Books in Bloom

Regardless of whether the flowers are already blossoming where you are, here's some books to bring you some early spring cheer.

March Madness (…But it’s Books!)

While I don’t follow basketball or March Madness, I did have a pretty solid month of reading (but, of course, we had some NCAA games playing in the background)! Here’s a few of the stand-out books I read over the past few weeks—one of which will be coming out next month!

Classics

I want to preface this section by noting that, over the past few years, I’ve given a lot of thought into how certain books are more likely to be considered “classics.” The usual suspects, which most people will typically encounter in their high school English literature courses, are Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, Charles Dickens, John Steinbeck, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. As such, many people enter their adult years under the impression that books written by white people in the nineteenth or early twentieth century are more likely to be “classics” than those written by authors from the global majority. But, of course, there are tons of classics that have been written by non-white authors—many of these books, reflecting the vastness and subtleties of the human experience, have received critical acclaim the world over.

With all that being said, I’d like to highlight a couple of classics I’ve read recently that have had tremendous impacts on culture and literature, not only in the United States but around the world.

First up is Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz, a sweeping family drama set in colonial Egypt as Egyptians seek a national identity separate from British occupation. This book is fascinating given that it works both as a simple family drama and as an allegory for Egyptian politics in the early twentieth century. It’s a bit long at around 530 pages, but extremely rewarding—we watch the family struggle under/against their tyrannical and hypocritical patriarch and find meaning in a changing world. I’m excited to continue the Cairo trilogy (the subsequent books are Palace of Desire and Sugar Street) to see what lies in store for the al-Jawad family.

Another book I’ve loved recently is James Baldwin’s Another Country, which has rightfully received critical acclaim for decades and examines desirability politics, sexuality, and racial dynamics in both the United States and abroad. Baldwin had such an eye for the subtle; throughout the book you can see the characters grapple with the question of to what extent their desires, preferences, and actions are framed by racial and gendered understandings of beauty, of masculinity and femininity. While the book was published in the 1960s, Baldwin’s commentary on white liberalism is timeless in countless ways.

Historical Fiction

Night Wherever We Go, Tracey Rose Peyton’s 2023 debut, is a stirring and chilling glimpse into the lives, loves, and struggles of enslaved Black women in the antebellum South. From the first person plural perspective, Peyton depicts a group of enslaved Black women who find themselves at a crossroads when their enslaver brings a “breeder” onto the farm—the women can either subject themselves to even further loss of their bodily autonomy for the financial gain of their enslaver, or they can discreetly protect themselves at great peril. Peyton also skillfully depicts the ways in which white women enslavers positioned themselves as victims of white patriarchy while simultaneously degrading, dehumanizing, and terrorizing Black people, specifically Black women.

Given its discussion of Black reproductive rights and gender dynamics during slavery, this book would pair well with Dorothy Roberts’ seminal work, Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty, as well as Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers’ They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South.

Contemporary Fiction

Elaine Castillo’s America is Not the Heart was another March favorite—it’s a book that will absolutely stick with me for a long time. You can click here for a full review of this novel, so I’ll just suffice it to say that you should absolutely dig into this one. There’s tons of amazing character development and examinations of shifting family dynamics, Filipino identity, and immigrant experiences.

What Storm, What Thunder by Myriam J. A. Chancy is a real powerhouse of a book that everyone should read. It’s only around 300 pages, but the way it tenderly and intimately portrays various residents of Port-au-Prince leading up to and after the catastrophic 2010 earthquake is absolutely incredible. These characters, their stories, and their lives will linger with you long after you finish the book—their stories demand to be remembered even after the world has decided to move on. Beyond this, Chancy’s criticisms of NGOs and international responses to so-called natural disasters are just phenomenal; the characters consider how emergency response teams gain international acclaim and attention whilst providing offensively minimal levels of support to Haitians. Chancy’s voice in this book is absolutely stunning—it’s one of the best books I’ve read this year.

Memoir

Mark your calendars for April 11, when Eirinie Carson’s beautiful memoir The Dead Are Gods hits the shelves! I was absolutely blown away by this debut in which Carson details the grief she was forced to navigate after her longtime best friend suddenly passed away in her early thirties. Carson’s memoir considers the complexities of friendship, the ways in which grief surpasses our understanding of linear time, and what it means to be Black in both Britain and the United States. Interspersed with short clippings of text and email conversations between Carson and her friend, I loved how The Dead Are Gods considers the value of friendship in a world that often prioritizes romantic relationships to the exclusion of others. I am so exited for folks to get their hands on this stunning book! You can find my full review here.

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Exciting New and Upcoming Releases

Last but not least, I can’t sign off without giving a shoutout to some of the recent and upcoming releases I have my eye on! Let’s take a look:

• A Living Remedy: A Memoir by Nicole Chung (out April 4): Chung, author of All You Can Ever Know, explores grief, family, and class in the wake of her father’s death and her mother’s cancer diagnosis.

• Monstrilio by Gerardo Sámano Córdova (out now): A literary horror, at its core about grief, about a monster created by a grieving mother from the remains of her recently deceased son.

• The Great Reclamation by Rachel Heng (out now): A young, supernaturally gifted boy navigates love, life, and the shadow and violence of colonial occupation in twentieth-century Singapore.

• Above Ground by Clint Smith (out now): A collection of poetry exploring fatherhood and its interactions with history, social dynamics, and politics, from the award-winning author of How the Word is Passed.

• Dust Child by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai (out now): From the author of The Mountains Sing, a family saga following the intertwining lives of four individuals who reckon with imperialism, race, and the aftershocks of the Vietnam War, which reverberate across years and continents.

• Lone Women by Victor LaValle (out now): A solitary woman totes a mysterious trunk across the landscape of early twentieth-century United States, attempting to keep her secrets safe while surviving in a harsh environment.

That’s it for now! Have a great weekend, and happy almost-April! Go out and enjoy those newly budding flowers (if you have them)!