The Best Books of Spring 2023

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Spring has officially sprung, and you know what that means, book lovers: it’s time to read en plein air. Whether you prefer to post up on a picnic blanket, a porch swing, or a park bench, ‘tis the season for slathering yourself in sunscreen and carting your books outside. If you’re not sure what sort of reading material to pack in your tote bag, we have just the prescription—in fact, we’ve rounded up twenty of our favorite new releases of the season. Whether you’re into aliens, shipwrecks, or gladiators, this season’s new releases are a thrill ride to remember. Let these books sweep into your life like a warm spring breeze—and don’t forget your allergy medication.

Not all of these books have hit shelves yet, but if you see something you like, pre-order it now and thank yourself later. When it arrives in your mailbox weeks from now, after you’ve long forgotten about it, it’ll be like a gift from Past You.

Romantic Comedy, by Curtis Sittenfeld

36-year-old Sally Milz doesn’t have time for love. As a staff writer at The Night Owls (a fictional Saturday Night Live! analogue), Sally pours herself into her high-stress job—and she’s damn good at it. When she catches the eye of the latest weekly host, rockstar Noah Brewster, she can’t fathom what a gorgeous celebrity would want with her, even though she struggles to deny their crackling chemistry. Before sparks can fly, Sally nukes their budding romance, but that’s far from the end of their story—in the depths of the pandemic, she and Noah reconnect via email, where an epistolary courtship blooms. What follows is a tender examination of love and dating, with Sally and Noah both evaluating whether this romance can transcend their independence and their insecurities. Sittenfeld’s glittering satire of the entertainment industry is a playful delight, but as with any romantic comedy, it’s the winsome love story that rules the day.

Cursed Bread, by Sophie Mackintosh

In this erotic fever-dream of a novel, Mackintosh fictionalizes the 1951 mass poisoning of a French village through the eyes of Elodie, a young baker’s wife starved for affection. When an American ambassador and his sophisticated wife arrive in town, Elodie becomes entranced by the couple, launching a psychosexual game of cat-and-mouse. It all hurtles toward the inexorable historical conclusion, though the descent into madness is packed with dark surprises. In this hallucinogenic tale of desire and obsession, nothing is as it seems.

A Living Remedy, by Nicole Chung

In this gutting memoir, an adopted daughter wrestles with grief, loss, and regret. Growing up in rural Oregon, Chung often felt “racial isolation” as the Korean-American daughter of white parents, who lived paycheck to paycheck. Many years later, after finding a community and a home on the East Coast, Chung suffered two devastating blows: within the span of two years, she lost her father to kidney disease and her mother to cancer. A Living Remedy recounts the agony of watching from afar as they grappled with their health amid financial instability and a dysfunctional healthcare system. Chung describes her father’s death as “negligent homicide, facilitated and sped by the state’s failure to fulfill its most basic responsibilities to him and others like him.” Keep the tissues close for this visceral and wrenching memoir—you’ll need them.

Read an essay by the author here at Esquire.

The Lost Wife, by Susanna Moore

From the real-life account of a woman abducted during the Sioux Uprising of 1862, Moore spins a masterwork of historical fiction about a flinty and perceptive pioneer woman. In 1855, Sarah Brinton flees an abusive marriage in Rhode Island; come 1862, she's remarried the town physician of Shakopee, Minnesota, who also tends to the residents of the nearby reservation. Among her Sioux neighbors, Sarah finds companionship and community. When the government withholds annuities from the Sioux and swindles the tribe out of their land, Sioux warriors mount an uprising, taking Sarah and her children captive amid the grisly violence. After her rescue, shunned and reviled for her sympathy toward the Sioux, Sarah becomes a woman with no tribe, and must make difficult decisions to survive. Beautiful and stark as an American prairie, The Lost Wife evokes a profound sense of time, place, and moral clarity.

Irma, by Terry McDonell

In this poignant memoir, a former Esquire editor-in-chief memorializes his mother, the inimitable woman who taught him how to be a man. After the death of McDonell’s father, a WWII fighter pilot, 25-year-old schoolteacher Irma was left to raise her young son alone. She made a new life for them in California, where she raised her son to read widely, love nature, and cultivate independence. This accounts for just Part One of McDonell’s memoir; in Part Two, he makes a bold narrative leap, transitioning to the third-person perspective as he recounts his adult struggles and successes, as well as the challenge of cultivating his own “philosophy of fatherhood” without a role model. Lyrical and lucid, Irma tells a stirring tale of how our parents shape us—the ones who aren’t there, and the ones who are.

Read a review here at Esquire.

Veniss Underground, by Jeff VanderMeer

VanderMeer’s alchemical debut novel returns to print in this handsome twentieth anniversary edition, featuring never-before-seen bonus material like short stories, fragments, and commentary from the author. Set in a dystopian future ravaged by climate change, the novel centers on a trio of young protagonists: Nicholas, a depressive artist; Nicola, his twin sister; and Shadrach, Nicola’s former lover. Lurking in the shadows is Quin, a diabolical biotech scientist whose mutated creations threaten the city and its restless inhabitants. Cyberpunk and Lovecraftian, surreal and unforgettable, Veniss Underground is a welcome reminder of VanderMeer's singular vision.

The Possibility of Life, by Jaime Green

Ever since the time of the ancients, humans have gazed at the stars and wondered if we’re alone. But why do we seek kinship in the cosmos, and what does the search tell us about ourselves? In this captivating and expansive book, Green traces the long history of the search for extraterrestrial life, from astronomers like Galileo to modern-day NASA scientists. But beneath all that scientific history, Green locates a rich bedrock of philosophical and literary inquiry, encompassing everything from golden age sci-fi novels to Star Trek. Our best hopes and worst fears about extraterrestrial life, Green argues, are revealed as much in the stories we imagine as in the discoveries we make. Packed with wonder, humanity, and hope, The Possibility of Life will leave you grateful for life on Earth, even as you dream of first contact.

America the Beautiful?, by Blythe Roberson

One woman, one borrowed Prius, one summer to travel the American West. What could go wrong? In 2019, Roberson set out across the country with the goal of writing “a female American travel narrative”—because why should Jack Kerouac have all the fun? The result is this spiky and big-hearted travelogue chronicling the author’s misadventures in our national parks, from flirting with park rangers to awarding herself Junior Ranger badges. But beneath the travel hijinks lies a deeper sense of questioning about what ails our national backyard, from the displacement of Indigenous peoples to the perils of ecotourism. Packed with just as much wonder and awe as it is with jokes and irreverence, America the Beautiful? will leave you longing for the open road.

The Trackers, by Charles Frazier

The author of Cold Mountain returns with another superb historical fiction, this time set in the throes of the Great Depression. In Dawes, Wyoming, young painter Val Welch arrives to create a mural at the behest of the Works Progress Administration. He’s offered free lodging by John and Eve Long, a wealthy, art-loving rancher and his glamorous young wife. When Eve disappears with a valuable Renoir painting, Long sends Val and a local cowboy in hot pursuit, but they’re not the only trackers on her trail. Frazier’s soaring story of art, secrets, and fate criss-crosses a nation in transition, evoking both its beauty and its desperation.

The Wager, by David Grann

One of our finest nonfiction storytellers returns with a swashbuckling epic about shipwreck, scandal, mutiny, and murder. In 1741, when a British naval vessel was shipwrecked on a desolate island off the coast of Patagonia, its crew divided into factions and descended into violence. After five months marooned, some seamen escaped in makeshift boats, abandoning their captain and his few remaining loyalists. Survivors of this perilous journey back to England were hailed as heroes—until the captain made a miraculous return, accusing his officers of mutiny. What followed was a court martial and a vicious war of words, with each side spinning a narrative to avoid death by hanging. Masterfully structured from a wealth of firsthand accounts, like logbooks, correspondence, and court martial testimony, The Wager is a thrilling voyage about tall tales, at sea and on land.

Read an interview with the author here at Esquire.

Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma, by Claire Dederer

What should we do when we love the art, but hate the artist? In Monsters, one of our sharpest critics delivers a bracing meditation on the thorniest questions of the #MeToo era. Can we ethically consume the art of monstrous artists? Do we hold monstrous women to different standards than monstrous men? In the age of parasocial relationships, how much does fandom define us, and what’s a fan to do when our favorite artist betrays us? Dederer contends that these contradictions are baked into the endeavor of making and loving art. Lucid and fierce, generous and unflinching, Monsters is the most exhilarating study on this topic to date.

Read an interview with the author here at Esquire.

The Rediscovery of America, by Ned Blackhawk

“Exiled from the American origin story, Indigenous people await the telling of a history that includes them,” writes Yale history professor Ned Blackhawk. The Rediscovery of America is that history—a sprawling study that situates Indigenous peoples at the heart of the American story, tracing a five century sweep from the first “epic encounter” between empires, all the way to twentieth century reservation activists. Blackhawk’s gripping retelling demonstrates how Indigenous peoples have shaped the trajectory of the American republic, from their role in the American Revolution to their refashioning of American law. Gripping and nuanced, The Rediscovery of America is an essential remedy to the historical record.

Chain-Gang All-Stars, by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

Ever since his breakout debut, Friday Black, we’ve been eagerly awaiting Adjei-Brenyah’s sophomore outing. Nearly five years later, it’s finally here, and it surpasses all expectations. In a dystopian United States, the prison-industrial complex has gone private, leaving incarcerated people with no choice but to compete for their freedom in the Criminal Action Penal Entertainment system. Loretta Thurwar and Hamara “Hurricane Staxxx” Stacker have traveled together for years as Links in the same Chain-Gang, but as Thurwar nears her freedom, she contemplates how to bring dignity to her multi-racial and multi-gendered coalition of fellow gladiators. Reading Chain-Gang All-Stars in a nation addicted to violent sports that brutalize athletes of color, Adjei-Brenyah’s acerbic vision lands like a lightning bolt of truth.

Read an exclusive excerpt here at Esquire.

Gone to the Wolves, by John Wray

In a small town on Florida’s Gulf Coast circa 1987, three young misfits form a connection that will define their lives. Kip, Leslie, and Kira bond over their shared love of death metal, but when they chase the glam metal scene to Los Angeles, life sends them pinballing in different directions. The friends grow apart until Kip, a rock critic, and Leslie, struggling with addiction, reunite to save Kira, who’s been taken in by a Norwegian black metal cult. Wray captures the highs of youthful exuberance and the lows of adult challenges in this propulsive coming-of-age novel.

Read an essay by the author here at Esquire.

Yellowface, by R.F. Kuang

Fans of The Plot and The Book of Goose will fall hard for Yellowface, Kuang’s biting thriller about an act of literary theft and its staggering consequences. When Athena Liu, a Chinese-American literary darling, dies suddenly in her apartment, her old friend June Hayward, a struggling white novelist, seizes the manuscript left behind on her desk: a novel about the World War I Chinese Labor Corps. June passes the novel off as her own, allows her publisher to rebrand her as the ethnically ambiguous Juniper Song, and enjoys smash success—until social media backlash and an anonymous user named @AthenaLiusGhost threaten to expose her secret. Taut and twisty, Yellowface is a deft satire that exposes how the book publishing industry appropriates, exploits, and erases writers of color.

Quietly Hostile, by Samantha Irby

One of our finest comic writers returns with a gut-busting variety pack of intimate essays. As ever, Irby shines when she writes about the indignities of living with chronic illness, recounting every time she’s peed herself since reaching middle age and offering a cheeky FAQ about toilets and bowel movements. Other essays are formally daring; in one, Irby rattles off an exhaustive list of how she’d layer outrageous plot twists into classic Sex and the City episodes, while in another, she details “the greatest Dave Matthews songs to swoon over.” But the strongest essays collected here are the most vulnerable ones, like “O Brother, Where Art Thou?,” in which Irby considers the meaning of family when she reunites with her estranged half-brother after the death of their father. Bracing and brutally honest, Quietly Hostile reminds us why Irby is one of our most essential essayists.

King: A Life, by Jonathan Eig

The acclaimed biographer of Muhammad Ali turns his talents to Martin Luther King Jr. in this landmark work of scholarship—the most expansive King biography in decades, and the first to include recently declassified FBI files. Eig mines a trove of new documentary resources to paint the richest portrait yet of King’s first 25 years, tracing his evolution from a child scarred by racism to a civil rights leader threatened by his own government. The book reminds us that King “was a man, not a saint, not a symbol”; fittingly, Eig is unafraid to probe his plagiarism and infidelities in close detail. It’s the fullness of this portrait, rich in contradictions, that makes King: A Life the definitive biography of a legendary leader.

Dykette, by Jenny Fran Davis

In this contemporary comedy of manners, three queer couples descend on a rural farmhouse over Christmas, with uproarious results. Our guide to it all is Sasha, an unreliable narrator for the ages: high-strung, chaotic, and spectacularly insecure, she observes from the sidelines and stirs the pot in equal turns. Through Sasha, Davis constructs a field guide to queer dynamics, making sharp observations about generational divides, the butch/femme dynamic, and what it means to perform your gender or sexuality (as exemplified by an explosive plot about performance art). You won’t soon forget Sasha, nor any of the other larger-than-life Brooklynites in her cohort.

The Guest, by Emma Cline

With her propulsive third book, Cline confirms her reputation as the literary prophet of women on the brink. Her latest outing stars Alex, a 22-year-old grifter who makes ends meet by ingratiating herself with wealthy older men. When Alex miscalculates and runs afoul of her latest beau, she’s sent packing just one week before his annual Labor Day party, leaving her homeless. Rather than face the truth, Alex determines that if she can just make it through the week, she’ll be welcomed back at the party. Drifting through a languid summer week in the Hamptons, Alex folds into rarefied enclaves where she pretends to belong. With each passing day, her perspective becomes all the more dangerously warped. Dreamlike and disaffected, this charged study of class and gender lingers like a bad sunburn.

The Late Americans, by Brandon Taylor

In Iowa City, a coterie of young bohemians struggle with intimacy, class, and purpose. A master of characterization, Taylor juggles a large cast of friends and peers orbiting the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, interconnected by their studies and their relationships. The central figure is Seamus, a poet questioning the relevance of his work and antagonizing his peers. Elsewhere in the novel, privilege drives a wedge between Fyodor and Timo, two lovers strained by different resentments (Fyodor fumes about Timo’s middle-class upbringing, while vegetarian Timo is disgusted by Fyodor working in a meatpacking plant). Masterfully directed by Taylor, characters swim in and out of the story, exploring a lived-in symphony of questions about what it means to make art, love truthfully, and live morally.

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