10 books NPR is looking forward to this spring
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Spring is here — the perfect season to sit in the grass and read a book. Or maybe the pollen count is getting to you, in which case it’s the perfect season to sit indoors and read a book. Either way, you're going to need a few recommendations. Here are some books coming out in the next few months that NPR recommends.
Fiction
“Audition: A Novel” by Katie Kitamura (April 8)
The author of “A Separation,” and “Intimacies” returns with a tightly wound family drama that reads like a psychological thriller. The novel opens with a woman at a surreptitious lunch with a beautiful younger man.
She doesn’t know it yet, but the man thinks the woman is his mother. Then the woman’s husband walks into the restaurant. From there, “Audition” kicks off into an exploration of the roles we play within a family, and whether it's worth buying into those roles full on, if it makes the family work.
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“Vanishing World: A Novel” by Sayaka Murata, translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori (April 15)
Murata has a reputation for writing weird and quirky fiction, and in her newest, she uses that voice to question sexuality, desire and family. It’s a sci-fi, potentially dystopian (depending on your perspective, I suppose) novel about a Japan where conceiving children via artificial insemination is the norm, and having kids via sex with your partner is taboo.
“King of Ashes” by S. A. Cosby (June 10)
Cosby is one of the biggest names in the crime/thriller world these days. His last book, “All The Sinners Bleed,” got rave reviews for its depiction of the grit of small town Southern living. But while that book could be compared to “True Detective, King of Ashes” takes its cue from “The Godfather” — an ailing patriarch, a family falling apart and a son who comes back home to hold it all together.
“When Javi Dumped Mari: A Novel” by Mia Sosa (June 24)
Sure, spring can be a time for sniffles, but it’s also a time for smooches. Novelist Mia Sosa’s latest tale is a classic friends-to-lovers romance about Javi and Mari, two best friends who have a pact about picking the others’ partner. Mari gets engaged, which, of course, Javi doesn’t like. But they’re just friends, right?
“Among Friends: A Novel” by Hal Ebbott (June 24)
A debut novel from Hal Ebbott, this book follows a pair of families that have been friends for decades. Like with any long-term relationship there are petty jealousies and long-simmering resentments, but all of that stuff gets overshadowed by an act of betrayal so severe that it up-ends both families. Plot aside, Ebbott’s voice and language set the book apart from other family dramas.
Nonfiction
“Fahrenheit-182” by Mark Hoppus (April 8)
As far as rock memoirs go, this one is fairly chaste in terms of sex and drugs. Instead, Hoppus opts for being open about his relationship with his divorced parents, his relationship to mental health and, arguably, the most impactful relationship in his life –— the one he has with his blink-182 bandmate Tom Delonge.
“Ginseng Roots: A Memoir” by Craig Thompson (April 29)
The author of the hit graphic memoir “Blankets” returns with a book about a slice of his childhood completely left out of his previous work — while growing up in rural Wisconsin, he worked on ginseng farms.
Fun fact: Wisconsin is a major player in global ginseng production. And in this book, Thompson uses his cartooning talents to tell a big story about agriculture and global trade through the eyes of his childhood.
“Mark Twain” by Ron Chernow (May 13)
At 1,200 pages, Pulitzer-Prize winning biographer Chernow, known for his definitive tomes on George Washington, Ulysses S. Grant and Alexander Hamilton, takes on another unique and divisive figure in American history.
It’s a ripe time for a major Twain biography too, after Percival Everett’s “James” (a re-telling of Twains “Huck Finn” from the point of view of Jim, Huck’s friend escaping slavery) was the talk of the town among literary types in 2024.
“Toni at Random: The Iconic Writer's Legendary Editorship” by Dana Williams (June 17)
Before she was a Nobel-prize winning novelist, Toni Morrison was an editor at Random House. But she was arguably just as influential in the world of literature from that perch behind the scenes, choosing projects, championing writers, and collaborating with the likes of Muhammad Ali and Angela Davis to get their words out into the world.
“Make It Ours: Crashing the Gates of Culture with Virgil Abloh” by Robin Givhan (June 24)
Like the “Mark Twain” book, this is a Pulitzer-winning writer taking on a divisive figure in American culture. Washington Post senior critic-at-large Robin Givhan explores the life and work of fashion designer Virgil Abloh, who died in 2021 at the age of 41.
Abloh’s entire career was a mish-mash of streetwear, postmodernism, hip-hop, corporate branding and irony. Which is to say, his influence on popular culture went beyond clothes.
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