Percival Everett, Andrea Long Chu, Gatsby... 23 new paperbacks out this April.

April approaches, and with it comes a bevy of new books to look out for, balms in a year of astonishing chaos and uncertainty, and so I’m delighted to share some novels, memoirs, essay collections, explorations, and more to spend time with. Below, you’ll find twenty-three books in fresh new paperback editions from beloved and debut authors alike. You’ll find provocative and powerful work from Andrea Long Chu, Percival Everett, Ishion Hutchinson, and many others, as well as a reimagining of The Great Gatsby; genre-spanning meditations on muscles, gravity, American evangelism, and the American bookstore; and much, much more.

If you missed these in hardcover, or simply want a new softcover version of a well-loved text, you’ll want to add these to your lists. Stay safe, as always, Dear Reader, and enjoy these this April.

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Percival Everett, James
(Vintage)

“Everett’s James isn’t out to displace Twain’s book. It’s carrying out a bolder, more ingenious, and, characteristic of its author, more subversive agenda…Everett endows Jim with greater dimension and nuance than his original creator did. Huckleberry Finn provided Jim with courage, dignity, and virtue. James bestows upon him the greater, if more complicated, privilege of full (if not yet unfettered) humanity.”
–The New Republic

Claire Lynch, A Family Matter
(Scribner)

“I was so moved and humbled by this beautifully crafted novel that I held it in my hands after finishing for a moment of thanks. In frank and straightforward prose, A Family Matter captures the heart-gripping consequences of forbidden love and reminds us that while the world is far from perfect there are among us decent people who are trying, little by little, to make it better.”
–Mary Beth Keane

Ray Nayler, Where the Axe Is Buried
(Picador)

“Nayler’s twisting, turning political thriller has spectacular surprises, grounded by realistic, complex characters who are determined to change their world, however hopeless it may seem. A bold, epic SF story and an inspiring tale about taking down all forms of authoritarianism.”
–Booklist

Andrea Long Chu, Authority: Essays
(Picador)

“Every time Andrea Long Chu, the Pulitzer Prize-winning critic for New York Magazine, publishes a new essay, I make time to read it slowly, thoughtfully, and with relish….Chu’s subjects are wide-ranging but always relevant, and her critiques of The Last of Us, The Phantom of the Opera, and Zadie Smith rank amongst my favorites. If you care about culture in any of its endless forms, you should be reading Chu.”
–ELLE

Ishion Hutchinson, Fugitive Tilts
(FSG)

“Poet Hutchinson’s essays swoosh and roll like the sea that has surrounded and molded his life and art, from his beginnings in Jamaica to his coastal journeys on to his belief that ocean waters ultimately connect us all through suffering and joy. Whether his eye turns to childhood literature like “Treasure Island,” reggae music, or an Impressionist painting, the author connects his influences to the wider world of art, community and our shared humanity.”
–The Los Angeles Times

Bonnie Tsui, On Muscle: The Stuff That Moves Us and Why It Matters
(Algonquin)

“Bonnie Tsui has done something remarkable. Fusing science writing, memoir, and essay, she has written a singular book about the true meanings of strength and flexibility, about our ability to define who we are and who we might be, and about what muscle means to the kind of people who rarely feature in stereotypical stories of strength and fitness. On Muscle is a truly moving ode to the tissues that move us.”
–Ed Yong

Moira Macdonald, Storybook Ending
(Dutton)

“I sat down to start Storybook Ending and before I knew it a hundred pages had passed. Moira Macdonald’s novel is just that good—wildly clever, funny, and filled with enough Princess Bride and Nora Ephron references to melt my cold Millennial heart. It’s also a heartwarming homage to books and the people who cherish them—a celebration of a story’s power to fill our lives with hope. romance, and community. I loved it.”
–Grant Ginder

Claire Anderson-Wheeler, The Gatsby Gambit
(Penguin)

“Like so many, I’m familiar with the dazzling, tragic characters of The Great Gatsby. But in this reimagining of their world, Claire sheds new light on who suffers, and who succeeds. As well as a mystery, it’s a coming-of-age story for Jay’s younger sister, Gigi, and I loved her growing insights into her privileged life, and what it costs. It’s an accomplished and satisfying read imbued with the luxury and lurking danger in the jewel of West Egg.”
–S.J. Bennett

Camilla Barnes, The Usual Desire to Kill
(Scribner)

“I love nothing more than reading about eccentric families, and the family in The Usual Desire to Kill is just that. Miranda and her sister work to uncover the true story of their parents’ marriage, only to have their brilliant, quirky mother and father deflect them at every turn. Barnes has written a witty, moving novel about characters who, even when they seem incapable of speaking honestly, are worth listening to nonetheless.”
–Ann Napolitano

Amanda Nguyen, Saving Five: A Memoir of Hope
(Picador)

“Poignant and imaginative….It is sobering to realize that the rape survival memoir has become its own genre….But as with accounts of grief, each writer’s story is vivid and necessary. Nguyen’s original contribution will, as its title promises, give both survivors and non-survivors some sense of hope for justice—and, now more than ever, such hope is essential.”
–The New York Times Book Review

Claudia de Rham, The Beauty of Falling: A Life in Pursuit of Gravity
(Princeton University Press)

“What exactly is gravity?’ is the question that drives Claudia de Rham’s explorations of the puzzling, irresistible force that governs our universe. This part-memoir, part-textbook begins with a crash course in gravity’s fundamental nature, from Newton and Galileo to black holes and dark energy….The best moments, though, are when de Rham recounts her own interfaces with gravity—as a scuba diver, pilot, aspiring astronaut and theoretical physicist—giving this force an alluring personality.”
–Lucy Tu

Claire Hoffman, Sister, Sinner: The Miraculous Life and Mysterious Disappearance of Aimee Semple McPherson
(Picador)

“A wild ride of a biography—part mystery story and part scandal—but also a penetrating examination of the rise of evangelical religion in America.”
–Kai Bird

Ariel Courage, Bad Nature
(Holt)

“Wicked and wickedly funny, Ariel Courage’s debut Bad Nature is a dark romp of a book, a road-trip novel propelled by a revenge plot. Nihilism and optimism collide in this story featuring a woman who is simultaneously confronting her childhood and her death. Hester is a caustic yet irresistible narrator, and this evocation of her journey across America reads as both hate mail and love letter to a complex country. Bad Nature is raw, intense, and absolutely mesmerizing.”
–Helen Phillips

Katy Hays, Saltwater
(Ballantine Books)

“A ride as exhilarating as the ferries that transport the elites from villa to yacht….Sleuthing minds will cavort with acrobatic prowess, reeling from one unexpected twist to another….Hitchcockian in its film-noirish malevolence, Hay’s second novel also deviously channels Patricia Highsmith’s cunningly and sympathetically flawed characters to deliver an absorbing read.”
–Booklist

Laurent Binet, Perspective(s) (trans. Sam Taylor)
(Picador)

“[An] entertaining whodunnit…stuffed with real-life Renaissance artists behaving badly….Sam Taylor’s translation, superb throughout, reaches its apogee in Cellini’s joyously scandalous voice….[A] thorough success….A dazzling romp.”
–The Guardian

Evan Friss, The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore
(Penguin Books)

“Bookstores are such idiosyncratic expressions of the humans who run them, and it is a delight to wander through the bookstores of American history in this warm, generous book. I find myself in excellent company amongst the featured booksellers—all fully dedicated, driven by passion, and slightly mad. It’s a wonderful business we’re in.”
–Emma Straub

Michael Luo, Strangers in the Land: Exclusion, Belonging, and the Epic Story of the Chinese in America
(Vintage)

“This book is an astonishing feat of urgent history. Michael Luo has unearthed a buried chapter of America’s rise, in which Chinese immigrants fought their way through violence and scapegoating to build the nation’s future. But he illuminates much more than the past; Strangers in the Land reimagines how the idea of Asia reverberates in American culture today, pulled between belonging, rejection, success, and suspicion. A powerful new entry in the canon on American identity.”
–Evan Osnos

Greg Grandin, America, América: A New History of the World
(Penguin)

“[Persuasive]…If The End of the Myth helped make sense of the first Trump Administration, America, América sheds light on the expansionist ambitions Trump has voiced during his second term….[Grandin] argues that, if the promise of social-democratic movements is to be realized, it will be because North and South Americans come together to believe in our shared fate as Americans…[he] suggests that historical struggles for social democracy across Latin America might serve as a model for a social-democratic movement of the future.”
–The New Yorker

Adam Haslett, Mothers and Sons
(Back Bay Books)

“There’s no better writer at chronicling the highs and lows of familial love. In Mothers and Sons, Haslett shows a family both torn by past trauma and battered by the social turmoil of the present…The chronicle of this complex mother and son pair satisfies one of the best reasons to read fiction: to understand others and their impossible burdens, to mourn when they stumble and celebrate when they survive.”
–The Los Angeles Times

Chris Pavone, The Doorman
(Picador)

“Chris Pavone swings big with The Doorman, a wise, expansive, and extravagantly readable thriller that keeps us guessing until the last page. A searing and hilarious social satire, The Doorman unflinchingly takes on New York in this moment—class, race, social justice—with an eye as wicked as it is compassionate.”
–Maria Semple

Anthony Passeron, Sleeping Children (trans. Frank Wynne)
(Picador)

“Without ever raising his voice, Anthony Passeron has shattered the family silence that scabbed over tragedy and has produced a work so powerful, so moving, that it lingers long after reading. Magnificent.”
–Annie Ernaux

Florence Knapp, The Names
(Penguin Books)

“This noteworthy debut explores a sobering topic with creativity, cleverness, and care…the boldness and thoughtfulness of Knapp’s plotting add complexity and a welcome unpredictability…inviting the reader to think about not just the ripple effects of a single decision and the workings of an abusive family but also about a profound and classic concern of fiction: How things we can control in life interact with things we could never have seen coming.”
–Kirkus Reviews

Andre M. Perry, Black Power Scorecard: Measuring the Racial Gap and What We Can Do to Close It
(Metropolitan Books)

“By reframing the concept of ‘wealth’ and expanding the very definition of ‘power,’ Black Power Scorecard serves as a Black manifesto, a self-help manual, and a road map to a better future. Not only does Perry identify the symptoms of America’s most persistent social illness, he also writes a prescription.”
–Michael Harriot