The next few months are flush with personal essays from funny women, binge-able thrillers and juicy family sagas. Get ready to curl up with a book and glass of rosé — spring reading season is on the way. – Rachel Heinrichs, Chatelaine
Theft by Finding by David Sedaris
Snippets of overheard IHOP conversation, terrifically bad jokes from the ’80s and, of course, plenty of family anecdotes, like the time Dad Sedaris’s head caught on fire, fill almost 40 years’ worth of folksy, good-natured diaries. May 30.
Into the Water by Paula Hawkins
Since its release in 2015, Hawkins’s wildly successful domestic noir, Girl on the Train, has inspired publishers everywhere to sell their thrillers as “The next Girl on The Train.” This one actually lives up to that title. Hawkins is back with two dead women in a river, a town haunted by tragedy and characters riddled by unreliable memories. May 2.
The Leavers by Lisa Ko
Polly, a Chinese immigrant working in a New York City nail bar, goes missing, leaving her 11-year-old son, Deming, to be adopted by a kindly, white academic couple. Deming, soon renamed Daniel, grows into a troubled twentysomething with a gambling problem, who eventually discovers the heart-piercing truth about his mother’s disappearance — and sacrifices. May 2.
The Weekend Effect: The Life-Changing Benefits of Taking Time off and Challenging the Cult of Overwork by Katrina Onstad
Anyone with a job, a smartphone and a constant, low-simmering sense of stress will rejoice at Onstad’s deeply researched call to embrace the lost art of chilling out. April 18.
Anything is Possible by Elizabeth Strout
The Pulitzer Prize–winning author returns to the small, down-and-out town at the heart of her last bestseller, My Name is Lucy Barton, to explore the characters on Lucy’s periphery. As with much of Strout’s work, mere plot descriptions make her stories sound like snooze fests (elderly janitor visits lonely man living in dilapitated house; adult siblings come to grips with their parents’ failures), but Strout’s knack for capturing every twitch and tragedy of the human psyche electrifies her characters and their fraught relationships. April 25.
When You Find Out the World is Against You and Other Funny Memories About Awful Moments by Kelly Oxford
Oxford writes with tart wit about Internet trolls (#nodoodlenoclass), her mid-’90s sartorial savvy and living with paralyzing anxiety. But it’s her achingly personal essay on #notokay, the online protest she led against Donald Trump following his hot-mic leak last fall, that will punch readers in the gut. April 18.
Little Sister by Barbara Gowdy
Everytime a thunder storm breaks Rose mysteriously teleports into the body of Harriet. The out-of-body jaunts offer an intriguing escape from Rose’s own life, which revolves around caring for her mother who suffers from dementia and begins to dredge up painful memories about Rose’s long-dead little sister. April 18.
Dr. Edith Vane and the Hares of Crawley Hall by Suzette Mayr
Calgary writer Suzette Mayr presents a psychedelic take on the campus novel, starring an anxious English professor frazzled by nasty colleagues, a haunted workplace and demonic rabbits. April 17.
What Remains by Karen Von Hahn
Through objects — a string of pearls, a blue bottle, a silver satin sofa — the veteran style writer remembers the glamorous and maddening mother who presided over her privileged childhood in 1970s and ’80s Toronto. April 9.
The Rules Do Not Apply by Ariel Levy
In 2013, the New Yorker writer published a devastating, Facebook-viral memoir about miscarrying in Mongolia. Little did readers know, the rest of her seemingly perfect life was unravelling, too. This memoir heaves readers into Levy’s rock-bottom, offering a scathingly honest self-portrait of an ambitious, sometimes cocky, sometimes naive, totally resilient woman trying to wrap her arms around everything — marriage, career, children — at once. March 13.
We: A Manifesto for Women Everywhere by Gillian Anderson and Jennifer Nadel
Yes, that Gillian Anderson — the X-Files one who seems, miraculously, to never age — has co-authored a guide to self-discovery in the new feminist era. With sections like, “Gratitude: A mind-altering substance” and “Meditation: Creating a Safe Space,” it’s a tad more self-help-y than most of the female empowerment tomes (of which there are many) out this spring. March 8.
All Grown Up by Jami Attenberg
At 39, single, child-free, good-time-drinking Andrea Bern watches her friends get married, have kids, build careers and leave her behind in a state of suspended adolescence. Then, her niece arrives and she’s forced to grow up. Requisite reading for fans of Saint Mazie and The Middlestein’s, Attenberg’s other compulsively entertaining novels starring many-layered heroines. March 7.
Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
When the Nigerian novelist’s childhood friend asked her for advice on raising her baby girl, Adichie wrote her a letter with 15 practical suggestions that now make up this lovely and lucid purse-sized manual for modern womanhood. March 7.
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
This Dickens-sized doorstop of a family saga begins in 1900, with an unplanned pregnancy that threatens the esteem of a proud Korean family and forces the disgraced heroin, Sunja, to marry a pastor and move to Japan. There, she and her children are considered second-class citizens due to their Korean roots. The story unfolds Forrest Gump–style over the next 80 years, bringing global events like WWII and the AIDS crisis to bear on its characters. On shelves now.
All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai
In the Toronto-based screenwriter’s exuberant and twisty debut novel, Tom Barren steals his dad’s time machine to go back to the summer of 1965 where he learns, as Marty McFly did before him, that one small error can disrupt the course of history. On shelves now.
