23 Books We Are Looking Forward to This Spring
4/3/202648 min
We have made it to April. We survived the snowstorms and the cold, and now that the days are getting longer, there’s more time to read. So this week, if you are looking for some books to tide you over until summer, our Book Review editors Gilbert Cruz and Joumana Khatib have got you covered.
Also on this week’s episode, the former United States poet laureate Ada Limón joins us to talk about her new book, “Against Breaking: On the Power of Poetry.” And she reads two of her poems.
Books discussed on this episode:
“Transcription,” by Ben Lerner
“This Land Is Your Land,” by Beverly Gage
“London Falling,” by Patrick Radden Keefe
“Prophecy,” by Carissa Véliz
“Ghost Town,” by Tom Perrotta
“From Life Itself,” by Suzy Hansen
“The Calamity Club,” by Kathryn Stockett
“Dog Days,” by Emily LaBarge
“The Midnight Train,” by Matt Haig
“The Land and Its People,” by David Sedaris
“On the Calculation of Volume (Book 4),” by Solvej Balle
“Famesick,” by Lena Dunham
“The Sane One,” by Anna Konkle
“On Witness and Respair,” by Jesmyn Ward
“John of John,” by Douglas Stuart
“The Things We Never Say,” by Elizabeth Strout
“Yesteryear,” by Caro Claire Burke
“Five Weeks in the Country,” by Francine Prose
“The Ending Writes Itself,” by Evelyn Clark (V.E. Schwab and Cat Clark)
“Go Gentle,” by Maria Semple
“True Crime,” by Patricia Cornwell
“Against Breaking,” by Ada Limón
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Credits
“The Book Review Podcast” is hosted by Gilbert Cruz and produced by Amy Pearl and Sarah Diamond. The show is edited by Larissa Anderson and mixed by Pedro Rosado.
Special thanks to MJ Franklin, Dahlia Haddad and Brooke Minters.
Illustration by The New York Times; Inset photos: Scribner; Viking; Spiegel & Grau
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Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsMasha Gessen· Soundbite0:00
[upbeat music] In theory, I knew that this kind of thing can happen in any family. Upstanding citizens are always turning out to be secret criminals, and I wouldn't even call my cousin Alan an upstanding citizen. But it's one thing to know and another thing to understand.
Ada Limón· Guest0:15
Alan murder me?
Masha Gessen· Soundbite0:18
What the hell was Alan thinking? From Serial Productions and The New York Times, I'm M. Gessen, and this is "The Idiot." Listen wherever you get your podcasts.
Gilbert Cruz· Host0:28
[upbeat music] Hello, I'm Gilbert Cruz, and this is The Book Review from The New York Times. We've all made it somehow to April. We've had our snowstorms. We have survived the cold. And now that the days are getting longer, it feels like there's more time to read. I'm certainly staying up later with the sun out longer. So this week on The Book Review, we've got you covered. We are gonna be talking about a few books coming out in the next couple of months that we are particularly excited about. Plus, we're gonna hear from former Poet Laureate of the United States, Ada Limón. She is out with a new book where she makes the case for poetry. It is National Poetry Month. That is later in the show. But now, Jumana, Jumana Khateeb, is here to talk about spring books. Hello, Jumana.
Joumana Khatib· Host1:22
Hi, Gilbert.
Gilbert Cruz· Host1:23
We are gonna talk about spring books here. We're gonna talk about books that are coming out in April and May,