I've been organizing my to-read list and placing pre-orders, because it's time for a new season of anticipated books! Here's what I'm excited about reading this spring:
→ THE BOOK OF FLORA by Meg Elison (April 23): I've already started reading this final book of the Road to Nowhere trilogy, and I'm fascinated by what's presented in just the first couple of chapters. Each book in this intense post-apocalyptic story has a different narrative style, and each focuses on the life of a different character in a plague-stricken future where women are rare. The premise leads to difficult, violent content, so these are not light reads, but I loved the first book especially. That first installment, THE BOOK OF THE UNNAMED MIDWIFE, can be read as a standalone.
→ EXHALATION by Ted Chiang (May 7): This is a new collection of stories by a wildly creative and clever science fiction writer. When I read his first collection, STORIES OF YOUR LIFE AND OTHERS, I was impressed by how dissimilar the stories are from each other, and from anything else I'd ever read. (The movie Arrival, which I liked pretty well, is adapted from one of those stories.) I'm looking forward to enjoying more of Chiang's work, including some stories that have been available online but that I never got around to reading.
→ RULES FOR VISITING by Jessica Francis Kane (May 14): I was enthralled by Kane's first novel, THE REPORT, which imagines the story behind a real-life disaster. I also admired her short story collection, THIS CLOSE, particularly for the subtle depictions of complicated relationships. I expect to find more great interpersonal dynamics in this new novel about friendship, which sounds fun and funny.
→ CITY OF GIRLS by Elizabeth Gilbert (June 4): I've never been inclined to read any of Gilbert's inspirational nonfiction, but I adored her historical novel about a nineteenth-century woman of science, THE SIGNATURE OF ALL THINGS. Her new novel is also historical, set in the 1940s New York theater world, and my curiosity is piqued.
→ THE TENTH MUSE by Catherine Chung (June 18): Roxane Gay's recommendation made me interested in this novel, and I've realized I also meant to read Chung's previous novel, FORGOTTEN COUNTRY, after a recommendation by Gay but never got to it. I'll definitely be picking up this new book, a story about math and family secrets.
→ EVVIE DRAKE STARTS OVER by Linda Holmes (June 25): This is the debut novel from a host of one of my favorite podcasts, Pop Culture Happy Hour. Holmes's media commentary is always smart and funny, and I'm thrilled that she's publishing a novel. The story is a romance between two people who are struggling with (I believe) mental health issues, and I'm happy to see the early reviews are as positive as I'd hoped!
Good Stuff Out There:
→ On Tor.com, Vivian Shaw considers How Much Research Should You Do For Your Book?: "I recently wrote a novella about air crash investigation and practical necromancy, in which I had to learn a great deal about how air traffic control works, how flights are routed, how to read various types of chart, where various controls are located in the Boeing 737's cockpit, and so on--and then I had to not have my protagonist lecture the audience about any of these things, or bring them up in conversation with the other characters unnecessarily. Writing a particularly intense scene where I had to walk that thin line felt physically exhausting, like lifting weights with my brain, but it was also deeply satisfying to have done."
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