10 April New Releases To Put On Hold at the Library Right Now
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There are so many great books being released, all the time. How to choose? And the lists! Library hold lists are so lonnnnnnng. As the late, great Tom Petty sang, “the waiting is the hardest part.” I’ve got the cure for the common hold: Here are ten books of note coming out in April to help you get a jump on that long library hold list.
Dread Nation by Justina Ireland
The Civil War is derailed by a zombie infestation that changes the course of history in this fantastic novel about America, racism, and the undead. Jane McKeene is a fantastic character, a young Southerner sent to school in Baltimore to learn how to fight zombies, who must also fight enemies of the living kind. (April 3)
The Female Persuasion by Meg Wolitzer
The author of The Interestings returns with a multilayered novel about ambition, power, friendship, and romantic ideals. Greer always thought she knew what she wanted until she met Faith, who opens Greer’s eyes to a whole world of possibility and leads her away from the future she thought she would have. (April 3)
The Recovering: Intoxication and Its Aftermath by Leslie Jamison
Jamison returns with her first book since The Empathy Exams, in which she examines stories of addiction recovery, including her own. Using a blend of memoir, investigative reporting, and literary criticism, she deftly tells a new narrative about recovery, the history of recovery, the criminalization of addiction, and more. (April 3)
The Oracle Year by Charles Soule
The film rights to comic writer Soule’s first novel, about a man in NYC who wakes up one day with the ability to see the future, have already been sold in a major deal. (April 3)
Meaty: Essays by Samantha Irby
Given the success of the brilliant and hilarious Irby’s 2017 essay collection, We Are Never Meeting in Real Life, it seems like a perfect move to reprint this older collection (featuring a cuter critter on the cover this time around). (April 3)
Varina by Charles Frazier
The author of the mega-hit Cold Mountain is back with his fourth novel. Set in the same place at Cold Mountain, about a teen girl named Varina who weds the much-older Jefferson Davis, who goes on to be appointed President of the Confederacy. (April 3)
Circe by Madeline Miller
Miller follows up The Song of Achilles with a new story of mythology, about Circe, a young witch banished by Zeus who must choose between the gods or the mortals. (April 10)
Macbeth by Jo Nesbo
A thriller based on the Shakespeare classic, set in a 1970s industrial town, from the author of The Snowman. Part of Hogarth’s Shakespeare series. (April 10)
How to Write an Autobiographical Novel: Essays by Alexander Chee
If nothing else about the coming year excites you, at least be happy we have a new Alexander Chee book! And it’s nonfiction! I love his novels, but he is also wicked smart and has many insightful, thoughtful things to say about the world. Includes a beautiful essay about his father that will have you crying in your cornflakes. (April 24)
The Girl Who Smiled Beads: A Story of War and What Comes After by Clemantine Wamariya and Elizabeth Weil
In 1994, Wamariya and her sister fled the Rwandan massacre and spent the next several years walking through other African countries in search of safety before they were granted refugee status by the United States. This is her story about her two lives, one of fear and death, and the other seemingly the American dream but always shadowed by her past. (April 24)
