April is another hefty release month. I’ve listed both of my previous anticipated releases posts at the bottom (for Jan/Feb and March) if you’d like to look at what is currently available to buy and read!
I also did things a bit differently this time, featuring some main titles and then listing a small portion at the bottom. Let me know if this format works better than the full-cover format before – sometimes it’s easier to digest having different portions.
(Disclaimer: All information is based on UK release dates provided through the UK Amazon website. While I try to buy through independent and non-Amazon owned companies in the UK, it’s also the best platform to use to track release dates, since it updates more regularly than other platforms.)
4th: This Is Not Miami by Fernanda Melchor, trans. Sophie Hughes (paperback)
This Is Not Miami‘s short stories are a blend of of reportage and narrative non-fiction, Melchor diving into the motivations and lives of those who commit crimes in order to understand the truth of why society is so obsessed with violence. Melchor also wrote Hurricane Season, which I own but have not read yet.
6th: Shy by Max Porter (hardback)
Max Porter has recently become a favourite author after loving Lanny and The Death of Francis Bacon, and Shy sounds like it’ll build on Porter’s already impeccable disjointed narrative style. Set over the course of a few hours, it follows a boy called Shy who has just escaped a home for ‘very disturbed young men’ and wanders in the night, thinking on his past, present, and the possibility of a future.
6th: Arrangements in Blue by Amy Key (hardback)
Amy Key, using Joni Mitchell’s Blue as an anchor, explores her relationship with love and the forms of love that often go unrecognised in favour of romantic love, and the grief that can come with ‘missing out’ on romantic love. I have a complicated relationship with romance and how dominant it is in the cultural zeitgeist when discussing relationships, so I look forward to reading this and seeing how an older people has handled love and making a life in the absence of romantic love.
6th: Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel (paperback)
I haven’t read an Emily St. John Mandel book since Station Eleven, but with how obsessed I was with that book, I think that this could be a standout. Sea of Tranquility is about parallel worlds, two characters travelling between a changing Earth and moon colonies while solving ‘a mystery’. That’s as much as you’re given in the blurb, and I really hope to get to this one.
6th: Woman, Eating by Claire Kohda (paperback)
Woman, Eating is a contemporary vampire story about a Malaysian-Japanese-British woman learning to live away from her mother for the first time. It’s about division – her desire for the food of her mother (vampire), and her desire for the food of her Japanese father (human) – and the complications that arise as a child of mixed ethnic heritage living in London.
6th: Beautiful Trauma: A Journey of Discovery in Science and Healing by Rebecca Fogg (hardback)
Beautiful Trauma follows Fogg’s year of recovery after having her hand partially amputated after an explosion in her flat. She delves into research on trauma and the physical and psychological process of recovery. I’m very interested in books on trauma, particularly non-fiction, so this will be an interesting read.
6th: Lipstick and Leather: On the Road with the World’s Most Notorious Rock Stars by Kim Hawes (hardback)
I love memoirs by women and queer people in the rock and punk part of the music industry, and this looks like another incredible addition to the genre. It’s about Hawes’s experience as a woman tour manager in a notoriously male-centric industry where being a woman was made all the more complicated.
11th: One or Several Deserts by Carter St Hogan (paperback)
Described as ‘Queer, strange, grotesque…Bristling with defiance, cruel but tender’, the short stories in this collection sound absolutely incredible. I adore how disruptive and punk queer fiction can be, leaning into body horror and disturbing imagery and themes, so I cannot wait for this to be in my hands. (The cover is also a definite favourite!)
13th: Walking Practice by Dolki Min, trans. Victoria Caudle (hardback)
Described as being in the vein of Under the Skin, south Korean writer Dolki Min’s Walking Practice is about an alien hunting for food (read: humans) who is forced to confront what it means to be human, and to survive. Another incredible cover, I cannot wait to read this one.
18th: Out There: Stories by Kate Folk (paperback)
This collection was recommended by Brea Grant, a film director and one of the hosts of my favourite reading podcast, Reading Glasses. Described as a combination of ‘science fiction and horror’, the stories delve into the ‘absurdity of life in the digital age’.
20th: Any Other City by Hazel Jane Plante (paperback)
Described as ‘a love letter to trans femmes’, Hazel Jane Plante’s novel is a two-part fictional memoir – the first a snapshot of Tracy St. Cyr’s life in 1993, when – as a young musician – she falls in with a group of trans women. The second part, based in 2019, shows Tracy, now semi-famous, using songwriting, queer kinship and sex as a way to process a traumatic event.
27th: Daemons of the Shadow Realm Volume 1 by Hiromu Arakawa (paperback)
Fullmetal Alchemist is my favourite manga series, so finding out Hiromu Arakawa is releasing a new fantasy series has absolutely made my reading year. With several volumes already slated to release this year, I’m ready to immerse myself in this new story, where estranged twins Yuru and Asa must claim their birth right to command power deities called daemons in order to save the world.
27th: Dear Mothman by Robin Gow (hardback)
I read this as an arc, and let me tell you, it is well worth the read. A middle-grade novel in verse, young trans boy Noah writes letters addressed to Mothman as he struggles with the loss of another trans boy, Lewis, who loved Mothman while he was alive. It’s a moving, raw portrayal of loss, and the importance of a friend who gets you when you’re queer.
27th: Cimino: The Deer Hunter, Heaven’s Gate, and the Price of a Vision by Charles Elton (paperback)
I may as well finish the in-depth portion of this post with a niche title. In Cimino, Charles Elton tracks the life of acclaimed filmmaker Michael Cimino, and the film that destroyed his career. I love books on Hollywood and revisionist history (for a fictional thriller, Marisha Pessl’s Night Film is spectacular)
More Releases:
- 6th: Being Lolita by Alisson Wood (paperback): A memoir of Wood’s experience being groomed by her English teacher, and the power of words in helping her reclaim her own story.
- 11th: Hit Parade of Tears by Izumi Suzuki (paperback): The second post-humous collection of Izumi Suzuki’s short fiction. I read Terminal Boredom and enjoyed a few of the stories, particularly her ability to blend science-fiction and fantasy with very grounded, human stories.
- 13th: Daisy Darker by Alice Feeney (paperback): For the first time in a decade, Daisy’s family come together to celebrate their matriarchs eightieth birthday. Isolated on a private island, after one of them is killed, family secrets emerge and they have to uncover who the killer is.
- 20th: Monstrilio by Gerardo Sámano Córdova (hardback): A grieving mother cuts out a piece of her son’s lung, and nurtures the lung until it gains sentience and becomes a man-eating creature.
- 27th: Greek Lessons by Han Kang, trans. Deborah Smith and Emily Yae Won (hardback): This novel is about two people, united in their anguish, who learn to express themselves in spite of the darkness in their lives after meeting at a Greek language class.
- 27th: Happy Place by Emily Henry (hardback): I am annoyed this is being released in hardback and not straight to paperback like Henry’s other books, but I will still be reading if I can. Two exes have to pretend to still be together on holiday with their best friends. Emily Henry’s books really work for me, more than any other contemporary romance author.
- 27th: A Manual for How to Love Us: Stories by Erin Slaughter (paperback): This will be a hard one: a collection of stories all linked by their exploration of the multifaceted nature of women’s grief.
- 27th: Do you Believe in the Power of Rock and Roll?: Forty Years of Music Writing from the Frontline by John Robb (paperback): I told you I love books about music. This history of alternative rock is tracked by Robb from the 1970s through to modern day.
- 27th: The Memory Librarian by Janelle Monae (paperback): This is the paperback release of Monae’s sci-fi/dystopian short story collection that works as an extension of her album Dirty Computer. The stories centre around finding your own mode of expressing identity and love in a totalitarian landscape
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