Editor's note: This month's #bookradar is a little delayed because I moved and 83,000 books pubbed in March. Please keep me honest and tell me all the books I missed either in the comments section or on our social media networks. As always, we encourage you to do whatever you can to support your local bookstore, including purchasing audiobooks from our sponsor Libro.fm. Stay safe, keep reading!—Daniel Ford
Wired's coverage of Elliot Ackerman and James G. Stavridis' 2034 is not to be missed. The same goes for the novel itself. Thoughtful and informed.
Isabel Allende ensorcelled Sean Tuohy many years ago and made him a celebrity to most of his family. She told us in 2017, "Why do I choose to write a particular story? Because it matters to me." Her latest, a memoir, seems to matter a great deal. Scoop it up as soon as you can.
Hala Alyan's second novel The Arsonists’ City reminded us why we love her work. Her characters become like friends and we very much miss them when we put the book down. She was gifted another terrific cover design as well.
Engrossing, effervescent, and packed with delicious factoids, When Women Invented Television is the perfect marriage between subject and author. Jennifer Keishin Armstrong returns these pioneering women to the spotlight they so richly deserve. The book should be required reading for anyone working in or obsessed with television. Her best work yet.—Daniel Ford
Every list we consulted recently seemed to feature Naima Coster's What’s Mine and Yours. We were hooked on the cover and the premise. Sending Coster’s open invite to the show out into the universe!
Kate Hope Day's new novel In the Quick has such a cool premise, and cover for that matter, and features a brilliantly fierce protagonist in June. We loved chatting with her about how her kids love of space helped inspire the novel, exploring the idea of super smart characters having to engage in physically demanding environments, and why reading is always the answer.
"Larry Doby, Bill Veeck, Bob Feller, and Satchel Paige." We didn't need much more of a push to read Luke Epplin's Our Team: The Epic Story of Four Men and the World Series That Changed Baseball. Baseball writing at its finest.
Gabriela Garcia's debut Of Women and Salt was such a gripping read and we loved her character work, even when she was putting them through hell. A blurb from Roxane Gay is writer nirvana as far as we're concerned.
We don't want to step on the season premiere of NovelClass, but Kazuo Ishiguro has a permanent spot on this list thanks to host Dave Pezza. Catch up on past NovelClass episodes!
We don’t know what we’re more excited about. A new Stephen King book or the fact it was published by Hard Case Crime. We’re all winners either way!
Speaking of fine baseball writing. I've been a baseball fan my entire life and I had never heard of Glenn Burke, the first openly gay baseball player and the inventor of the high-five. Andrew Maraniss took care of that as quickly, and entertainingly, as Burke chasing down a fly ball. The ballplayer's story ends in heartbreak and tragedy, but there's a lot to root for along the way.—Daniel Ford
Viet Thanh Nguyen's novel The Sympathizer and short story collection The Refugees feature some of the best fiction we've read in the last decade. His words are always most welcome in Writer's Bone HQ. Don't miss the U.K. cover.
Poison and murder in 1790s London. Shadowy apothecaries. A present-day narrative featuring a woman solving an historical riddle. Sign up us for that every day.
Even if we hadn't read Omar El-Akkad's New York Times Book Review of Imbolo Mbue's How Beautiful We Were, the haunting opening lines would have landed the book on this list: "We should have known the end was near. How could we not have known?"
Haven't we been through the emotional ringer enough this month? Nope, says Jill Santopolo.
Yup, it's that time of year again. Peter Swanson robs us of a night of sleep and reminds us he may be the best at this crime fiction thing.
I won’t lie, I had tears in my eyes at times reading Craig Taylor's new book New Yorkers. It was like visiting home without having to drive over the RFK Bride or take a train into Penn Station. Thanks to Stephanie Ford’s birthday present, I was even able to have a black and white cookie from Zaro’s Family Bakery in Grand Central Station with my coffee while reading.—Daniel Ford
Inject this novel directly into our rock 'n' roll veins.
Author’s Corner
Hala Alyan, author of The Arsonists' City, stopped by the podcast recently and gave us a a pair of great recommendations, so you should add both to your reading list and buy them from your local bookstore, Bookshop.org, Indiebound, or Libro.fm. And read more poets. That's what we’re going to try to do in April and May and beyond. Keep reading and writing, everyone.
Postcolonial Love Poem by Natalie Diaz
The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
