10 New Books Coming in April + May That Can Help Solve Your Quarantine Blues
You've watched Tiger King and you've decluttered your kitchen drawers, so now what?
I've been pretty okay through the whole staying at home indefinitely thing. When I was scrolling through some news last night and came upon the new announcement saying that the President was saying to stay home through April 30, I had to take a deep breath. Rick and I are certainly not through our Quarantine Bucket List nor have we reached the point of full-on stir crazy yet.
That looming date four weeks away is very daunting though. While I've got plenty of projects, crafts, and other random things to keep me busy, I've started looking at my book shelf with renewed interest. I may even start a Quarantine Reading Goal for myself to see if I can finish a few of the books that I'm part way through currently. Either way, I thought it was a great time to peruse Amazon and see what reading goodies were coming out over the next few weeks. Most of these are coming out in April, because I'm hoping when May hits, we'll all be dining out at restaurants, attending social events with friends and literally being anywhere but our reading chairs.
And if you've done everything possible at your house and can't wait for one of these titles to come out, you can order a book that just came out in February + March here or peruse the entire series of books that have piqued my interest here.
Coming in April 2020 + Ready for Preorder
April 7 – A Bad Day for Sunshine: A Novel by Darynda Jones
Del Sol, New Mexico is known for three things: its fry-an-egg-on-the-cement summers, strong cups of coffee―and, now, a nationwide manhunt? Del Sol native Sunshine Vicram has returned to town as the elected sheriff―thanks to her adorably meddlesome parents who nominated her―and she expects her biggest crime wave to involve an elderly flasher named Doug. But a teenage girl is missing, a kidnapper is on the loose, and all of this is reminding Sunshine why she left Del Sol in the first place. Add to that the trouble at her daughter’s new school, plus and a kidnapped prized rooster named Puff Daddy, and, well, the forecast looks anything but sunny.
But even clouds have their silver linings. This one's got Levi, Sunshine's sexy, almost-old-flame, and a fiery-hot US Marshal. With temperatures rising everywhere she turns, Del Sol's normally cool-minded sheriff is finding herself knee-deep in drama and danger. Can Sunshine face the call of duty―and find the kidnapper who's terrorizing her beloved hometown―without falling head over high heels in love...or worse?
April 7 – Fear Is Not the Boss of You: How to Get Out of Your Head and Live the Life You Were Made For by Jennifer Allwood
This book is for any woman who has ever been overwhelmed with indecision, paralyzed with fear, or just plain stuck. With no-nonsense biblical truth, Fear Is Not the Boss of You is a loving kick in the backside that will catapult you into ACTION. Successful entrepreneur, business coach, and girl next door Jennifer Allwood is your guide to show you why you can't stay stuck, teaching you how to get out of your own way and get on the road to fulfilling the life of your dreams--even if you're afraid.
Whether you're thinking of launching a new business, adopting a child, writing a book, or competing in a triathlon, Jennifer will motivate you to move from paralyzing fear into courageous obedience and action. With stories, straightforward truth, and practical tips you can apply today, Jennifer will show you how to:
Identify how and where you are stuck
Determine what's holding you back
Get out of your own way
Empower those around you
Experience the incredible joy that comes from trusting a big God to do big things in you and through you
This is your gutsy invitation to go after the big dream God has called you to . . . because fear is not the boss of you.
April 14 – Ready to Rise: Own Your Voice, Gather Your Community, Step into Your Influence by Jo Saxton
Have you ever questioned the roles you find yourself in, wondering if you were made for more but unsure of the rocky path before you? Have you had a clear vision for your life, but along the way, insecurity and fear weighted your dreams and silenced the voice within you?
You’re not alone. Many amazing women like you have experienced the same struggles. Whether you’re moving into leadership, discovering your calling, fighting for change, or doing all three, leadership coach and speaker Jo Saxton affirms that God designed women for influence and impact.
But are you living up to your full potential?
Ready to Rise tackles the real-life issues—from harassment and sexism to self-doubt and loneliness—that can discourage and derail women from leading in the areas God has called them to. With insights from her own journey and powerful biblical examples, Jo offers practical advice to empower and equip women to transform their communities.
If you’ve ever longed to uncover your true potential, own your voice, and boldly advance God’s goodness in the world, now is the time to start. Get ready to rise!
April 14 – Uncommon Ground: Living Faithfully in a World of Difference by Timothy Keller and John Inazu
How can Christians today interact with those around them in a way that shows respect to those whose beliefs are radically different but that also remains faithful to the gospel? Timothy Keller and John Inazu bring together illuminating stories--their own and from others--to answer this vital question. Uncommon Ground gathers an array of perspectives from people thinking deeply and working daily to live with humility, patience, and tolerance in our time. Contributors include:
Lecrae
Tish Harrison Warren
Kristen Deede Johnson
Claude Richard Alexander
Shirley Hoogstra
Sara Groves
Rudy Carrasco
Trillia Newbell
Tom Lin
Warren Kinghorn
Providing varied and enlightening approaches to reaching faithfully across deep and often painful differences, Uncommon Ground shows us how to live with confidence, joy, and hope in a complex and fragmented age.
April 21 – The Golden Flea: A Story of Obsession and Collecting by Michael Rips
Across America and around the world, people wander through flea markets to search for lost treasures. For decades, no such market was more renowned than the legendary Chelsea flea market, which sprawled over several blocks and within an old garage on the west side of Manhattan. Visitors would trawl through booths crammed with vintage dresses, rare books, ancient swords, glass eyeballs, Afghan rugs, West African fetish dolls, Old Master paintings, and much more.
In The Golden Flea, the acclaimed writer Michael Rips takes readers on a trip through this charmed world. With a beguiling style that has won praise from Joan Didion and Susan Orlean, Rips recounts his obsession with the flea and its treasures and provides a fascinating account of the business of buying and selling antiques. Along the way, he introduces us to the flea’s lovable oddball cast of vendors, pickers, and collectors, including a haberdasher who only sells to those he deems worthy; an art dealer whose obscure paintings often go for enormous sums; a troubadour who sings to attract customers; and the Prophet, who finds wisdom among all the treasures and trash.
As Rips’s passion for collecting grows and the flea’s last days loom, he undertakes a quest to prove the provenance of a mysterious painting that just might be the one.
April 21 – Missed Translations: Meeting the Immigrant Parents Who Raised Me by Sopan Deb
Approaching his 30th birthday, Sopan Deb had found comfort in his day job as a writer for the New York Times and a practicing comedian. But his stage material highlighting his South Asian culture only served to mask the insecurities borne from his family history. Sure, Deb knew the facts: his parents, both Indian, separately immigrated to North America in the 1960s and 1970s. They were brought together in a volatile and ultimately doomed arranged marriage and raised a family in suburban New Jersey before his father returned to India alone.
But Deb had never learned who his parents were as individuals—their ages, how many siblings they had, what they were like as children, what their favorite movies were. Theirs was an ostensibly nuclear family without any of the familial bonds. Coming of age in a mostly white suburban town, Deb’s alienation led him to seek separation from his family and his culture, longing for the tight-knit home environment of his white friends. His desire wasn’t rooted in racism or oppression; it was born of envy and desire—for white moms who made after-school snacks and asked his friends about the girls they liked and the teachers they didn’t. Deb yearned for the same.
Deb’s experiences as one of the few minorities covering the Trump campaign, and subsequently as a stand up comedian, propelled him on a dramatic journey to India to see his father—the first step in a life altering journey to bridge the emotional distance separating him from those whose DNA he shared. Deb had to learn to connect with this man he recognized yet did not know—and eventually breach the silence separating him from his mother. As it beautifully and poignantly chronicles Deb’s odyssey, Missed Translations raises questions essential to us all: Is it ever too late to pick up the pieces and offer forgiveness? How do we build bridges where there was nothing before—and what happens to us, to our past and our future, if we don’t?
April 28 – What We Carry: A Memoir by Maya Shanbhag Lang
Maya Shanbhag Lang grew up idolizing her brilliant mother, an accomplished physician who immigrated to the United States from India and completed her residency all while raising her children and keeping a traditional Indian home. Maya’s mother had always been a source of support—until Maya became a mother herself. Then the parent who had once been so capable and attentive became suddenly and inexplicably unavailable. Struggling to understand this abrupt change while raising her own young child, Maya searches for answers and soon learns that her mother is living with Alzheimer’s.
Unable to remember or keep track of the stories she once told her daughter—stories about her life in India, why she immigrated, and her experience of motherhood—Maya’s mother divulges secrets about her past that force Maya to reexamine their relationship. It becomes clear that Maya never really knew her mother, despite their close bond. Absorbing, moving, and raw, What We Carry is a memoir about mothers and daughters, lies and truths, receiving and giving care, and how we cannot grow up until we fully understand the people who raised us. It is a beautiful examination of the weight we shoulder as women and an exploration of how to finally set our burdens down.
Coming in May 2020 + Ready for Preorder
May 1 – Eat a Peach: A Memoir by David Chang
In 2004, Momofuku Noodle Bar opened in a tiny, stark space in Manhattan’s East Village. Its young chef-owner, David Chang, worked the line, serving ramen and pork buns to a mix of fellow restaurant cooks and confused diners whose idea of ramen was instant noodles in Styrofoam cups. It would have been impossible to know it at the time—and certainly Chang would have bet against himself—but he, who had failed at almost every endeavor in his life, was about to become one of the most influential chefs of his generation, driven by the question, “What if the underground could become the mainstream?”
Chang grew up the youngest son of a deeply religious Korean American family in Virginia. Graduating college aimless and depressed, he fled the States for Japan, hoping to find some sense of belonging. While teaching English in a backwater town, he experienced the highs of his first full-blown manic episode, and began to think that the cooking and sharing of food could give him both purpose and agency in his life.
Full of grace, candor, grit, and humor, Eat a Peach chronicles Chang’s switchback path. He lays bare his mistakes and wonders about his extraordinary luck as he recounts the improbable series of events that led him to the top of his profession. He wrestles with his lifelong feelings of otherness and inadequacy, explores the mental illness that almost killed him, and finds hope in the shared value of deliciousness. Along the way, Chang gives us a penetrating look at restaurant life, in which he balances his deep love for the kitchen with unflinching honesty about the industry’s history of brutishness and its uncertain future.
May 26 – Laughing Through the Ugly Cry: …and Finding Unstoppable Joy by Dawn Barton
When Dawn Barton tells us that joy is a choice, we know she means it--not just because she's an upbeat Southerner with good hair and a successful business background, but because she's had more heartache in her lifetime than most of us can imagine.
In this collection of honest and sometimes raw stories, Dawn throws a loving, untoned arm around readers as she brings them along on her journey through the loss of a child, divorce, cancer, rape, the death of her only sibling, her husband's substance abuse, and finding her way back to Jesus in the middle of it all. Dawn shares her personal story to show readers how to find happiness and purpose even in the darkest of days.
A beautiful gift book, Laughing Through the Ugly Cry is a great reminder to your girlfriends that you are with them every step of the way. It's also a touching, winsome, and funny book to share with those facing cancer or other heart-wrenching circumstances. Dawn writes, "If more women were open about just how difficult our lives feel and how hard we are on ourselves, I think we'd learn to relax a little and give ourselves the grace God gives us every day."
As Dawn wholeheartedly believes, the obstacles in our lives should not beat us down but give us reasons to more fully embrace joy wherever we can find it.
May 26 – Everything's Not Fine by Sarah Carlson
Seventeen-year-old Rose Hemmersbach aspires to break out of small town Sparta, Wisconsin and achieve her artistic dreams, just like her aunt Colleen. Rose’s love of Frida Kahlo fuels her paint brush and her dreams to attend a prestigious art school. Painting is Rose’s escape from her annoying younger siblings and her family’s one rule: ignore the elephant in the room, because talking about it makes it real. That is, until the day Rose finds her mother dying on the kitchen floor of a heroin overdose. Kneeling beside her, Rose pleads with the universe to find a heartbeat. She does – but when her mother is taken to hospital, the troubles are just beginning. Rose and her dad are left to pick up the pieces: traumatized siblings, a Child Protective Services investigation, eviction. As Rose fights to hold everything together, and her dreams of the future start to slip from her grasp, she must face the question of what happens when – if – her mom comes home again. And if, deep down, Rose even wants her to.