Spring Preview: A Few Books We're Excited For
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I'm Gilbert Cruz, editor of the New York Times Book Review, and this is the Book Review Podcast. Earlier this year, I had on our regular guest, my fellow editor, Jumanica Teab, to talk about some books coming out in the first couple months of 2025. She's back, she's here, and we're going to do it today.

Again, talking about a few books we're interested in that are coming out between now and June and the summer. Jumana, welcome back to the pod. Do I need to say this every time? No, I feel like, I feel well, I feel that the door is always open to this podcast studio, which I suppose should also make me somewhat nervous. You walked right in. I waltzed right in. There are so many books coming out between now and

in summertime. We cannot talk about all of them. We can't even talk about most of them, but we are going to talk about a few. And the first one, which you're going to mention, is out now, essentially. Just came out. It's a book from a name that I think many of our listeners might be familiar with. Tell us about it. Okay, yes. So this is Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. It's been

It's been a long time since we've seen a work of fiction from her, at least a decade. And she really is like a, if they're to the extent that they're still literary, like rock stars, she is one, right? We got Beyonce quoting her. We got,

you know, gift editions with her quotes. Like she's a big deal. And it's a pleasure to re-encounter her fiction and just see what she's up to. So this is the story of four African women set during the pandemic. It's centered on Chia, who is a Nigerian travel writer who's based in the States.

And it also includes her cousin, her best friend, and this woman named Kadiotu, who is her maid, who's from Guinea. So she's Guinean and everybody else is Nigerian. And this is a story about motherhood and romantic love and familial love. And it's a female connection. And it has an interesting backstory because...

Adichie wrote this. I mean, she had a really harrowing pandemic experience herself. Her father died fairly early on in the pandemic. And less than nine months later, she lost her mother. So when she was grieving her mother, it sounds like she was really just bowled over emotionally.

Excavated, I think is the word she used. She started writing fiction as a way to tap into how much she wanted her mother still around her. And so this is a very beautiful and rich story. And the other thing that's pretty interesting about it is that, I don't know if you remember from, God, this is almost 15 years now, 2011, the Dominique Strauss-Kahn sexual assault case. So...

That is a case that Edith followed very closely and she wove elements of that story. So this is a case where a maid, Nafisa Tou Diallo, accused, you know, this sort of big, seemingly impenetrable French politician of sexual assault, very graphic sexual assault, Edith.

And so Adichie wove some of the maid's story into Kadiotu's story and gave it a backstory and built out that character. So she was drawing on some heavy stuff, but it's a really interesting and toothsome book.

It sounds quite interesting. Liz Egan, an editor here who also writes features for the book review, just profiled Chimamanda, wrote a very wonderful profile. So you should definitely check that out, listeners. And then pick up this book. Which is out now. It's out now. We mentioned that one earlier this year. We also mentioned the next one, the one I'm going to talk about earlier this year. That's fine.

Sometimes you need reminders. This is called Sunrise on the Reaping. This is by Suzanne Collins. And it is another book set in the world of the Hunger Games. Jemana, have you ever read any of these books? I haven't read them, but I'm familiar enough. It's diffused my consciousness. Okay. Katniss, happy life. No problems ever. We all want to live like Katniss lived, having to hunt for our own food.

She probably got her own eggs, which is what we all should be doing now, given prices. No, she lived a miserable life. This is like a dystopian world in which she lives in. There was an initial trilogy of books in the Hunger Games series. And then Suzanne Collins, the author, wrote a prequel several years ago. And this is another prequel. This is another prequel.

This is a book that is set almost a quarter century before the first Hunger Games novel. And it involves this character named Haymitch Abernathy. Haymitch. Sure know Haymitch. Cool name. Great name. He is a guy who we meet in the first book and he's drunk and he's dissolute. And he's a former champion of the Hunger Games. And it's his job in that book to like shepherd Katniss through this world. And it's like young Haymitch.

And it arrives at a moment the franchise seems to have restarted after many, many years in the dark. Not only do you have this, these prequels and film versions, there's a film version of this coming out next year, but also just announced a stage adaptation of The Hunger Games is going to open in London.

I think at the end of this year. And a theater is being built exclusively for this production. That is bonkers. I'm going to say it like people are going to throw tridents by your head. I'm not sure exactly what's going to go on, but it sounds like Blue Man Group. It's yeah, I think it's going to be a big deal. These books are all big deals. And yeah,

I sort of want to see this stage adaptation. It seems like you would have to sign a waiver, right? Are you saying you think you would be in danger? Yes, that is exactly what I'm saying. At least for the previews. Once it officially opens, you think they work out all the kinks. I'm amazed at how deadly Cirque du Soleil is. So I can only imagine what The Hunger Games is. Have you seen any Cirque du Soleil? I've seen almost the entire back catalog of Cirque du Soleil. Really? I'm not even kidding.

I'm going to store this information. Oh, yeah. We can use this for later. What's next? Okay. I'm excited to talk about The Buffalo Hunter. It's a great name. Such a good title. It's a good title. Such a good title. So this is by Stephen Graham Jones, who is like this kind of tremendously prolific horror writer. He tends to write a lot of stories that are set on Native reservations about Native characters. And

And this is a vampire story. So basically what happens, there's a manuscript that's discovered in 1912 and it contains transcribed confessions of a Blackfeet warrior whose name is Goodstab. And he was bitten by a mysterious creature that seems to have been imported by European settlers. And all of a sudden, Goodstab is just overcome with bloodthirst. And he's

And to sate his thirst, he really goes after the whites that are surrounding his community. There are all sorts of racial politics going on. Stephen Graham Jones actually weaves in some actual historical details from a true massacre of Blackfeet in Montana in the 1800s. And at the same time, he's sort of riffing on myth and lore and like historical horror fiction. There's a lot going on. It's a lot of fun.

Have you ever read Stephen Graham Jones? Yes. Yes. Yes. I was a teenage slasher. That is a very good book. It's a good book. And yeah, he's good. I just feel like he's doing... Actually, I probably shouldn't say that because I'm not somebody who reads a lot of horror. Famously, I don't love to be scared. Famously. Famously. I've said that on many a hot mic. Yeah.

And I mean, I'm intrigued by what he's doing here. I get it. He was on the book review podcast last October. Bet he was a good guest. He was very good. He was talking. He was making recommendations for scary books for people to read. And he knows just a ton. I'd love to talk to him again.

I have a book that's coming out in April, and it has to deal with, in a nonfiction way, the indigenous experience here in America. This is a book called Medicine River, a story of survival and the legacy of Indian boarding schools. This is by Marie Annette Pember. So last year, Tommy Orange, the novelist Tommy Orange, he joined this podcast to talk about Wandering Stars.

Wandering Stars was his sequel to They're There, which was his incredibly received debut novel. And Wandering Stars was in part about these boarding schools that indigenous children were sent to in the mid-1800s. And Mary Annette Pember, who's an Ojibwe journalist, she is very intimately familiar with these schools because her mother had to attend one of these schools. She had to attend a seminary in Wisconsin where

These children were sent to Christian boarding schools. They tried to force Christian culture into their lives and remove any sign of their own indigenous culture. So Mary's mother went to one of these. It had a great effect on her mother. It had a great effect on her. So I haven't read the book yet, but as I understand it, she weaves her personal story in with the history of Christ.

these terrible schools that lasted for decades and decades. And that are still within living memory. I mean, that's the thing that's astonishing is like how close this history really is. And it's horrifying. Okay, I'm going to swerve. I'm going to swerve away. We can't have all serious books. No, we can't. We can't. I am personally ready to hot potato into a less serious

depressing topic. So I am going to talk about Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry, who is somewhat of a, actually not somewhat, no qualifier needed, romance superstar right now. This is her sixth romance. People go nuts for her books. Book lovers, beach read, the people we meet on vacation, people are very fiercely attached to her romances. And

And there are a couple things that are like the hallmark of an Emily Henry romance. Her love interests are all evolved, intelligent, sensitive men. And then her female leads are very intelligent, independent, and they usually have some dimension of grief. So, I mean, these are sort of toothsome romances. So, yeah.

This new one is about the rivalry turned, what else, budding romance between two writers who are competing for the chance to land the opportunity to write the biography of this former tabloid princess who's now become somewhat of a recluse in coastal Georgia.

She had this fabulous life story and then totally disappeared. So this is a good juicy get for any competitive journalist. And it's a fun setup. Emily Henry's books are always a hit every year. I read, I had mentioned previously on this podcast, I read one of hers last year on vacation. It was a total delight.

We're coming out of an Oscar season in which Bob Dylan's dominated, but let's not forget the Beatles. The Beatles, the Beatles, the Beatles. Do we need more Beatles books? I ask this question often because they come out

A couple every year, it feels like. But there is another one. It actually has an interesting conceit. So this is John and Paul, A Love Story in Songs. This is by a gentleman named Ian Leslie. And while Bob Dylan is a genius, an individual genius, why did you just roll your eyes? I'm blinking. Oh, you're... Okay. He's...

John Lennon and Paul McCartney are, they're like this. He's interlacing his fingers like he's doing Cat's Cradle. I'm interlacing my fingers. They're an example of a true partnership, right? They both wrote lyrics. They both wrote music. Their names together were on all of their songs. They both shared credit on almost 200 songs, some of which I would argue are some of the best songs ever written.

I don't doubt that. I don't doubt that. I'm laughing because I just rewatched the Queen of Jordan episode of 30 Rock last night, where Angie's sort of like, who are the Beatles? It's so good. That's the look you're giving me right now. Okay, whatever. So this book is about their friendship. It's about their songwriting partnership. It's about their relationship as the two leads of this band. I might read it. I might actually read this one. One book I'm definitely going to read

again, because there are too many books about the Beatles and not enough books about this person, is Yoko, The Biography by David Sheff. Of course, these two books are coming out within two weeks of each other. The John and Paul book in late March, the Yoko book in early April. And this is a big biography of Yoko Ono. We all know she entered the orbit of the Beatles in the mid to late 60s. She'd

And John Lennon started dating. They got married. Many people have said many bad things about Yoko Ono over the years, but she is amazing. She just turned 92. I don't think she's been in public sight for a while. She was born in Tokyo. Her parents immigrated over to America. And she's an artist. She started as a conceptual artist. She continued to make art through...

throughout her life and her life with John Lennon and her life post John Lennon's death in the early 80s. And while I think it might be impossible for some to extricate her from the idea of just being John Lennon's wife, hopefully a view that went the way of the Dota long ago, she is a person with a fascinating life, an interesting and impressive career in her own right, and

She's been in the public eye for decades longer than she ever was with the Beatles at this point. I think there's so much to learn about her and to say about her. I'm excited. Yeah. And there's some sort of restorative justice that goes along with this. And that's intriguing. And I'm sure there is so much I do not know about Yoko Ono. You know what I do know? Great New Yorker. Hey. She's a great New Yorker. Hey, that's a high compliment coming from you. What's next for you? I have been...

prattling on about fiction and I promise I will come back to fiction but let's quickly swerve to non-fiction I am looking forward to Searches by Wahini Havara who was a finalist for the Pulitzer for her novel The Immortal King Rao

She was and has continued to be a tech journalist. And so this new book is a collection of essays. They're experimental in form, but they're all centered on how I think for especially for those of us who I guess you would call digital natives, meaning like you've had the Internet basically forever, has sort of influenced our consciousness and our understanding of ourselves and just having that

to all this information really shapes our place in the world. And there's a very personal framing to this because when the author was in high school, I think she was like

like even a freshman, her sister was diagnosed with cancer. And so she talks about how she was frantically Googling questions, like I think many of us do. And it had a really existential dimension because she was like, if I actually said it to another person, then it became real. But like having this sort of like

omniscient resource that was more private, like helped me deal with it in a way that felt a little more manageable. Not that this is manageable. Anyway, so that's somewhat of the frame. And then as the book goes on, you know, she'll like annotate a list of her Amazon purchases or she'll collate all of her recent Google searches and make a point about what that says about her. And it's an intelligent argument about

how having access to this kind of information can really teach us things about ourself or help us grieve or maybe impede our grief or, you know, it's just reshaping like our emotional landscape too. How has the internet reshaped your emotional landscape? That is a wonderful question. It means I let a lot of Neopets die. And so that...

I'm so sorry for your loss. I know. I think I'm probably wanted back in Neopetlandia. They probably have my face plastered up by the magic omelet. Anyway, I was a blight upon them. There are so many things about the analog world that I miss. I've screamed at you about this. I hate pre-reserving movie tickets. I want to walk up to a box office and buy them and then go sit down. I hate it.

I hate it. You would be comfortable with sitting in the front row if you got there and all the tickets had been sold and there was one ticket. I deserve that. But I also am aware of how much I just can't even separate it. Also, like when I was a kid, my dad lived overseas. And so like we would send emails back and forth to each other because we were in like weird time zone overlap when I was still trying to like sleep like a normal person. This is bound up in my...

We'll be right back.

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Welcome back. This is the Book Review Podcast, and I'm Gilbert Cruz. I'm joined this week by my fellow editor, Jumanica Tebe, and we are talking about some books that we're looking forward to between now and the beginning of summer. I feel like I'm talking about a lot of serious books, but this is a serious book, and one that I'm oddly excited for, given how serious it is and given the topic. It's called Strangers in the Land, Exclusion, Belonging, and the Epic Story of the Chinese in Abundance.

in America by Michael Luo. Michael is currently the editor of the New Yorker's website. He used to be a reporter here, though I certainly have never met him. And this is the history of the Chinese in America, right from the moment they started to arrive in

in increasing numbers on the West Coast in the mid-1800s during the gold rush all the way up to the modern era. And of course, sadly, but historically, along the way in those 150, 60, 70 years, we see all these moments of anti-Chinese backlash that the Chinese and Chinese Americans have experienced here in

in America. I love a sweeping history. I love learning about America and I'm definitely going to read this one. Okay. I have a slightly different dimension and I swear this wasn't planned, but I do have a slightly different take on Chinese American relations and it's through the lens of fiction. So this is... Okay, good. I was worried there. I know. Are we talking about tariffs? Yeah.

Talking about my iPhone. Okay. So this is Rabbit Moon by Jennifer Hay. This is coming out in early April. This is a pretty tangled, naughty family story. It's set in Shanghai. Basically, the inciting incident is that the older daughter in the family, who she's a white American woman, is teaching in Shanghai. And she's

And I think it's her first year after college. She's a young woman. She's injured in a traffic accident and hospitalized. And it's a very serious injury. So her parents have to come from the States. And these are parents who are not only divorced, but they're estranged from their daughter. So adding to this is that the injured daughter is

The only person that she's really confided her deepest feelings about her family and her parents is her sister, who was adopted as an infant from China. So there are all sorts of racial dimensions to this belonging, inclusion. And one of the things, so Jennifer Hayes' last book is called Mercy Street, and it took place basically like...

in and around an abortion clinic with opposing viewpoints from the characters. And she's a novelist who's really respected for her psychological insight and acuity. And I think that's where her real focus is, as a writer. So this is actually a good setup for her. And I actually learned this when I was prepping for this podcast, that she wrote this when she herself was on some kind of

writers fellowship in Shanghai and so really drew on her own experiences of watching the city and so the city itself becomes a bit of a character in the novel and a fun little easter egg for long-time listeners of the book review I didn't choose this book for this reason but this book does share a name with my astrologer with whom I am currently on the outs moon rabbit and

But I do respect her 80% of the time. Is this real? You know you have to say facts on this podcast. Yeah, it's fact. Is this real? Yeah, Moon Rabbit. Moon Rabbit. Yeah, she's based in Minnesota. Does she listen to this? That's a great question. Are you trying to send a message? I suppose I'm getting desperate because she has increased her prices. So I haven't seen her in a while. Inflation. I know. But when it comes for the stars, you know it's bad. Yeah.

I was delighted to learn as you were talking about that book that you prepared for this podcast. That's one question answered. It was great to see notes of the doc. Instead of just doing this off the dome like I normally do. Both different experiences, both exciting. Just real tight rope. Six of one, half a dozen of the other. I'm going to talk about Mark Twain. Have you heard of Mark Twain?

Got it. Yeah. Have you heard of Mark Twain? Yeah. Do you know what Mark Twain's real name is? No, I did at one point, but no, I don't know now. Okay. Samuel Langhorne Clemens. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I was an English major. I think they wouldn't have let me leave the campus if I hadn't said that three times and watched his ghost appear. Yeah.

He is the subject of a new, just a giant biography that's coming out in May from Ron Chernow. Ron Chernow is a master of the biographical form. He is, of course, the author of the biography of Alexander Hamilton that was turned into the

Just a massive stage musical. He also has written biographies of George Washington, Ulysses S. Grant, John D. Rockefeller, other people with middle initials. Just all our favorite guys. Ron Chernow is on it. And this book is listed on the publisher's website as being 1,200 pages long. That's a big biography. It's a big biography. I assume that 100, 200 of those pages are endnotes or whatever, but that's still pretty big.

I love biographies. I can't wait to learn about someone that it feels like we all know because we were forced to read his books in grade school and in high school. But I actually don't know that much about. I know like Riverboats. He had a mustache and then a couple of books that he wrote. But I don't know that much about him. Do you have a favorite Mark Twain book or story? My mom is a big fan of The Innocents Abroad. So I think probably that one just because it was in the ether when I was growing up.

I will tell you, I am not like, I did my requisite tour of Twain in high school. I did it for my sort of required American studies or like American lit class in college, but like not a big Twain head. So like I have huge lapses in my knowledge. I'm definitely going to read the, I'm definitely going to attempt to read this biography as well. In a way, my sense is that reading some of Mark Twain's books

with the wisdom, I'm putting that in quotes, of age gives you a very different experience of it. I'm sure there was a ton that I missed in Huck Finn when I read it the first time around. I think a lot of people will read this without rereading any Mark Twain books or stories. Because they've already devoted a thousand pages of their life to Mark Twain? I think so. Okay. I think so. Duly noted. Okay. I have another work of nonfiction that I would like to discuss, and this is a series of essays about

This is by the Pulitzer Prize winning book critic named Andrea Long Chu. And I actually really like the title of this book. It's called Authority because that's something those of us in the criticism business always try to evoke is authority. It's a funny tongue in cheek. Anyway, so this is a collection of some of her previous writing for New York Magazine and N Plus One, which is where I think she really made her name as a critic was at N Plus One magazine.

And this is an exciting book. It's nervy. It's very cerebral. I'm not sure, in case you don't read her regularly, she's...

which is important in a critic, and she's very pugnacious, right? And she takes aim at some real literary darlings in here, Zadie Smith, Maggie Nelson. She mounts an argument. And one thing that's interesting when you breeze through these essays is she'll say, I know I'm being unfair. I'm being unfair here, but... And I appreciate the self-reliance

recognition, but it is fun to be unfair. I try not to do it, but like I can understand why she might enjoy doing it. Yeah. I know what you mean about her as pugnacious is the right word. It harkens back to a time that really doesn't exist anymore at all when critics were people that picked fights in public, that argued with other critics, that

maybe were a little meaner than they needed to be because they wanted to get a reaction from people or they were not interested in necessarily being friends with people in the community that they cover. I go back and forth about this, but there is a very strong argument that a central point of good criticism is not only to inform, but also to entertain. Good criticism should be fun to read and engaging to read.

Let's pop over to Alison Bechdel. She is a name that I think our listeners are familiar with. She's the author of Fun Home, the graphic novel memoir from 2006. And it was one of the New York Times' bestsellers.

100 Best Books of the 21st Century, which of course is a project that I have to mention until the end of time. And that is a memoir that tells her story of coming out. It also presents a portrait of her father, who was a

very quirky and odd man. He was a funeral director. He himself was a closeted gay man. A big book, that book, it was a Broadway musical adaptation, really rocketed her into a different kind of stratosphere. And even though she has written another sort of graphic novel memoir in between, a book called The Secret to Superhuman Strength, this, it feels like, is grappling with sort of the after effects of Fun Home. What happens to someone after they become a success?

After they make some money, after they become famous, how do the people around them react to them, respond to them? And how do they do so in turn? She's beloved. I can't wait to read this one. OK, I've been saving the best for last. The best in my totally unbiased opinion. So this is a very exciting reprint of a book called Fishtails by Nettie Jones. So this was first published in 1983. Yeah.

It has an amazing backstory. So this was the last book that Toni Morrison acquired as an editor. And of course, Toni was, before she turned to novel writing, she really nurtured a huge cohort of Black talent and had such an eye for taste. And it turns out that when Neville...

And

And this story is Bananas. It is set in 1970s New York. It seems to be largely auto-fictional. It is this sort of, Gilbert, I know you have an affection for like old school New York. Sure do. So this is like 70s Demi Monde, right? Or like back when you wouldn't walk through Washington Square Park at night. So this follows a woman named Lewis who...

comes to New York. She smokes opium. She does coke. She drinks a lot of champagne. She has a lot of sex. It is very bawdy. I mean, I was looking to see if there was a single sentence I could possibly read on here. And the answer is no. But I think her voice, Nettie's voice in this book is just astonishing. Like it just like leaps off the page like a panther. And it ends in this sort of

very strange relationship where the main character gets enthralled to this like quadriplegic guy who like still controls her. And what's amazing about this story is that as drug fueled and sexually frank and like a little disturbing, it's also very tender in equal measure. It is unlike anything I've ever read. I love it. I am so excited to see what people have to say about it. Don't give it to your grandmother.

I think my mom would like it. Okay. Yeah. Should we ask her? No. Yeah. Let's call her up right now. Do I phone a friend on the book review podcast? Yeah. But this book, it's so good. It's so good. That sounds great. You've been enthusiastic about this book for a while and now everyone...

other than me, can hear it. He's so relieved. I give this gift to you, listeners. Fishtails by Nettie Jones. So we just talked about 13 books, lucky 13, that are coming out between now, early March, and the end of May. There's so many other books coming out now, but this

was never going to be a four-hour podcast. You should check these out. We'd love to hear what you're reading over the next few months, what you're excited for that's coming out between now and summertime. Please email us at books at nytimes.com and we'll do our best to get back to you. Jumana, thank you for coming on. Thank you for being enthusiastic about all these books. And thank you for prepping.

Mostly thank you for prepping. Thank you for putting some bullet points here in our document. So important. It's always a delight to have you on. Oh, it's a pleasure. Thanks for having me, Gilbert. That was my conversation with Jumanica Teab about several books that we're looking forward to coming out between now and the end of May. I'm Gilbert Cruz, editor of the New York Times Book Review. Thanks for listening.