New month, new books! Book Light is our Dandelion Chandelier curated list of the most-anticipated new book releases every month, and next up is April 2024. If you ask us, the perfect April read is like a deep, satisfying drink of ice cold water after a long dry spell. Refreshing, cleansing, stimulating and right on time. So what are the best new new novels, poetry collections, memoirs and other nonfiction book releases coming in April 2024? Our intrepid team has been exploring and here’s what we found: almost 30 new book releases coming in April 2024 that we cannot wait to read.
what are the most anticipated new novels and nonfiction book releases for April 2024?
Wondering what to read in April 2024? We’ve surveyed the landscape, and rounded up a list of the best new books coming this April.
the best new books coming in April 2024
Here’s our pick of the top new book releases of April 2024 that we cannot wait to read, including novels, poetry collections, memoirs and other nonfiction books. You can pre-order your favorites now, if you like.
The best, most anticipated new novels and other fiction and nonfiction book releases coming in April 2024.
Top new book releases April 2, 2024
1. Table for Two: Fictions by Amor Towles.
The bestselling author of The Lincoln Highway, A Gentleman in Moscow, and Rules of Civility returns with a collection of short stories and a novella. The six short stories are set in New York City, around the year 2000, and each “considers the fateful consequences that can spring from brief encounters and the delicate mechanics of compromise that operate at the heart of modern marriages.” The novella, “Eve in Hollywood”, revisits a character first seen in Rules of Civility and traces her arc as a naïf arriving in LA circa 1938.
2. The Cemetery of Untold Stories: A Novel By Julia Alvarez.
With The Cemetery of Untold Stories, the author of In the Time of the Butterflies shares a new tale set in her homeland—the Dominican Republic. “When a novelist called Alma inherits a small plot of land in DR, she decides to turn it into a place to bury her untold stories—literally. She creates a graveyard for the manuscript drafts and revisions, and the characters whose lives she tried and failed to bring to life and who still haunt her. Alma wants her characters to rest in peace. But they have other ideas.”
3. Like Love: Essays and Conversations by Maggie Nelson.
Like Love is a collection of essays drawn from twenty years of the author’s work. “The range of subjects is wide―from Prince to Carolee Schneemann to Matthew Barney to Lhasa de Sela to Kara Walker. But certain themes recur: intergenerational exchange. Love and friendship; feminist and queer issues, especially as they shift over time. Subversion, transgression, and perversity.”
4. A View from the Stars: Stories and Essays by Cixin Liu.
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A View from the Stars “features a range of short works from the past three decades, putting nonfiction essays and short stories side-by-side for the first time. . . the essays and interviews shed light on Liu’s experiences as a reader, writer, and lover of science fiction throughout his life, as well as short fiction that gives glimpses into the evolution of his imaginative voice over the years.”
5. You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World edited by Ada Limón.
Edited by the twenty-fourth Poet Laureate of the United States, this collection of poems penned by 50 celebrated writers reflects on our relationship to the natural world. It’s designed “to challenge what we think we know about ‘nature poetry,’ illuminating the myriad ways our landscapes—both literal and literary—are changing.”
6. Lake of Souls: The Collected Short Fiction by Ann Leckie.
The Hugo, Nebula, and Arthur C. Clarke award-winner and “modern master of the SFF genre” is publishing a complete collection of her short fiction. This new book also includes a new novella, “Lake of Souls.”
7. We Loved it All by Lydia Millet.
We Loved It All is the acclaimed novelist’s first nonfiction book. Described as an “anti-memoir,” this new work “explores the pain and joy of being a parent, child, and human at a moment when the richness of the planet’s life is deeply threatened.”
8. The Husbands: A Novel by Holly Gramazio.
In this fanciful debut novel, a young unmarried woman realizes that her attic is creating an infinite supply of husbands, none of whom she has any memory of meeting. Which leads to a meditation on fate and destiny: “If swapping lives is as easy as changing a lightbulb, how do you know you’ve taken the right path? When do you stop trying to do better and start actually living?”
9. I Cheerfully Refuse by Leif Enger.
“Set in a not-too-distant America, I Cheerfully Refuse is the tale of a bereaved and pursued musician embarking under sail on a sentient Lake Superior in search of his departed, deeply beloved, bookselling wife.” Oh, did we mention the protagonist is a bear named Rainy?
10. Wild Life: Finding My Purpose in an Untamed World by Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant.
“Renowned wildlife ecologist Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant always felt worlds away from the white male adventurers she watched explore the wilderness on TV. Wild Life follows Rae on her adventures and explorations in some of the world’s most remote locales. Hers is a story about a nearly twenty-year career in the wild―carving a niche as one of very few Black female scientists―and the challenges she had to overcome, expectations she had to leave behind, and the many lessons she learned along the way.”
11. All Things Are Too Small: Essays in Praise of Excess by Becca Rothfeld.
In her debut essay collection, The Washington Post’s nonfiction book critic issues “a glorious call to throw off restraint and balance in favor of excess, abandon, and disproportion, in essays ranging from such topics as mindfulness, decluttering, David Cronenberg, and consent.” Arguing that our embrace of minimalism has left us spiritually impoverished, this book is “a subversive soul cry to restore imbalance, obsession, gluttony, and ravishment to all domains of our lives.”
Top new book releases April 9, 2024
12. The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality by Amanda Montell.
The author of the books Wordslut and Cultish returns with a sharp-eyed examination of the concept and impact of “magical thinking.” Such thoughts “can be broadly defined as the belief that one’s internal thoughts can affect unrelated events in the external world: think of the conviction that one can manifest their way out of poverty. In all its forms, magical thinking works in service of restoring agency amid chaos, but the author argues that in the modern information age, our brain’s coping mechanisms have been overloaded.” Amplifying irrationality to historic and hysterical levels.
13. The Limits: A Novel by Nell Freudenberger.
The author of The Newlyweds and Lost and Wanted returns with a novel set in French Polynesia and New York City about three characters who undergo massive transformations over the course of a single year. A fifteen-year old daughter of divorced parents arrives at her father’s apartment in Manhattan just as COVID breaks out. Her stepmother, a schoolteacher, struggles to parent her in quarantine even as she considers becoming a mother herself. And one of her students, a sixteen-year old, is forced into maternal duties for her nephew and quickly becomes overwhelmed.
14. There’s Going to Be Trouble: A Novel by Jen Silverman.
From the author of We Play Ourselves, There’s Going to Be Trouble is an intergenerational story about activism and legacy. A woman is pulled into a love affair with a radical activist, unknowingly echoing her family’s dangerous past. “Spanning from the late ’60s to the present day, from the chemistry labs of Harvard to the streets of Paris, this novel asks prescient questions about personal sacrifice, political responsibility, generational secrets, and the space for love in times of revolution.”
Top new book releases April 16, 2024
15. Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder by Salman Rushdie.
Speaking out for the first time about the traumatic events of August 12, 2022, Salman Rushdie writes about surviving a knife attack while onstage at a writer’s conference. Thirty years earlier, Islamic fundamentalists issued a fatwa against him because of one of his novels – the attack appears to have been the result of their long-ago edit.
16. While We Were Burning by Sara Koffi.
This debut novel is being described as “Parasite meets Such a Fun Age.” After her best friend’s mysterious death, Elizabeth’s picture-perfect life in the Memphis suburbs starts to spin out of control. Enter Brianna, a cool and competent personal assistant who seems to be the answer to her prayers. Soon the two are investigating her friend’s murder – and unbeknown to Elizabeth, Brianna is also after the person living in Elizabeth’s neighborhood who began a chain of events that led to the death of her young Black son.
17. Did I Ever Tell You? by Genevieve Kingston.
“Based on Kingston’s viral ‘Modern Love’ essay for The New York Times, this debut memoir tells a daughter’s story of grief and a mother’s devotion. In the eight years between her terminal cancer diagnosis and her death, Kingston’s mother prepared boxes for her children to mark the milestones she would not live to see: a gift for each of them when they got their driver’s licenses, for graduation, and for each birthday through the age of 30. Two decades after her mother’s passing, Kingston is left with three remaining boxes—engagement, marriage, and first baby—and a lifetime of memories to unpack.”
18. woke up no light: poems by Leila Mottley.
Woke Up No Light is the debut book of poetry from the former Youth Poet Laureate of Oakland, CA—who is also the author of the novel Nightcrawling. The collection “reckons with themes of reparations, restitution, and desire. Moving in sections from ‘girlhood’ to ‘neighborhood’ to ‘falsehood’ to, finally, ‘womanhood,’ these poems are the breathing life of a Black girl as she grows into adulthood, simultaneously youthful and profound. Each poem is a searing vignette, capturing the dissonance of Black girlhood through visceral language.”
Top new book releases April 23, 2024
19. Funny Story by Emily Henry.
Another year, another new charming rom-com from this prolific author. “Daphne always loved the way her fiancé Peter told their story. How they met (on a blustery day), fell in love (over an errant hat), and moved back to his lakeside hometown to begin their life together. He really was good at telling it…right up until the moment he realized he was actually in love with his childhood best friend Petra. Which is how Daphne finds it necessary to begin her new story . . . ”
20. I Just Keep Talking: A Life in Essays by Nell Irvin Painter.
In I Just Keep Talking, the author of The History of White People and Old in Art School returns with a collection of essays spanning art, politics, and the legacy of racism in America.
21. Lucky: A Novel by Jane Smiley.
The acclaimed author returns with a new novel centered on a rock star’s lifelong journey in search of herself. “Jodie comes of age in recording studios, backstage, and on tour, and she tries to hold her own in the wake of Janis Joplin, Joan Baez, Judy Collins, and Joni Mitchell. Yet it feels like something is missing. Could it be true love? Or is that not actually what Jodie is looking for?
22. The Backyard Bird Chronicles by Amy Tan, foreword by David Allen Sibley.
A perfect accompaniment to Poet Laureate Ada Limón new poetry compilation about the natural world, novelist Amy Tan is offering a nonfiction account of her turn to bird watching as a salve for the harshness of the modern world. The Backyard Bird Chronicles “maps the passage of time through daily entries, thoughtful questions, and beautiful original sketches. The author charts her foray into birding and the natural wonders of the world” starting in 2016 as a response to the caustic and toxic environment growing in America.
23. Reboot: A Novel by Justin Taylor.
This new novel is described as “a raucous and wickedly smart satire of Hollywood, toxic fandom, and our chronically online culture, following a washed-up actor on his quest to revive the cult TV show that catapulted him to teenage fame.” ‘Cause who doesn’t love a good reboot? “David Crader was once a teenage heartthrob, but is now a twice-divorced voice actor, a recovering alcoholic and the father of a young son. He heads West to Los Angeles as his ex-wife plots a reboot of the TV series that made them famous, leaving David to convince their other co-stars to join the show.”
Top new book releases April 30, 2024
24. The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War by Erik Larson.
Having read “Lincoln on the Verge: Thirteen Days to Washington,” a riveting account of Lincoln’s journey from Illinois to Washington DC for his first Inauguration, we can’t wait to read this new history of the same time period. The author of the fantastic history of the London Blitz, The Splendid and the Vile, delivers an “account of the chaotic months between Lincoln’s election and the Confederacy’s shelling of Sumter—a period marked by tragic errors and miscommunications, enflamed egos and craven ambitions, personal tragedies and betrayals. Lincoln himself wrote that the trials of these five months were “so great that, could I have anticipated them, I would not have believed it possible to survive them.”
25. Real Americans: A Novel by Rachel Khong.
Goodbye, Vitamin is one of our favorite novels, so we’re keen to crack open this new novel from Rachel Khong. It follows two generations of a Chinese American family as they reckon with the pressures of assimilation and belonging. Around the turn of a new century in the year 2000, “twenty-two-year-old Lily Chen, an unpaid intern at a slick media company, meets Matthew, who is everything Lily is not. She’s flat broke, and he’s heir to a vast pharmaceutical empire.” The two fall in love. Flash forward to 2021, and fifteen-year old Nick Chen, raised by his single mother, goes in search of his biological father.
26. Bite by Bite: Nourishments and Jamborees by Aimee Nezhukumatathil.
The author of World of Wonders – the daughter of an Indian father and Filipino mother – returns with a collection of essays about “the way food and drink evoke our associations and remembrances—a subtext or layering, a flavor tinged with joy, shame, exuberance, grief, desire, or nostalgia. In 40 short essays, each centered on a different food, from shave ice to lumpia, mangoes to pecans, rambutan to vanilla, she investigates how food marks our experiences and identities and explores the boundaries between heritage and memory.”
27. When You See My Mother, Ask Her to Dance: Poems by Joan Baez.
Joan Baez has written poetry for decades, but this is the first time she’s sharing her work. In this new collection, she “shares poems for or about her contemporaries (such as Bob Dylan, Judy Collins, and Jimi Hendrix), reflections from her childhood, personal thoughts, and cherished memories of her family, including pieces about her younger sister, singer-songwriter Mimi Fariña.”
28. Silk: A World History by Aarathi Prasad.
“Silk—prized for its lightness, luminosity, and beauty—is also one of the strongest biological materials ever known. More than a century ago, it was used to make the first bulletproof vest, and yet science has barely even begun to tap its potential.” Silk: A World History is a cultural and biological history of this marvelous fabric, from the ancient trading routes to the Silk Road to the present day.
29. The Swans of Harlem: Five Black Ballerinas, Fifty Years of Sisterhood, and Their Reclamation of a Groundbreaking History by Karen Valby.
The Swans of Harlem tells the forgotten story of a pioneering group of five Black ballerinas and their fifty-year sisterhood. The five are the founding Dance Theatre of Harlem members Lydia Abarca, Gayle McKinney-Griffith and Sheila Rohan, as well as first-generation dancers Karlya Shelton and Marcia Sells. “These Swans of Harlem performed for the Queen of England, Mick Jagger, and Stevie Wonder, on the same bill as Josephine Baker, at the White House, and beyond. But decades later there was almost no record of their groundbreaking history to be found.”
the best new novels and non-fiction books coming in April 2024
If you’re wondering what to read in April 2024, we hope you’ve got some ideas now! That’s our take on the best, most anticipated novels and nonfiction book releases coming in April 2024. What’s at the top of your list, dear reader?
