April is packed with an almost overwhelming amount of exciting new releases from cherished authors. Among the highlights: Jennifer Egan delivers a long-awaited sibling romance to A Visit from the Goon Squad, and Emily St. John Mandel once again turns a pandemic into fodder for fiction. Ocean Vuong’s second collection of poetry will leave readers breathless, while essays by comedian Jessi Klein promise a laugh for stressed-out parents. other titles celebrate deaf culture and feature determined and energetic nuns.
here, the 12 best new books to read in April.
You are reading: Best books april 2022
the candy house, jennifer egan (April 5)
Jennifer Egan’s 2010 novel A Visit From The Goon Squad won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction and hooked readers with her imagination and intellect. Now, more than a decade later, many of her characters return in The Candy House, which bills itself as a sibling novel but also works as a stand-alone novel. focuses on a new technology, “own your unconscious”, that allows people to save and share all their memories. egan uses tweets and emails from the future to illustrate what happens when we have access to the most private thoughts of others.
buy now: the house of sweets in the bookstore | Amazon
Blood and Sweat: Black Lives and the Making of White Power and Wealth, clyde w. Ford (April 5)
For too long, African-Americans have helped white people get rich and support themselves, but instead of getting their fair share, they’ve received brutality in return. that is the central argument that clyde w. Ford, psychotherapist and author of Think Black, does in this deeply researched book. Ford recounts the period from the time enslaved Africans arrived in Virginia in 1619 to the end of Reconstruction in 1877. He illustrates the many ways in which black labor has been essential in fields such as agriculture, politics, medicine, and law enforcement. the law, and makes it clear that reparations are still due.
buy now: of blood and sweat in bookstore | Amazon
let’s not do that again, grant ginder (April 5)
Nancy Harrison is running for Senate and her biggest obstacles are her adult children, Greta and Nick. Greta is making headlines for throwing a bottle of champagne through a Paris restaurant window during a political riot, which doesn’t exactly help Nancy’s image. Nick, reeling her way from writing a musical based on the works of Joan Didion, accompanies her mother to France to bring Greta home and save the campaign. Ginder, author of We Hate Weddings, has inhabited the world he writes about: he spent time as a congressional intern and white house speechwriter, experiences that help this big-hearted family comedy shine.
buy now: let’s not do that in the bookstore again | Amazon
sea of tranquility, emily st. John Mandel (April 5)
Sea of Tranquility introduces readers to Oliva, the author of a best-selling pandemic novel, a rather meta plot point, given that Emily St. John Mandel herself is the author of a hugely popular (and prescient) pandemic novel, Station Eleven. we meet olive jumping from a vancouver forest in 1912 to the lunar colony where she lives in 2203. mandel plays with the idea of parallel worlds and presents a puzzle about the nature of time and reality that surprises again and again . longtime fans will appreciate the easter eggs that poke fun at her previous work.
See Also: Dr. Maya Angelou: 5 Things to Know About Her Beautiful Life | Time
buy now: sea of tranquility in bookstore | Amazon
real deal, sara nović (April 5)
sara nović’s second novel, which follows girl at war, takes place in a school for the deaf, where the lives of a headmistress and two students intersect. one of the teenagers, charlie, is forced by her parents to get a cochlear implant, a controversial device that helps some deaf people perceive sounds. Her hearing family never allowed her to learn American Sign Language, which is the complete opposite of his classmate Austin’s experience growing up with deaf parents. When Charlie and Austin go missing, their community is put to the test in this story of love, friendship, protest, and justice.
buy now: true biz in the bookstore | Amazon
memphis, tara m. string mate (April 5)
tara m. Stringfellow’s poignant debut novel follows three generations of a black southern family from the 1930s to the early 2000s. When Joan is 10 years old, she, her mother, and her sister flee their violent father and take refuge in a family home in memphis. It’s the same place where, 50 years earlier, Joan’s grandfather was lynched after becoming the city’s first black detective. stringfellow introduces characters worth rooting for and jumps between years and voices to reveal how we convey trauma, anger, and love.
shop now: memphis in the bookstore | Amazon
time is a mother, ocean vuong (April 5)
It has been six years since Ocean Vuong’s first collection of poetry, Night Sky with Exit Hers, was published. In the meantime, she published a haunting lyrical novel, On Earth We Are Briefly Beautiful. now, finally, she returns with 27 new poems. Many are filled with grief as Vuong deals with the death of her mother. others examine race, sexual orientation, and identity. time is a mother is a moving and beautiful collection.
buy now: time is a mother in the bookstore | Amazon
building a nervous system, margo jefferson (April 12)
pulitzer prize-winning critic margo jefferson, whose memoir negroland was published in 2015, reflects on some of her most intimate memories in building a nervous system . She blends memoir and criticism by examining how Black artists like Ella Fitzgerald, Ike Turner, Nat King Cole, and Bud Powell helped shape her, and how they impacted race and class in general. Jefferson excels at deconstructing American culture, and her raw self-examination makes her work fascinating.
shop now: building a nervous systemin bookstore | Amazon
mokama sisters: the pioneering women who brought hope and healing to india, jyoti thottam (april 12)
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sisters of mokama is the inspiring story of six kentucky nuns who built a hospital in a deprived area of india in 1947, when diseases like cholera were rampant. Soon, the nuns opened a nursing school, and the mother of New York Time editor Jyoti Thottam (formerly of Time) was one of the women who studied there. At that time, Indian women rarely left home without a man, so the opportunity to train at the hospital was life-changing. thottam interviewed more than 60 people to recreate the determination displayed by the doctors and nurses who worked at the hospital in its early years, as well as the women who founded it.
buy now: mokama sisters in bookstore | Amazon
the problem of happiness: and other stories, tove ditlevsen, translated by michael favala goldman (April 19)
Danish writer Tove Ditlevsen died in 1976, but her legacy lives on in this collection of short stories. as its title suggests, the problem with happiness, this is not a happy read; focuses primarily on relationship confusion. in one story, a husband drives away her wife’s pet cat because he feels threatened by her love for him; in another, a tyrannical mother oppresses her children. manipulation and alienation are frequent themes. Readers who enjoyed Ditlevsen’s autobiographical Copenhagen Trilogy will appreciate these stories: they’re haunting, but beautifully crafted.
buy now: the problem of happinessin bookstore | Amazon
forbidden city, vanessa hua (april 19)
In 1960s China, during the violent cultural revolution, a fictional teenage girl named mei is recruited by the communist party and drawn into the inner life of the president who leads the revolution. she becomes his confidante and romantic partner, constantly battling jealous young women who would like to take her place, including the president’s wife. But when Mei is assigned an important political mission, she becomes disillusioned and must make heartbreaking decisions. Forbidden City is a fascinating, deeply researched novel that offers a new perspective on a tumultuous era.
buy now: forbidden city in bookstore | Amazon
I Will Show Myself: Essays on Midlife and Motherhood, Jessi Klein (April 26)
comedian jessi klein delivers a much-needed laugh for parents just beginning to emerge from the dumpster fire, aka pandemic parenting. In her second collection of essays, the writer inside amy schumer grapples with the humiliations and possibilities of middle age and motherhood, from impossible car seats to equally unnerving “mom” necklaces. . even the essay titles are funny. among the most prominent: “in praise of my feet”, “your husband will remarry five minutes after you die” and “hearing beyoncé in the parking lot of party city”.
buy now: I’ll show myself at the bookstore | Amazon
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