been born in the 15th century, but he’s never far from pop culture. Beyond the ubiquitous references to paintings such as the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, a da Vinci painting of Christ just sold at auction for a record-shattering $450 million. Fabled techies-turned-collectors such as Bill Gates own his prized codexes.

Here are some of the things we learn about Leonardo the man, as opposed to Leonardo the cliché. He was gay, enjoying the company of two younger men who eventually split his estate. He was left-handed and wrote backward, less for effect and more simply because it seemed easier. He was an inquisitive jack of all trades — painter, set designer, engineer — because that’s what helped pay the bills.

But most of all, he was an observer. Of everything.

The way a bird gained loft or the way wind flowed over its wings led to his own sketches showing how man could one day fly. His passion for the human form and how muscles rippled and tensed as the body moved created a groundbreaking portrait artist. His obsession with apocalyptic images brought about blueprints for military designs that were centuries before their time.

USA TODAY says ★★★½ out of four. “Manages to bring (da Vinci) into vivid, 3D life…a 21st-century page-turner.”

The Revolution of Marina M. by Janet Fitch; Little Brown, 800 pp.; fiction

Fitch's epic novel about the life of a young woman coming of age against the tumult of the Russian Revolution and the subsequent civil war is only part one of two planned volumes.

USA TODAY says ★★★½ . “There is plenty of action and drama…Fitch (White Oleander) is an excellent writer.”

The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities, and the Remaking of the Civilized World by Jeff Goodell; Little, Brown, 352 pp; non-fiction

A journalistic take on what will happen to the world’s coastal regions as climate change elevates sea levels and conjures up extreme weather.

USA TODAY says ★★★. “Goodell talks about climate change and what it means to every person on the planet in a way that will engage even the non-Nova crowd.”

Strange Weather by Joe Hill; William Morrow; 432 pp.; fiction

A collection of four short novels by the horror author (The Fireman, NOS4A2), who also happens to be Stephen King’s son.

USA TODAY says ★★★½. “Hill whips up emotional moments that strike like lightning and thunderously rumble your soul.”

The Last Mrs. Parrish by Liv Constantine; Harper, 390 pp.; fiction

Amber Patterson, newly arrived in an ultra-rich town on Long Island Sound, is ready to ascend into its firmament by whatever means she has to use.

USA TODAY says ★★★½. “Utterly irresistible… the pages keep flying, flying, flying by.”

Contributing reviewers: Marco della Cava, Steph Cha, Zlati Meyer, Brian Truitt, Charles Finch