It’s Spring (sort of) and this is the season when lots of new books appear on the market so I present to you my March 2017 Book List. Although you will find lots of repetition on these lists each source also offers some unique titles. If you just want a good story, nothing too esoteric, go the Amazon section of the list. If you have global tastes Publisher’s Weekly should satisfy, and if you like to get your book advice from the New York Times then that source is also represented in this list. For the truly compulsive, go for all three.
Nonfiction titles, for some reason, are getting longer and longer so they are, generally, easy to spot. If you are a true reader you probably wish to devour each new book and all of the older ones too. If you were to have a fantasy room it would probably have a comfy chair surrounded by piles of classic and newly-minted books. But if you set out to read each book that was published from February through Mid-March this year you would have to read a little bit over 6.5 titles per day. So don’t be discouraged if you are unable to meet your admittedly unrealistic book reading goals. You have a lot of company.
Publisher’s Weekly
Feb. 6th
Civil Wars: A History of Ideas by David Armitage (NF)
Universal Harvester by John Darnielle
This Close to Happy: A Reckoning with Depression by Daphne Merkin (NF)
The Refugees by Viet Thanh Nguyen (NF)
Schadenfreude, a Love Story: Me, the Germans, and 20 Years of Attempted Transformations, Unfortunate Miscommunications, and Humiliating Situations That Only They Have Words For by Rebecca Schumen (Memoir)
Ghachar Ghochar by Vivek Shanbhag trans. from the Kannada by Srinath Perur
Make Yourself Happy by Elini Sikelianos (NF)
Hit Makers: Why Things Become Popular by Derek Thompson (NF)
The Vaccine Race: Science, Politics, and the Human Costs of Defeating Disease by Meredith Wadman (NF)
Feb. 13th
The Dark Flood Rises by Margaret Drabble
In Full Velvet by Jenny Johnson
We are Okay by Nina LaCour
Sherlock Holmes and the Eisendorf Enigma by Larry Millett
There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé by Morgan Parker
The Last Night at Tremore Beach by Mikei Santiago
Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
Cannibalism: A Perfectly Natural History by Bill Schutt
The Undesired by Yrsa Sigurdardóttir
Incendiary Art by Patricia Smith (NF)
The American Street by Ibi Zoboi
Feb. 20th
Dead Letters by Caite Dolan-Leach
American Sanctuary: Mutiny, Martyrdom, and National Identity in the Age of Revolution by A. Roger Ekirch (NF)
Spook Street: A Novel by Mick Herron
Running: A Novel by Cara Hoffman
Rusty Puppy: A Novel by Joe Lansdale
Optimists Die First by Susin Nielsen
The Inkblots: Hermann Rorschach, His Iconic Test and the Power of Seeing by Damion Searls (NF)
Encircling by Carl Frode Tiller trans. from the Norwegian by Barbara J. Haveland
Feb 27th
The Accusation by Bandi trans. from the Korean by Deborah Smith (Short Stories that offer glimpses of North Korea)
The Invention of Angela Carter by Edmund Gordon (Bio)
Alpine Apprentice: A Memoir by Sarah Gorham
Walking Lions by Ayelet Gundar-Goshen trans. from the Hebrew by Sondra Silverston
Daughter of the Pirate King: A Novel by Tricia Levenseller
The Home That Was Our Country: A Memoir of Syria by Alia Malek
The Gene Machine: How Genetic Techniques are Changing the Way We Have Kids – and the Kids We Have by Bonnie Rochman (NF)
The Chessboard and the Web: Strategies of Connection in a Networked World by Anne Marie Slaughter (NF)
Great Crossings: Indians, Settlers, and Slaves in the Age of Jackson by Christina Snyder.
The Hate U Give: A Novel by Angie Thomas
Please Bury Me In This by Allison Benis White (Collection of suicide stories)
Velocity by Chris Wooding (YA Apocalyptic novel)
Camanchaca by Diego Zúniga trans. from the Spanish by Megan McDowell
March 6th
Taduno’s Song: A Novel by Odale Alogiun
The Price of Illusion: A Memoir by Joan Juliet Buck
The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui (Memoir)
The Hearts of Men by Nickolas Butler
Ill Will by Dan Chaon
Lenin’s Roller Coaster by Daniel Downing
Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
Rabbit Cake by Annie Hornett
Inferno: A Doctor’s Ebola Story by Steven Hatch (NF)
The Night Ocean by Paul La Farge
No Friends But the Mountains: Dispatches from the World’s Violent Highlands by Judith Matioff (NF)
The Lucky Ones by Julianne Pachico
Wild Nights: How Taming Sleep Created Our Restless World by Benjamin Reiss (NF)
The Photo Ark: One Man’s Quest to Document the World’s Animals by Joel Sartore
Goodbye Days: A Novel by Jeff Zentner (YA)
March 13th
The Idiot by Elif Batuman
A Psalm for Lost Girls by Katie Bayeri
The Gulf: The Making of an American Sea by Jack E. Davis
In Between Days by Teva Harrison (Memoir, Cancer battle)
Mikhail and Margarita by Julie Lekstrom Himes
The Wanderers by Meg Howrey
Himself by Jess Kidd Atria
White Tears by Hari Kunzru
The Family Gene by Joselin Linder (NF)
One of the Boys by Daniel Magariel
Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet by Lyndal Roper
Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries by Kory Stamper
March 20th
Mississippi Blood by Greg Iles
Lola: A Novel by Melissa Scrivner
Girl in Disguise by Greer Macallister
Find Me by J S Monro
Stranger in a Strange Land: Searching from Gershom Scholem and Jerusalem by George Prochnik (NF)
City of Light, City of Poison: Murder, Magic and the First Police Chief of Paris by Holly Tucker (NF)
The Exploded View by Ivan Vladislavic (F)
The New York Times Book Review
Feb. 3rd
Too Close to Happy by Daphne Merkin (Memoir, Depression)
The New Brooklyn by Kay Hymowitz (NF)
Disaster Falls by Stéphane Gerson (NF)
The Weapon Wizards by Yaakov Katz and Amir Bohbot (NF)
Upwardly Minded: The Reconstruction Rise of a Black Elite by Elizabeth Dowling Taylor (NF)
Fiction
A Great Place to Have a War by Joshua Kurlantzick (NF)
The Men in My Life by Patricia Bosworth (NF)
The Man Who Never Stopped Sleeping by Aharon Appelfeld
Perfect Little World by Kevin Wilson
Dark at the Crossing by Elliot Ackerman
Days Without End by Sebastian Barry
4 3 2 1 by Paul Auster
The Animators by Kayla Rae Whitaker
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
Best and Latest in Crime Fiction
Rather Be Devil by Ian Rankin
Behind Her Eyes by Sarah Pinborough
What You Break by Reed Farrel Coleman
The Lost Woman by Sara Blædel trans. from Danish by Mark Kline
Books Recommended this Week
Arthur and Sherlock: Conan Doyle and the Creation of Holmes by Michael Sims (NF)
A House Full of Females: Plural Marriages and Women’s Rights in Early Mormonism, 1835-1870 by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich (NF)
Earning the Rockies: How Geography Shapes America’s Role in the World by Robert D. Kaplan (NF)
The Crossing by Andrew Miller (F)
The Patriots by Sana Krasikov (F)
Once We Were Sisters: A Memoir by Sheila Kohler
Feb. 12th
Fiction
Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
Night of Fire by Colin Thubron
The Evening Road by Haird Hunt
On Turpentine Lane by Elinor Lipman
Shadowbahn by Steve Erickson
This is How it Always Is by Laurie Frankel
Nonfiction
Why Time Flies by Alan Burdick
Six Encounters with Lincoln by Elizabeth Brown Pryor
(Middle East)
The Attack by Loic Daewillier
The Arab of the Future 2 by Riad Sattouf
Rolling Blackouts by Sarah Glidden
The Girl from the Metropol Hotel by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya
The Blood of Emmett Till by Timothy B Tyson
Generation Revolution by Rachel Aspden
The Genius of Judaism by Bernard-Henri Lévy
Black Edge by Sheelah Kolhatkar
Feb. 19th
Fiction
The Dark Flood Rises by Margaret Dibble
The Refugees by Viet Thanh Nguyen
A Separation by Katie Kitamura
A Book of American Martyrs by Joyce Carol Oates
The Dance of Jakaranda by Peter Kimani
Universal Harvester by John Darnielle
Autumn by Ali Smith
Fiction in Translation
Dance on the Volcano by Marie Vieux Chauvet
The Gringo Champion by Aura Xilonen
The Ninety-Ninth Floor by Jan Fawaz Elhassan
The Great and the Good by Michel Déon
Nonfiction
Dear Friend, From My Life I Write to You in Your Life by Yiyun Li
Age of Anger by Pankaj Mishra
Two about Silicon Valley
Valley of the Gods by Alexander Wolfe
The Kingdom of Happiness by Aimee Groth
At Utmost: A Devotional Memoir by Macy Halford
Cannibalism by Bill Schutt
Best and Latest Crime Fiction
Rush of Blood by Mark Billingham
Racing the Devil by Charles Todd
Snowblind by Ragnar Janasson
Walk Away by Sam Hawken
Amiable with Big Teeth by Claude McKay (lost Harlem novel)
Feb. 26th
Fiction
Six Four by Hideo Yokoyama
The School Days of Jesus by J M Coetze
The One Inside by Sam Shepard
A Piece of the World by Christina Baker Kline
Journeyman by Marc Bojanowski
Nonfiction
Caught in the Revolution by Helen Rappaport
Pretending is Lying by Dominique Goblet
How to Murder Your Life by Cat Marnell
All the Lives I Want by Alana Massey
Testosterone Rex by Cordelia Fine
When Police Kill by Frank Zimring
Unwarranted by Barry Friedman
Tell Me Everything You Don’t Remember by Christine Hyung-Oak Lee
March 3rd
Fiction
A Horse Walks Into a Bar by David Grossman
The Fortunate Ones by Ellen Umansky
The World to Come by Jim Shepard
Argentine Fiction
Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin
Savage Theories by Pola Oloixarae
Nonfiction
We’ll Always Have Casablanca by Noah Isenberg
High Noon by Glenn Frankel
Flaneuse by Lauren Elkin
Pontius Pilate: Deciphering a Memory by Aldo Schiavone
Elizabeth Bishop: A Miracle for Breakfast by Megan Marshall
Food Fights and Culture Wars by Tom Nealon
Reality is Not What It Seems by Carlo Rovelli
The Islamic Jesus by Mustafa Akyol
Robert Lowell – Setting the River on Fire by Kay Redfield Jamison
The Nature Fix by Florence Williams
Stalin and the Scientists by Simon Ings
Best and Latest Crime Fiction
What You Don’t Know by Jo Ann Chaney
I See You by Clare Macintosh
The Dime by Betty (Riz) Rhyzyk
Twelve Angry Librarians by Miranda James
March 12th
Fiction
Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
Before the War by Fay Weldon
Everything Belongs to Us by Yoojin Grace Wuertz
The Hearts of Men by Nickolas Butler
The Night Ocean by Paul La Farge
Harmless Like You by Rowan Hisayo Buchanan
Nonfiction
Lower Ed by Tressie McMillan Cottom
Insomniac City by Bill Hayes
Can’t Just Stop by Sharon Bagley
Convergence by Peter Watson
Divided We Stand by Marjorie J Spruill
The Brain Defense by Kevin Davis
The Gestapo by Frank McDonough
Abandon Me by Melissa Febo
Amazon
Best Books of March
Exit West: A Novel by Mohsin Hamid
One of the Boys by Daniel Magariel
White Tears: A Novel by Hari Kunzru
The Night Ocean: A Novel by Paul La Farge
Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked by Adam Alter (NF)
Learn Better: Mastering the Skills for Success in Life, Business, School, or, How to Become an Expert at Just About Anything by Ulrich Boser
All Grown Up: A Novel by Jami Attenberg
Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries by Kory Stamper (NF)
The Rules Do Not Apply: A Memoir by Ariel Levy
Literature and Fiction
The Book of Polly by Kathy Hepinstall
Our Short History: A Novel by Lauren Grodstein
The Roanoke Girls by Amy Engel
White Tears by Hari Kunzru
The Idiot by Elif Batuman
All Grown Up by Jami Attenberg
The One-Eyed Man by Jr. Ron Currie
Rabbit Cake by Annie Hartnett
Edgar and Lacy by Victor Lodato
Celine by Peter Heller
Eggshells by Caitriona Lally
Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
One of the Boys by Daniel Magariel
The Hearts of Men by Nickolas Butler
Bright Air Black by David Vann
The Night Ocean by Paul La Farge
The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See
Mysteries and Thrillers
The Whole Art of Detection: Lost Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes by Lyndsay Faye
Mississippi Blood by Greg Iles
The Roanoke Girls by Amy Engel
Never Let You Go by Chevy Stevens
Celine by Peter Heller
Ill Will by Dan Chaon
Quicksand by Malin Persson Giolito
The Twelve Lies of Samuel Hawley by Hannah Tinti
The Night Ocean by Paul La Farge
Murder on the Serpentine by Anne Perry
Biographies and Memoirs
Dueling with Kings: High Stakes, Killer Sharks, and the Get Rich Promise of Daily Fantasy Sports by Daniel Barbarisi
The Rules Do Not Apply: A Memoir by Ariel Levy
The Moth Presents All These Wonders: True Stories About Facing the Unknown by Catherine Burns
Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy: Earnest Hemingway by Nicholas E. Reynolds
The Price of Illusion: A Memoir by Joan Juliet Buck
South and West: From a Notebook by Joan Didion
Grace Notes: My Recollections by Katey Segal
Being Elvis: A Lonely Life by Ray Connolly
The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last Three Hermits by Michael Finkel
Science Fiction and Fantasy
New York 2140 by Kim Stanley Robinson
So Many Books, Choose Wisely 