10 books to read in April
Critic Bethanne Patrick recommends 10 promising titles, fiction and nonfiction, to consider for your April reading list.
Spring is here, and with it come books that offer groundbreaking ideas to expand our outlook. The nonfiction crop includes an acclaimed novelist's perspective on writing as a person of color, a searing yet carefully documented call for changes in law enforcement and a Latin America-centered history of our hemisphere, not to mention one of the smartest recent collections of cultural criticism.
However, those who prefer fiction also have fresh choices. A debut novel examines how a gay Black man copes with family trauma on his wedding eve. A woman and a much younger man meet for lunch in Manhattan, the tensions high but their relationship unknown, while in another book, a fractured family meets in Shanghai around a hospital bed. Happy reading!
Gifted & Talented: A Novel By Olive BlakeTor Books: 512 pages, $30(April 1)
Blake, known for 'The Atlas' series, started out writing fan fiction, so it shouldn't surprise anyone that this standalone fantasy borrows elements from other stories, including dark academia, family dynasty sagas and coming-of-age journeys. The three Wren siblings — Meredith, Arthur and Eilidh — have great supernatural gifts, but when their father dies and leaves his company, Wrenfare Magitech, in need of a new chief executive, their all-too-human rivalries and frailties come to light.
Rabbit Moon: A Novel By Jennifer HaighLittle, Brown: 288 pages, $29(April 1)
Haigh was on a fellowship in Shanghai where she witnessed so many traffic accidents that she began conjuring a story about an American student named Lindsey, struck down by a hit-and-run driver. Lindsey's parents fly to the Chinese city and fearfully track their eldest's recovery, leaving their younger daughter, Grace, who was adopted from China, marooned at summer camp with no information. Will the family heal or remain estranged?
Audition: A Novel By Katie KitamuraRiverhead Books: 208 pages, $28(April 8)
Cleanly sliced into two parts, this spare novel of complicated ambitions — personal, professional and familial — pits three people against their perceived places in the world as well as their rarely acknowledged shadow selves. The narrator is an actor worried about her faltering play; a lunch with a much younger man upends her world. In the book's second section, the two lunch again, this time with her husband. In which roles will they be cast?
My Documents: A Novel By Kevin NguyenOne World: 352 pages, $28(April 8)
The four youngest Nguyen family members didn't anticipate two of them getting interred at a camp set up for Vietnamese Americans in the wake of violent attacks. Siblings Jen and Duncan and their mother are sent to Camp Tacoma, while Ursula and Alvin receive exemptions. Nguyen takes historical realities and weaves them into an affecting, and affectionate, story showing one family's ability to resist fascism in all its forms.
When the Harvest Comes: A Novel By Denne Michele NorrisRandom House: 304 pages, $28(April 15)
Davis, a gay Black man, is about to celebrate his marriage with white bisexual Everett, when his sister brings the news that their father, the Reverend, has died in a car accident. This strict minister paterfamilias disapproved of his violist son, and in the wake of loss, Davis finds solace in music and womanly identity, slowly healing from estrangement.
Authority: Essays By Andrea Long ChuFarrar, Straus and Giroux: 288 pages, $30(April 1)
Chu writes about culture, all of it, from Octavia Butler's sci-fi to the essays of Maggie Nelson to musicals such as 'The Phantom of the Opera' and on to television, video games, film and, oh yes, notions of gender. Chu employs her considerable expertise to argue that criticism can and should leave behind theoretical nitpicking and address the big, dangerous global issues at hand.
Defund: Black Lives, Policing, and Safety for All By Sandy HudsonPantheon: 288 pages, $29(April 1)
The Canadian lawyer, activist, author and producer is now based in Los Angeles, where she is well placed to launch her book about changing the very nature of contemporary law enforcement. Hudson's arguments about how police-related social policies have little basis in outcomes and data are persuasive, and so are her calls for starting small and establishing more human, peaceful methods of keeping the peace.
To Save and to Destroy: Writing as an Other By Viet Than NguyenBelknap Press: 144 pages, $27(April 8)
The Pulitzer-winning author of 'The Sympathizer' and USC professor here publishes his 2023 Norton Lectures at Harvard that focus on what an outsider brings to American literature. The novelist, who arrived in the U.S. as a child refugee with his family in 1975, elucidates his writerly influences and interrogates the idea that any minority voice might serve as a 'model' for one race or ethnicity.
Fugitive Tilts: Essays By Ishion HutchinsonFarrar, Straus and Giroux: 384 pages, $33(April 15)
Poet Hutchinson's essays swoosh and roll like the sea that has surrounded and molded his life and art, from his beginnings in Jamaica to his coastal journeys on to his belief that ocean waters ultimately connect us all through suffering and joy. Whether his eye turns to childhood literature like 'Treasure Island,' reggae music, or an Impressionist painting, the author connects his influences to the wider world of art, community and our shared humanity.
America, América: A New History of the New World By Greg GrandinPenguin Press: 768 pages, $35(April 22)
'American' history classes often focus on North America and its European origins, but in this long-overdue volume by prizewinning scholar and Yale professor Grandin shows that Latin America's formation and founders are not only important but crucial to the understanding of America overall. Covering 500 years and events from conquests to wars to racism, 'America, América' should be required reading in those history classes.
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My 7-year-old interviewed the author of his favorite book. He asked big and small questions with more confidence than I have.
When author and illustrator Peter Brown set out to write "The Wild Robot," he didn't head to a studio or café — he went to the Catskills, Maine, and the Pacific Northwest to find inspiration. When I had the chance to connect with Brown, I knew I had to turn to an expert who truly appreciated the book: my 7-year-old son. "I tried to spend as much time in kind of a wilderness area as I could to feed my imagination, give me little ideas, remind myself of the kind of sounds that you hear when you're out in the woods," Brown told me and my son over a video interview. That juxtaposition — the mechanical and the natural — sits at the heart of "The Wild Robot," Brown's beloved middle-grade novel and now an Oscar-nominated major motion picture from DreamWorks. "The last place you'd expect to find a robot is out in the wilderness," Brown explained. "And so I thought, well, that's kind of interesting." My three children agree. They are such fans of the movie that we ended up not only buying it, but also getting the book to read the original story, which we've already enjoyed multiple times. My son had lots of questions to ask Brown, from whether he liked robots to whether there would be more movies starring his favorite robot, Roz. He wanted readers to care about the robot To prepare for the interview, my son and I talked about our favorite parts of the movie and the book. I asked him what he wanted to ask Brown, and he surprised me with how much he wanted to know, including why the robot doesn't have a mouth but can still talk, and more profound questions that, as a parent, moved me. For those who aren't hardcore fans like we are, "The Wild Robot" follows Rozzum Unit 7134 (a.k.a Roz), a machine that washes ashore on a remote island and must learn to survive — and eventually, thrive — among wildlife. "This is a very extreme fish out of water story," Brown said. "You take that advanced technological character and you put it in the least technological place you can imagine." The book's premise is simple, but the emotional arc is complex. Brown imagined a robot that becomes more "natural and wild than even a person could." Both my husband and I cried at different scenes of the movie because Roz reminded us of different parenting phases we've been through, helping our kids learn how to walk, or learning ourselves how to let them go and become their own person. "That is kind of the main goal of an author — to make sure your readers care," Brown said. Roz is an optimistic vision of AI At a time when most portrayals of artificial intelligence tend toward the dystopian, Brown aimed for something different. "We are very familiar with stories about robots, kind of like a robot uprising," he said. "I thought it was more interesting to show a more optimistic vision of what the future could look like." He backs that vision with research, not just imagination. Brown visited NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and spoke with scientists designing robots to explore other planets. "They're already using robots to communicate with animals," he told my son, who listened with both his eyes and mouth wide open in surprise. Roz, Brown believes, could someday exist. There might be a movie sequel Brown has long loved animation, and the adaptation of the first book from his three-book series into a movie has been a surreal experience. "Before I started writing children's books, I actually worked in animation," he said. So when DreamWorks reached out, saying they wanted to adapt the book into a movie, he was very excited. He hopes for a sequel, which was one of the more important questions my son had because he wants more of Roz. "I'm pretty confident there will be at least one more movie," he said. My son shared with Brown how his twin sisters, who are two years younger than him, often get distracted when my husband reads the original book because it doesn't have illustrations on every page. Brown's latest project, " The Wild Robot on the Island," is a picture book adaptation of the original novel, aimed at an audience like my daughters. He wants readers to learn something from Roz Throughout the interview, Brown answered my son's big questions and little questions with the same enthusiasm and attention to detail. They talked about whether Brown had a Roomba (he doesn't) and whether he had adopted anything like Roz did in the story (he did adopt his dog Pam). My son surprised me by asking one of the more profound questions of the interview — what we, as readers, could learn from Roz. Brown hopes it's empathy and interdependence. "Roz learns that she needs help. She can't do it all by herself," he said. "We all need each other; we should just be good to each other because we're going to need each other at some point or another." It's a message that Brown feels is often forgotten. But through the eyes of a robot (or in my case, during this interview, a 7-year-old) trying to understand the world, it becomes fresh again.
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Choir to Cypher: 18 Rappers Who Have Ties to Church
Kya Kelly/Radio One Cincinnati Before they were spitting and rocking sold-out stages, some of hip-hop's most influential artists were at church sitting in pews or singing in choirs. The Black church has long been a foundational space, not just spiritually, but creatively. It's where storytelling is born in rhythm, call-and-response becomes second nature, and community means everything. For a lot of rappers, the church wasn't just the first stage: it was the first studio, the first audience, and the first school of performance, discipline, and identity. RELATED: 11 Living Legends Who Deserve Their Flowers While a few have strayed far from traditional religious paths and others have blended their faith directly into their music, the influence of the church remains clear in some of their work. Here are 18 rappers who have ties to church, and carry a piece of it with them into music: Choir to Cypher: 18 Rappers Who Have Ties to Church was originally published on Source:Getty Snoop Dogg was raised in the Baptist church and began singing and playing piano there at Golgotha Trinity Baptist Church as a child. His mother, a choir member, introduced him to gospel music and old-school R&B, which heavily influenced his musical journey. Snoop has spoken about how his church upbringing instilled in him a sense of community and family. He also credits the church with teaching him lessons that have lasted throughout his life. While he later explored other faiths, including Islam, he acknowledges the positive impact his church background had on him. Source:Getty Missy Elliott's journey began in a Virginia church choir where she sang and played instruments from a young age. Missy often credits church music with shaping her ear for melody and harmony. In 2017 when speaking on her then-newly public illness, she said: 'Not everybody believes in God but I'm a walking testimony.' Source:Getty Before he became a hip-hop legend, Christopher Wallace was raised as a Jehovah's Witness in Brooklyn. He attended St. Peter Claver Church and graduated from the parish's elementary school in 1982. His mother, Voletta Wallace, was devout in her faith and kept a tight grip on his religious upbringing. Ms. Wallace didn't listen to her son's music until after his death. Source:Getty Kanye West has never shied away from his religious roots. Raised by his mother Donda West, who kept him close to the church in Chicago, Kanye started rapping and performing at church events. Gospel music and the Black church experience heavily influenced his early albums and later became the core of his Sunday Service series. Source:Getty Tech N9ne's spiritual background is layered. Born and raised a Christian, he spent his early years attending church with his mother. At age 12, when his mother married a Muslim man, his spiritual path shifted. He began studying Islam and continued until he was 17. In his own words: 'Yes, I was born and raised a Christian. My mom married a Muslim when I was 12. I studied Islam from 12–17. I ran away from home at 17 because I didn't understand how my stepfather was trying to mold me. He was trying to make a man of me, and I thought he was picking on me. I was wrong.' Source:Getty MC Hammer's foundation in the church goes back to childhood. He was raised in a religious household and began preaching as a teenager. Long before the world knew him for parachute pants and pop-rap hits, Hammer was deeply involved in church activities, including music ministry. Many also don't know Hammer was also apart of a Christian rap group, Holy Ghost Boys. After his peak, he returned to his faith, becoming an ordained minister and starting a ministry show. Source:Getty 3 Stacks was raised in a Southern Baptist church alongside his parents. In his own words: 'I had a strict Christian upbringing, my parents and I were members of a Southern Baptist church. But with age I got closer to God all while moving away from the church.' Though he eventually distanced himself from organized religion, he never lost his sense of spirituality. André has said that his faith evolved independently, allowing him to connect with God without 'having to listen to those purveyors of nonsense.' Source:Getty Busta Rhymes was introduced to the teachings of Islam at the age of 12. While he didn't follow traditional Islam, he found a strong connection with the teachings of the Nation of Gods and Earths, also known as the Five Percent Nation (a movement that teaches that the Black man is divine and that a chosen 5% possess true knowledge of self). Busta has often incorporated that ideology into his music, using his lyrics to reflect on power, purpose, and elevation. While his lifestyle has never fit into rigid religious categories, he's remained vocal about the influence of the Five Percent teachings on how he views himself, his success, and his role in the culture. Source:Getty Phife Dawg (Malik Taylor) was raised in the Seventh-day Adventist tradition. He and Q-Tip met in their church in Queens, New York, and Phife's family strictly adhered to Adventist beliefs. So much so that he was initially forbidden from engaging with hip-hop. Source:Getty T.I. was raised in a Christian household and identified as a Southern Baptist. He's a known member of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Atlanta and has remained quietly but consistently devout over the years. Though he doesn't speak often about his faith in interviews, he's made it clear that church has always been part of his foundation. Source:Getty DMX was a 'born-again' Christian who openly credited his faith as central to his life, often sharing that he read the Bible daily. Even during difficult times, like his stints in jail, DMX believed there was a higher purpose at work. He once said, 'I came here to meet somebody… Don't know who it was, but I'll know when I see him.' His music frequently intertwined realities with spiritual confession, and his relationship with God remained a deeply personal part of his journey until the end. Source:Getty Lecrae is one of the most prominent examples of a rapper whose church upbringing is front and center in his career. He was raised by his single mother in a tough Houston neighborhood before moving around to Denver and San Diego. His early life was marked by hardship, including sexual abuse at age six and struggles with drugs and crime as a teenager. Lecrae carried his grandmother's Bible as a symbol of good luck. After an encounter with a police officer who urged him to live by biblical principles, he turned his life around, eventually earning a theater scholarship and graduating from the University of North Texas. At 19, a Bible study invitation from a college friend helped deepen his faith, which has since become the foundation of his music and mission. Source:Getty Nas was raised in a Christian Southern Baptist household in Queensbridge, New York. His upbringing introduced him to Christian values early on, though as he got older, his spiritual views broadened. While he doesn't claim a specific religious denomination today, Nas has often spoken about believing in a higher power and the presence of divine order in the world. Source:Getty J. Cole grew up in a Christian household, and he's never dipped away from acknowledging the impact it's had on him. In an interview with Complex , he shared, 'I grew up with a Christian foundation, so that's always going to be a part of me. It's always going to be instilled in me, whether I want it to be or not.' Traces of that foundation run throughout his storytelling. Source:Getty Joseph 'Rev Run' Simmons was raised Christian, but his spiritual path deepened after the height of Run-DMC's fame. Following the group's split in 2004, he became an ordained minister and fully embraced his role as a man of faith. Reflecting on that turning point, he shared, 'I was a little unhappy with what was going on, so I started going to church… I started to see that learning the principles of God was helping to shape my life better.' Rev Run found a renewed purpose in ministry. Source:Getty Bushwick Bill was raised with a Christian foundation but found a deeper connection to his faith later in life. Known for his graphic lyrics as a member of the Geto Boys, he experienced a spiritual transformation in his later years, becoming a born-again Christian. As his beliefs shifted, so did his music, moving toward gospel and messages of faith, redemption, and uplift. Source:Getty Cheryl 'Salt' James, one-third of the group Salt-N-Pepa, has long been open about her faith and Christian walk. Her journey led her to be baptized into the Seventh-day Adventist Church during a mission trip to Ethiopia. Since then, she's used her platforms to share Bible verses, messages of encouragement, and glimpses into her spiritual life. Phrases like 'Church Flow' and 'Happy Sunday' have become part of her regular expression online, reflecting a lifestyle grounded in faith. Source:Getty Mase shocked the hip-hop world in 1999 when he walked away from music at the height of his fame, announcing that he had received a calling from God. He said he could no longer reconcile his lyrics with his faith, stating he felt he was 'leading people down a path to hell.' Trading in rap for the pulpit, Mase devoted himself to ministry and later became the pastor of Gathering Oasis Church, a non-denominational Christian church in Atlanta. 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Yahoo
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However you celebrate Juneteenth, do it now. It might not be a holiday forever
There's a big question swirling around Juneteenth: How do we celebrate it? It's something organizers and activists are asking themselves as battles over history education and workplace diversity initiatives dominate debates and cross racial lines. Consider me cautiously optimistic and skeptically nervous. We've got a chance to get this right, but the George Floyd protests of 2020 and the Kendrick Lamar 2025 Super Bowl halftime concert have showed us just how far the gap is between racial progressives and social conservatives. Let's take a second to reflect on where we are and where we could go with the nation's newest federal holiday. Across the nation, Juneteenth gatherings have ranged from loud parties to quiet prayer services. These days, it's easy to find food trucks, panel discussions, live music, storytelling, history presentations, barbecue contests, spades tournaments, line dances (I know my family can't gather anywhere without doing the hustle), softball games and good-ol' fashioned speechifying. There's so much variety because Juneteenth isn't like the Fourth of July or Christmas with traditions that have become part of our national DNA. For the last 200 years or so, it's been a Black thing, and we wouldn't expect anyone else to understand. On its face, this question is wild. Does anyone ask the same thing about Hanukkah or St. Patrick's Day or Cinco de Mayo? Aside from that, Juneteenth has been for all Americans since 2021, at least. Despite the emancipation that Juneteenth celebrates, Black people have been living in two cultures throughout American history. We've got our own national anthem ('Lift Every Voice and Sing'), holiday season (Kwanzaa), Thanksgiving foods (sweet potato pie, please), music (Kendrick Lamar didn't come up with that halftime show from scratch), public figures (believe in Charlamagne tha God), authors (Angie Thomas), sports legends (Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige and Cool Papa Bell, and that's just baseball) and cultural traditions (like sitting in a chair for half a day to get your hair braided before vacation.) It's a natural response to being shut out of so many mainstream places and spaces. Of course, but people from other racial backgrounds are guests, in this case. Good guests take pains to avoid offending their hosts. (For example, I don't offer coffee to my LDS friends or bacon to my Jewish friends.) Absolutely. This is a 'Saturday Night Live' sketch waiting to happen. There shouldn't be any blackface or watermelon jokes. And, please, don't wear a MAGA hat to the cookout. But mostly, I'm afraid of how Black culture might be reduced to stereotypes or warped beyond recognition. Remember when I mentioned St. Patrick's Day and Cinco de Mayo? I don't think anyone had green beer or leprechauns in mind when they decided to honor the patron saint of Ireland in the early 1600s. And why do so many people think Cinco de Mayo is just an excuse for half off margaritas and tacos? Do we really want Juneteenth to devolve into 'St. Blacktrick's Day' or 'Negro de Mayo?' Lord knows, there are enough Black stereotypes to keep Michael Che and Colin Jost busy every weekend for the next 10 years, at least. Let's not do that, please. Remember that the Black American experience is unique and try to honor it. For me, I can't think about the Black experience without thinking about separation. People were forced onto slave ships and separated from all that they knew. Children were separated from parents on auction blocks. Families were separated during the Great Migration. And we're still reeling from the separation of the prison epidemic. It's a good time to find a community of people and celebrate the racial progress we've made over the last few decades. (For example, when Kamala Harris ran for president, it was more about her being a woman than about her being Black. That would have been an unimaginable reality for any rational person during the civil rights era.) And given all the separation Black Americans have faced through history, it would be fitting to celebrate in a community gathering — the bigger, the better. Sure, you can. Especially if you have the day off. Some people don't like crowds. Maybe. You'll have to check with your employer. Private businesses aren't required to give employees the day off, paid or otherwise. And if you do get the day off, schedule it appropriately with your supervisor. Just a guess here, but it's probably a bad idea to just skip work without telling anyone. Good question. I remember being a kid and watching 'The Ten Commandments' every Easter and 'A Christmas Story' to celebrate the birth of Baby Jesus. I'm not sure there's a Black Hollywood equivalent, but Tyler Perry or Spike Lee might have some ideas. Maybe play your favorite Sidney Poitier movie on a loop and call it high cotton? (Black people have our own way of saying 'good,' too.) The balance for me is celebrating Black resilience without spending too much time reliving Black trauma. Juneteenth came about when enslaved people in Texas finally learned about their freedom about two years after the Emancipation Proclamation. We've had to overcome a lot just to exist, and some of us are thriving. Yeah. Celebrate it now because we need the momentum. The way things are going in Washington, D.C, we can't be certain Juneteenth will remain a federal holiday forever. Reach Moore at gmoore@ or 602-444-2236. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, @SayingMoore. Like this column? Get more opinions in your email inbox by signing up for our free opinions newsletter, which publishes Monday through Friday. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: How to celebrate Juneteenth? Here are the dos and don'ts | Opinion
