Listen Up! May 2023 on Poured Over
The days are getting longer, which around here just means more time to read and listen. We’re a month shy of Poured Over’s second anniversary — and about six weeks short of our 200th episode! In the meantime, we’re covering a handful of the absolute best books we’ve read this year, some from authors whose names you’ll recognize and some who are sure to become your newest favorites.
If you’ve read Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s extraordinary story collection, Friday Black, you have some idea of what you’re in for with Chain Gang All Stars: fabulous prose, indelible characters, an unexpected world that is still somehow VERY familiar — Adjei-Brenyah’s provocative, wryly funny debut novel is not to be missed.
Bestselling and acclaimed authors Mary Beth Keane (Ask Again, Yes), Emma Cline (The Girls), Brandon Taylor (Real Life and Filthy Animals) and Luis Alberto Urrea (The House of Broken Angels) are back with amazing new work that you will not want to put down. The Half Moon is a wonderfully drawn novel about a marriage in crisis — Think Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano or The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller. Luis Alberto Urrea switches gears and moves us to the front lines of WWII with the Red Cross, in Goodnight, Irene, a story of friendship and survival inspired by his mother’s experiences. If you’ve read The Girls, you know that Emma Cline is a wildly talented stylist (count Jennifer Egan among your group) who delivers taut narratives in an unshakable and haunting voice — well, just wait until you meet The Guest. Speaking of hugely talented prose stylists: Brandon Taylor’s new novel, The Late Americans, follows an indelible cast of characters on a Midwestern University campus while challenging us to think about art and money, love and desire, and much more.
Novelist/Poet/Musician John Wray’s Gone to the Wolves is the novel you need about heavy metal music. (Marlon James is right in all the best ways when he says “There’s never been a novel like this.” Trust us. Trust Marlon. Read John.)
Shutter by Ramona Emerson is now in paperback. Longlisted for the National Book Award, we can’t stop thinking about this debut novel, a perfect blend of murder mystery and the supernatural set in New Mexico’s Navajo Nation.
Ever wonder about The Story of Art Without Men? Katy Hessel, art historian and founder of @thegreatwomenartists, definitely has. The Guerilla Girls famously said that “less than 5% of the artists in Modern Art sections are women, but 85% of the nudes are female.” In classrooms, museums, and media, art history has largely reflected the male perspective, only half of the picture — and Katy’s here to educate and entertain you with the truth.
We’ve been fans of Samantha Irby and her writing since her first essay collection, Meaty, was published. In addition to penning her books We Are Never Meeting in Real Life and Wow, No Thank You, Sam was a writer on Hulu’s Shrill and is currently a writer for HBO’s And Just Like That. Now she’s back with Quietly Hostile, a signature collection of darkly comic essays that will have you on the floor, laughing and crying at the same time.
May is also Asian-American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. We’re celebrating with a literary event, the long-awaited publication of The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese, an epic novel of love, loss and family, covering 70 years in India, and inspired by his own mother’s story. If you loved Cutting for Stone, you’ll want to put this one at the top of your TBR. The East Indian is Brinda Charry’s debut novel, a coming-of-age story that opens on the Coromandel Coast of India before moving to the American colonies in the 1630s. As you’ve surely noticed, we love debut novels, and we know Rita Chang-Eppig’s Deep as the Sky, Red as the Sea — a tale of a legendary pirate Queen — will appeal to readers of Piranesi by Susannah Clarke and Circe by Madeline Miller. We’re live from our flagship store on Union Square in NYC with R.F. Kuang. The author of Babel, our B&N Speculative Fiction Book of the Year, returns with Yellowface, a scathing, satirical look at writing — and publishing.
Find something new to love this month on Poured Over…and join us next month for our 200th episode!