I am on hiatus. Which is why I am making book recommendations for April a week into April. I will give you this much (and a few other blogs) and then disappear again for another week or so. Life.

April is Easter, at least this year. (What’s with the lunar date thing?) I have yet to read a great Easter-y book to recommend for you, though I started Ben Hur like two years ago. Haven’t gotten past the first quarter and won’t this year, either.

But I do love to re-read Anne of Green Gables (and the series) in the springtime. I just feel it and then it happens. However, this year I am going to scootch on over to one of L. M. Montgomery’s other books and we’re starting with Emily of New Moon, the first book in the Emily series. I have read it a couple times and love it, but am usually distracted back to Anne. I have not reviewed it here, so that’s just a little part of the reason why I’m headed there this spring instead of Anne.

April is also poetry month. I have a few books of poetry (and single poems) that I have reviewed and can recommend:

“The Jabberwocky,” from Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Caroll (with commentary, as well) How to Eat a Poem , The American Poetry & Literacy Project Brand New Ancients , Kae Tempest Asphodel & Other Love Poems , William Carlos Williams Glass, Irony and God , Ann Carson“Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven,” William Butler Yeats“Kingdom Animalia,” Aracelis Girmay“A Song in the Front Yard,” Gwendolyn Brooks“The Afterlife,” Billy Collins“Falling,” James Dickey“The Long Boat,” Stanley Kunitz Spinning the Vast Fantastic , Britton Shurley Hell, I Love Everybody , James Tate

So back to Easter and Poetry Month.

I helped set up the poetry display for the bookshop. Here are the books that I pulled from the shelves:

Call Us What We Carry, Amanda GormanThe Divine Comedy (Michael Palma trans.), Dante AlighieriThe Book of Psalms, Robert AlterA Light in the Attic, Shel SilversteinFor There Is Always Light (journal), Amanda GormanThe Anthology of Black Mountain College PoetryLetters to a Young Poet, Rainer Maria RilkeIf Not, Winter, Anne CarsonYou Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World, Ada Limon ed.The Odyssey (Emily Wilson transl.), HomerKitchen Hymns, Padraig O TuamaNew and Selected Poems, Mary OliverNo One Is on the Line, Mohsen MohamedPoetry Unbound: 50 Poems to Open Your World, Padraig O Tuama ed.Water, Water, Billy CollinsThe Sonnets, William ShakespeareModern Poetry, Dianne SeussA Century of Poetry in the New Yorker

A few books of poetry I am looking forward to reading sometime:

Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair, Pablo NerudaThe Complete Poems, Emily DickinsonHowl and Other Poems, Allen GinsbergMountain Interval, Robert FrostLeaves of Grass, Walt WhitmanAutobiography of Red, Anne CarsonMetamorphoses, Ovid100 Selected Poems, E.E. CummingsThe Essential Rumi, RumiAnnie Allen, Gwendolyn BrooksAmerican Primitive, Mary OliverThe Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, Langston HughesSpring and All, William Carlos WilliamsSonnets to Orpheus, Rainer Maria RilkeCollected Poems, Wallace StephensJust Give Me a Cool Drink of Water ‘Fore I Diiie, Maya Angelou

As for some Easter reads that could work. (Easter books are about as common as Thanksgiving songs):

Ben-Hur, Lew WallaceChocolat, Joanne HarrisMiz Fannie Mae’s Fine New Easter Hat, Melissia Milich

Some of the most anticipated publications for April 2025 needs to begin with Emily Henry’s 2025 summer read, Great Big Beautiful Life. It comes out on April 15th and there will be midnight release parties so you could look into that if you are a big fan (and there are many of you). If you want a copy right away, I would suggest pre-ordering a copy ASAP, which you can probably do through your local bookstore just as easily as elsewhere.

For one reason or another, I am also really looking forward to Audition by Katie Kitamura.

Other new publications this month:

The Bright Years, Sarah DamoffHeartwood, Amity GuigeA Drop of Corruption, Robert Jackson BennettBat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng, Kylie Lee BakerSay You’ll Remember Me, Abby JimenezFlirting Lessons, Jasmine GuilloryMy Best Friend’s Honeymoon, Meryl WilsnerWhere Shadows Meet, Patrice CaldwellWatch Me, Tahereh MafiProtocols, Andrew D. HubermanFearless (Powerless Triology #3), Lauren RobertsThe Griffin Sisters’ Greatest Hits, Jennifer WeinerThe Geographer’s Map to Romance (Love’s Academic #2), India Holton (which I should have a review for shortly)No More Tears: The Dark Secrets of Johnson & Johnson, Gardiner HarrisVera Wong’s Guide to Snooping (Vera Wong #2), Jesse Q. SutantoHow to Seal Your Own Fate (Castle Knoll Files #2), Kristen PerrinGifted & Talented, Olivie BlakeDon’t Sleep with the Dead, Nghi VoTo Save and Destroy, Viet Thanh NguyenVanishing World, Sayaka MurataThe Pretender, Jo Harkin

I have already read the ARC of Julie Chan Is Dead by Liann Zhang and it has hit summer book potential. To see who I recommend it for and if it’s for you, see my review HERE.

The movie, The Friend, just dropped in theaters at the tail end of March. You could hurry up and read the book, The Friend by Sigrid Nunez, first.

April 2025.

We Deserve Monuments, Jas Hammonds Normal People , Sally Rooney (which I’ve already read)Senlin Ascends (Books of Babel #1), Josiah BancroftThe Ends of the World, Peter BrannenOne Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez (re-read from 20 years ago)Modern Poetry, Diane Seuss

ARCs, poetry, and other random books I hope to get to real soon:

I Got Abducted by Aliens and Now I’m Trapped in a Rom-Com, Kimberly LemmingWhat Pecan Light, Han VanderhartThe Geographer’s Map to Romance (Love’s Academic #2), India HoltonAnd Yet Held, T. De Los ReyesIf We Had a Lemon We’d Throw It and Call That the Sun, Christopher CitroA Family Matter, Claire LynchThe Symmetry of Fish, Su ChoWorth Fighting For, Jesse Q. SutantoThe Phoenix Pencil Company, Allison KingThe Familiar, Leigh BardugoWe Do Not Part, Han KangThe Fraud, Zadie SmithThe Emperor of Gladness, Ocean VuongGhost Roast, Shawnelle GibbsSwordheart (The World of the White Rat), T. KingfisherThe Bright Sword, Lev GrossmanThe Likeness (Dublin Murder Squad #2), Tana French

March 2025. Nearly every book I read in March I would recommend. Some more emphatically than others.

And Then There Were None , Agatha ChristieA Study in Charlotte (Charlotte Holmes#1), Brittany CavaralloOlga Dies Dreaming, Xochitl GonzalezDear Life, Alice MunroBig, Vashti HarrisonHouse of Fury, Evilio Rosero (caveats of excessive violence and sexual assault)The First Sister (First Sister Trilogy #1), Linden A. LewisIn the Woods (Dublin Murder Squad #1), Tana French