April, astonishingly, is halfway over. Whether or not you agree with Eliot that April is the cruelest month, and thus that the month is either thankfully half-over, the undeniably non-cruel news is that a range of exciting new books is here once more. You'll find a lot to think about and consider below, and I hope you'll be emboldened to step out into that April world—cruel or not—and pick some up to add to your lists.
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J. Ryan Stradal, Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club
(Pamela Dorman Books)
"Stradal... displays his gift for writing female characters who are fully realized, sometimes unlikable, but always as flawed and compelling as real people... A loving ode to supper clubs, the Midwest, and the people there who try their best to make life worth living."
–Kirkus Reviews
Ramona Ausubel, The Last Animal
(Riverhead)
"An incredibly sharp and sweeping novel about our modern planet with an intimate emotional core... Balancing the breadth and complexity of our ailing ecosystems and the resonant humanity of a grieving family, Ausubel has crafted an unforgettable tale for our time."
–Chicago Review of Books
Jonathan Rosen, The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions
(Penguin)
"Rosen captures many worlds in this attentive, nuanced narrative, evoking boyhood discovery, the life of post-Shoah Jews in America, the rise of predatory capitalism, and the essential inability of one friend to comprehend fully the 'delicate brain' of the other. It's an undeniably tragic story, but Rosen also probes meaningfully into the nature of mental illness."
–Kirkus Reviews
Jacqueline Crooks, Fire Rush
(Viking)
"I was blown away by Fire Rush—an exceptional and stunningly original novel by a major new writer. Through the life of a young woman, Jacqueline Crooks excavates a submerged aspect of Britain's underground cultures—the dub reggae scene of the 1970s and 80s. She takes us deep inside its wild, angry and hungry soul, and her mesmerizing, imaginative and incantatory writing leaves us swaying to the bass of the visceral rhythms she so powerfully describes."
–Bernardine Evaristo
Julia Argy, The One
(Putnam)
"Fans of reality TV will appreciate the insider feel first-time novelist Argy creates for her version of a very famous dating show....It's up to readers to decide if they're disturbed or charmed and amused by Argy's knowing satire. A pop-culture send-up bound to inspire lively discussions."
–Booklist
Jonathan Kennedy, Pathogenesis: A History of the World in Eight Plagues
(Crown Publishing)
"Full of amazing facts....Pathogenesis doesn't only cover thousands of years of history--it seeks radically to alter the way the reader views many of the (often very well-known) events it describes."
–The Guardian
Jorie Graham, To 2040
(Copper Canyon Press)
"Pulitzer Prize winner Graham's poems are like those of John Donne and E.E. Cummings but on speed dial. Like Donne, Graham seeks to encounter the metaphysics of everything."
–Library Journal
Karl Geary, Juno Loves Legs
(Catapult)
"Juno Loves Legs is tender and heartbreaking. Young friendship takes on all the world's challenges—love, art, family, the simple and overwhelming task of survival—with tragic, poignant results. Readers will find Juno's bravado and Legs's persistent sweetness unforgettable."
–Shelf Awareness
Stefano Mancuso, Planting Our World (trans. Gregory Conti)
(Other Press)
"Insightful essays about the wondrous qualities of plants and humanity's relationship with them....The reflections are as entertaining as they are educational and showcase the overlooked complexity of plant life. Shot through with wisdom and joy, this will captivate readers."
–Publishers Weekly
Kevin Holden, Pink Noise
(Nightboat Books)
"This book is like a vardøger. I felt it before it arrived—'a former ghost.' Holden's formations come together, crystalline and spinning, into consummate shape. Geometry, mathematics, gay sex, earth, cosmos, mysticism, and skepticism are held together in these pages as in a polyhedron, semi-transparent, where each facet is visible at a certain angle but from another angle disappears to show a facet on the shape's opposite side. Beautiful and distinct, this work is filled with discrete infinities."
–Edgar Garcia
Stephen Buoro, The Five Sorrowful Mysteries of Andy Africa
(Bloomsbury)
"Buoro's first novel is bold, honest, and fizzing with energy in its depiction of what it's like to live inside the mind of a 15-year-old boy....Buoro, recipient of the Booker Prize Foundation Scholarship, is an exciting new literary voice emphatically carving space for himself....This tale demands that readers keep up or get left behind."
–Booklist
Han Kang, Greek Lessons (trans. Deborah Smith and Emily Yae Won)
(Hogarth Press)
"Sinuous and sublime...an extraordinary meditation on language, violence, loss and intimacy. Han Kang is a writer like no other. In a few lines, she seems to traverse the entirety of human experience."
–Katie Kitamura
Louise Gray, Avocado Anxiety: And Other Stories About Where Your Food Comes From
(Bloosmbury)
"Gray makes an overwhelming topic digestible...Avocado Anxiety encourages understanding the science behind one's food and demonstrates the global impact of every meal."
–Foreword Reviews
Cat Shook, If We're Being Honest
(Celadon Books)
"Shook's delightful and perceptive debut follows a family through an eventful week that begins with a funeral and ends with a wedding....Even with its many strands of plot, the novel never feels rushed, and Shook sprinkles some wild surprises into the goings-on. Readers will find plenty to savor."
–Publishers Weekly
Christine Grillo, Hestia Strikes a Match
(FSG)
"Christine Grillo's] sharp, sparkling debut is a timely reminder of what connects people even in a country tearing itself apart: the desire to love."
–Booklist
Peter Frankopan, The Earth Transformed: An Untold History
(Knopf)
"The author succeeds in mastering a seemingly impossible challenge, distilling an immense mass of historical sources, scientific data, and modern scholarship that span thousands of years and the entire globe into an epic and spellbinding story. Humanity has transformed the Earth: Frankopan transforms our understanding of history."
–Financial Times
Elizabeth Graver, Kantika
(Metropolitan Books)
"Intimately imagined, lyrically written, and rich with historical detail, Kantika weaves forced displacement, wild reinvention and triumphant healing into a big, border-crossing family saga. Marvelous!"
–Gish Jen
Katy Simpson Smith, The Weeds
(FSG)
"Erudite, playful, and filled with fury about gender inequality, [The Weeds] can be recommended to readers of cli-fi and feminist literary fiction."
–Booklist
Julia Lee, Biting the Hand: Growing Asian in Black and White America
(Henry Holt)
"Biting the Hand—vivid, powerful, and empathetic—grapples with the story of how 'America' got made, is made, and will be made. The harshness of this story is often forgotten or misused. This book reminds us of some of its complicated truth."
–Jamaica Kincaid
Kate Cooper, Queens of a Fallen World: The Lost Women of Augustine's Confessions
(Basic Books)
"A masterpiece of the historian's art. With a rare balance of state-of-the-art erudition and felicitous hypotheses, Kate Cooper has brought the hidden women in Augustine's early life into the light. Governed throughout by a humane sense of the texture of a distant late Roman society, she captures women's voices which we would not otherwise have heard."
–Peter Brown
Hazel Jane Plante, Any Other City
(Arsenal Pulp Press)
"Hazel Jane Plante has given us another inventive wonder to sing about. Any Other City is a fictive memoir, a letter to two ex-lovers, a portrait of a trans punk musician as a young artist, and a healing spell for collective release. From Side A to Side B, it's sweet and sly, hot and wise; it glimmers with humble brilliance. Like the best mix tape a friend-crush could give you, this book will hit all the messy big feelings and impress you to pieces in the process."
–Megan Milks
Jena Friedman, Not Funny: Essays on Life, Comedy, Culture, Et Cetera
(Atria/One Signal Publishers)
"A funny but critical look at the depredations of life as a woman comic....A serious memoir with jokes, self-deprecating yet rarely self-diminishing."
–Kirkus Reviews
Lee Durkee, Stalking Shakespeare: A Memoir of Madness, Murder, and My Search for the Poet Beneath the Paint
(Scribner)
"One of the boldest, most exhilarating books I've read this year. Durkee is a great raconteur, whose curiosity and love for literature is positively contagious. Somewhere Shakespeare—whatever he actually looked like—is smiling."
–George Saunders
Vanessa Wilkie, A Woman of Influence: The Spectacular Rise of Alice Spencer in Tudor England
(Atria Books)
"An engrossing, fast-paced, extremely well-researched biography....Views on the role of Tudor women are challenged in this devourable text, perfect for readers of biography, history, women's history, and anyone interested in the ancestors of Princess Diana."
–Booklist
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