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News, Book Clubs & Best Books of the Month

IMLS staff have been placed on administrative leave, Infodocket reports. NPR, Publishers Weekly, and CBS News also have coverage. ALA issues a statement.

Rabbit Moon by Jennifer Haigh (Little, Brown; LJ starred review) is April’s B&N book club pick. Haigh discusses her book on B&N’s Poured Over podcast.

The Sirens by Emilia Hart (St. Martin’s) is GMA’s pick for April.

Amazon editors select the best books of April.

LA Times shares 10 books to read in April.

BookRiot has the best books of the month.

Time previews 15 new books for the month.

Publishers Weekly writes about PRH’s profitable sales year in 2024.

Niko Pfund has been named director of Yale University Press.

Reviews

NYT reviews The Usual Desire To Kill by Camilla Barnes (Scribner): “Mostly, though, The Usual Desire To Kill is about how aggravating it is that even one’s own parents and children are so other”; Sad Tiger by Neige Sinno, tr. by Natasha Lehrer (Seven Stories): “It is excruciating to read the author’s vivid chain of associations, her tortured effort to understand her own attacker a generation ago”; Ecstasy: Poems by Alex Dimitrov (Knopf): “Ecstasy is a rollicking paean to pleasure, an ode to realness and resilience. These poems are raw and honest and deeply personal, and vibrate with the intimacy and electricity typically reserved for late-night conversations between old friends or new lovers after the third round”; and three military history books about spies and intelligence agencies: The Determined Spy: The Turbulent Life and Times of CIA Pioneer Frank Wisner by Douglas Waller (Dutton), Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence: A Concise History by Steven R. Ward (Georgetown Univ.), and Watching the Jackals: Prague’s Covert Liaisons with Cold War Terrorists and Revolutionaries by Daniela Richterova (Georgetown Univ.).

Washington Post reviews I Am a Part of Infinity: The Spiritual Journey of Albert Einstein by Kieran Fox (Basic): “I Am a Part of Infinity is unusually personal in the ways that it reveals Fox’s struggle to deal with the regular world, which strikes him as insufficient compared to the ‘high,’ ‘grand,’ ‘cosmic’ and ‘spiritual’ approach offered by Einstein”; Pronoun Trouble: The Story of Us in Seven Little Words by John McWhorter (Avery): “For McWhorter, getting pronouns to agree with antecedents must never be considered more important than getting language to agree with civility”; and On Air: The Triumph and Tumult of NPR by Steve Oney (Avid Reader: S. & S.): “Oney’s consistent evenhandedness in recounting this history is both a virtue and a defect.”

Briefly Noted

LitHub highlights 26 new books for the week.

NPR recommends “6 tales of mystery and mishap.”

Kirkus suggests “10 Great Audiobooks for National Poetry Month.”

T&C highlights April’s best books and 20 romantasy reads.

CBC shares “10 Canadian books turning 10 in 2025.”

Autostraddle suggests four sapphic-romance ecohorror novels.

ElectricLit has eight graphic novels set in New York City.

Vogue talks with Elaine Sciolino about her new book, Adventures in the Louvre: How To Fall in Love with the World’s Greatest Museum (Norton; LJ starred review).

In a preemptive deal, Atria Books has acquired Matthew Aldrich’s debut novel, The Natural Order, for publication in fall 2026. Universal has already claimed film rights to the novel, Deadline reports.

Esquire has a Q&A with Colum McCann about his new novel, Twist (Random; LJ starred review).

NYT profiles Liz Moore, author of The God of the Woods (Riverhead; LJ starred review). An adaptation of her bestselling novel Long Bright River began streaming on Peacock last week.

People interviews author Natalie Keller Reinert about writing, her love of horses, and executive-producing two Amazon Studios adaptations of her work.

Slate talks with Lawrence Wright about his latest book, The Human Scale (Knopf).

People previews and shares a cover reveal for Horror’s New Wave: 15 Years of Blumhouse by Dave Schilling (S. & S./Simon Element), due out September 30.

Vicky Nguyen talks with USA Today about her new book, Boat Baby: A Memoir (S. & S.).

Authors on Air

Elie Mystal, Bad Law: Ten Popular Laws That Are Ruining America (New Pr.), will be on The View today.

Lisa Lillien, Hungry Girl Sheet Pan Cookbook: One-Pan Wonders Under 400 Calories (St. Martin’s Griffin), is on GMA today.

Maria Shriver, I Am Maria: My Reflections and Poems on Heartbreak, Healing, and Finding Your Way Home (The Open Field), appears on Today.

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