Spring Preview: 38 New Books to Add to Your Reading List

Go Gentle by Maria Semple: A divorced New York philosopher devoted to Stoicism finds herself drawn into the drama of an international art heist at the British Museum. By the author of Where’d You Go, Bernadette, the novel is billed by the publisher as “exuberant and life-affirming.” (April 14)

See You on the Other Side by Jay McInerney: This is the fourth novel by McInerney (of Bright Lights, Big City fame) to focus on Corrine and Russell Calloway, first introduced in 1992’s Brightness Falls. The couple, now in their 60s, has weathered some storms over their 40 years of marriage but faces further upheaval after the pandemic hits in 2020. (April 14)

Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth: The Australian thriller writer introduces us to Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick, 81, a cranky, quirky and sarcastic presence on her quiet street, where she hides her dark past: She was once known as Mad Mabel, thought to be cursed and a possible murderer. Then a little girl moves into the neighborhood and wants to know everything about Elsie, and her walls start to crumble. (April 21)

Ghost Town by Tom Perrotta: A middle-aged novelist is forced to confront a tragedy from his youth in this novel by the author of, among others, The Leftovers and Election, featuring the irrepressibly ambitious Tracy Flick (played by Reese Witherspoon in the 1999 film). (April 28)

The Calamity Club by Katherine Stockett: In this thick novel set in Oxford, Mississippi, the lives of an orphan and two women intersect as they struggle during the Great Depression. It’s by the author of the mega-bestseller The Help (2009). (May 5)

Take Me With You by Steven Rowley: College professor Jesse reckons with sudden solitude after Norman, the man he’s loved for 30 years, mysteriously disappears. Jesse is forced to grapple with his chaotic new reality and consider the man he wants to be without Norman at the center of his life in this novel by the author of 2021’s The Guncle. (May 19)

Mysteries/thrillers/crime 

Judge Stone by James Patterson and Viola Davis

The prolific Patterson teamed up with EGOT-winning actor Davis for this fast-paced courtroom drama. It follows Mary Stone, a respected Black judge in a small Alabama town, as she presides over a contentious case that stirs up the community and forces her to make a difficult, life-or-death decision. (March 9)

The Keeper by Tana French

This is the last book in the Cal Hooper trilogy that began with French’s 2020 bestseller The Searcher. Hooper is a retired Chicago cop who’s settled in a small village in rural Ireland, where he faces an unusual amount of malfeasance. (French’s publicist says she’s joked about how she needed to wrap up the series, considering that “there’s a limit to how many sinister deaths you can have in one small townland before you go full Murder She Wrote.”) Here, Cooper and his fiancée Lena are swept up in the investigation of a young woman who was found dead in the river. They believe it was murder; others insist it was suicide. (March 31) 

A Deadly Episode by Anthony Horowitz

If you’ve read Twist of the Knife, The Word is Murder, and the other books in the Hawthorne & Horowitz series, you know Horowitz, the TV writer behind PBS’s Foyle’s War, is always great fun. Like the other novels, A Deadly Episode playfully features the author “Anthony Horowitz” teaming up with the brilliant and enigmatic Detective Daniel Hawthorne to find fodder for his mystery novels. This time, they find out that their first book, The Word Is Murder, is being turned into a film (as is the real book – Horowitz loves getting meta with his plot), but something seems strange about the production. Then the actor playing Hawthorn is found stabbed to death, and the quirky duo is on the case. (April 28)

Also of note:

Everyone in This Bank Is a Thief by Benjamin Stevenson: Ernest Cunningham, whom fans met in the first three books in the series (including Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone), is taken hostage in a bank. The already chaotic scene grows more so after one of the other hostages dies. Find out whodunnit in this fun, twisty mystery. (March 17)

My Grandfather, the Master Detective by Masateru Konishi: A young woman connects with her grandfather through puzzles and mysteries they solve together, even as his health and acuity decline due to his Lewy body dementia. The Japanese author, who expects this book to be the first in a series, was inspired by his experience caring for his father with LBD. (March 17)

Gunner by Alan Parks: Parks, known for his Harry McCoy detective series, kicks off a new World War II-era thriller series featuring Joseph Gunner, a former detective who’s returned home to Glasgow from the war and is drawn into a web of international intrigue. The second book in the Gunner series, Deception, will be published in August. (April 7)

The Last Mandarin by Louise Penny and Mellissa Fung: This is something new for fans of Penny’s Three Pines series: a rare stand-alone novel and with no Inspector Gamache! The cowritten thriller centers on an estranged Chinese American mother (a Tiananmen Square activist) and daughter who are called upon by the U.S. government to assist during an international crisis apparently sparked by China. (May 12)

Nonfiction

Apple: The First 50 Years by David Pogue

Tech journalist and CBS news contributor David Pogue chronicles the history of Apple, the company that has arguably changed modern life — for better or worse — more than any other. He starts with the nerdy boyhoods of founders Steven Jobs and Steve Wozniak in northern California and takes the reader through Apple’s highs (the release of the iPhone) and lows (worker suicides at Chinese factories, for one). It’s a lively, if hefty (at 608 pages), book written in a conversational voice and punctuated with throwback photos of people, products and events, plus intriguing text boxes highlighting key players and groundbreaking ideas that influenced the evolution of personal computing. (March 10)

Stay Alive: Berlin, 1939-1945 by Ian Buruma

Is it possible to live blamelessly in a murderous regime? Ian Buruma tackles this question in this scrupulously researched and devastatingly readable examination of everyday citizens in the wartime German capital. Buruma’s Dutch father spent time in a forced-labor factory in Berlin, and that story is woven with other historical accounts. For a while, the city retained some normalcy, with jazz bars and beaches crowded, and some citizens in denial or worse: One Catholic father told his family they would “do what we must but nothing more than that.”  By the end, everyone left in Berlin found themselves sheltering underground, their city above a smoking ruin. (March 17)

London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family’s Search for Truth by Patrick Radden Keefe

The author of the bestselling Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland, a staff writer at the New Yorker, explores the story of a young man who, at age 19, fell to his death from his luxury London apartment building. His devastated parents wanted answers, and discovered their son, drawn to a life of excess, was posing as the heir of a Russian oligarch and had ties to organized crime. Kirkus Reviews gave it a coveted star, calling it, “An exemplary account of naïveté, wealth, and menace, impeccably told by a top-notch journalist.” (April 7)

Big Fan: Two Friends, 81,589 Miles, and the Wild, Wonderful Sports We Love by Michael Schur and Joe Posnanski

“They’re letting you do what?” Posnanski’s wife said to her husband when hearing about his accepted book proposal. It sure sounds like a win for these sports-obsessed pals: Podcast hosts Schur and Posnanski (author of Why We Love Baseball and Why We Love Football, among others) took to the road (and air) to report on their observations of sporty adventures of all sorts, including visits to WrestleMania in Las Vegas and the World Darts Championships in London. They also watched a chess master at play and joined the wild fans at a soccer game in Liverpool. Fun fact: Schur, 50, played Mose Schrute, Dwight’s Amish cousin, on The Office. (May 19)

Also of note:

The Best Dog in the World: Essays on Love by Alice Hoffman: Best-selling author and big-time dog lover Hoffman corralled other wonderful authors (including Amy Tan, Isabel Allende and Elizabeth Strout) to pen essays about their beloved pups. (March 10)

Vermeer: A Life Lost and Found by Andrew Graham-Dixon: Art historian Graham-Dixon explores the life of the famed 17th-century Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer and the religious and secular influences that informed his paintings. (April 7)

The Rolling Stones: The Biography by Bob Spitz: Beatles biographer Spitz tells a detailed history of the iconic band, including tales of Mick and Keith’s collaboration and conflicts, that will appeal to serious fans. (April 21)

Take Me to Your Leader: Perspectives on Your First Alien Encounter by Neil DeGrasse Tyson: The country’s most (only?) famous astrophysicist discusses the likelihood of aliens communicating with humans, while revealing his obsession with the topic (he claims that ever since he was a kid, “I’ve wanted to be abducted by aliens”).  (May 12)

The Land and Its People: Essays by David Sedaris: Sedaris, the author of humorous essay collections like Me Talk Pretty One Day, presents the latest stories from his life with his usual mix of wry wit and tenderness. (May 26)

Memoirs

You with the Sad Eyes by Christina Applegate

Applegate, 54, is frank and vulnerable in recalling the anxiety and depression she experienced as a young actor, while managing the mixed blessings of stardom as Kelly Bundy on Married…With Children and the high-profile roles that followed (the film Bad Moms and Netflix series Dead to Me, among them). The book grows more heartbreaking as Applegate describes grappling with her 2021 multiple sclerosis diagnosis and the devastating effects of the disease. In an interview with AARP about the book, she said, “This isn’t a self-help book. It’s not even inspirational, really. It’s literally just my thoughts, pulled from journals I’ve kept my whole life, stored in a fire-retardant box.” (March 3)

Kids, Wait Till You Hear This! by Liza Minnelli

The entertainment legend, 79, writes about growing up with a wildly famous mother, Judy Garland, becoming wildly famous herself, and the substance use disorder that she believes she and her siblings inherited from her mother (in one 2003 incident, Minnelli passed out on a New York City sidewalk, and passersby just stepped over her). And then there were her four marriages, “some of them to men I later realized were gay.” She also dives deep into her chronic anxiety and much more. (March 10)

Happiness Included: Jan Brady and Beyond by Eve Plumb, with Marcia Wilke

Plumb, 67, will forever be known as middle daughter Jan Brady (“Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!”) on the cult classic sitcom The Brady Bunch. She relates memories of child stardom (she was on an episode of Lassie at age 9), how her castmates became a different kind of family (different than the Bradys, for sure), later roles, and challenges as an older adult, including a breast cancer diagnosis and treatment. Christopher Knight, 68, who played middle brother Peter Brady, writes a brief foreword, noting that they’ve been lifelong friends since they first came together to play Brady siblings at age 10. (April 28)

Also of note:

Hostage: A Memoir of Terrorism, Trauma, and Resilience by Mimi Nichter: Nichter, now a professor emerita of anthropology at the University of Arizona, was 20 years old in 1970 when her TWA flight home from Israel was crash-landed in the Jordan desert by members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, who held the passengers hostage. This is her survival story. (March 1)

The End of My Life Is Killing Me: The Unexpected Joys of a Cancer Slacker by Annabelle Gurwitch: The actor and author, 64, writes about how she coped with her diagnosis of stage 4 lung cancer: with dread and some humor, including dubbing herself a “cancer slacker” for forgoing the usual charity runs and ribbons and finding joy in the everyday. (March 17)

Arsenio by Arsenio Hall: The former TV host and actor, 70, discusses his rise in the comedy world after an early stint as a magician in Cleveland, his relationship with his mentor Richard Pryor, acting with Eddie Murphy in Coming to America, and his later exit from the entertainment scene. (March 31)

True Crime by Patricia Cornwell: Before she penned crime novels featuring Dr. Kay Scarpetta, Cornwell, 69, overcame a troubled childhood with neglectful parents, then became a police reporter, a forensic expert and, eventually, a wildly popular author. Her books are the basis for a TV series, Scarpetta, premiering on Amazon Prime Video on March 11. (May 5)

Keeper of My Kin: Memoir of an Immigrant Daughter by Ada Ferrer: The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Cuba: An American History offers a more personal lens on Cuban history. In 1963, when Ferrer was a baby and soon after Fidel Castro’s rise, her mother fled Cuba, but left her son behind with his grandmother. Her book recalls the repercussions of that momentous decision. (May 9)