April might just be the sweetest spot of the year: the days are stretching out, the first proper warmth is in the air, and there’s that sense of everything coming back to life. Fittingly, it’s also a bumper month for new books.
This April brings everything from absorbing literary fiction and ambitious speculative novels to eye-opening histories and big-thinking non-fiction, alongside a few irresistible crowd-pleasers.
Here is our pick of the best books to read this month…
The Palm House by Gwendoline Riley
Through the friendship between a freelance writer and a magazine editor unmoored by work, Riley explores identity and connection. Sharp, funny and painfully precise, this is a quietly devastating portrait of modern life.
Picador, £16.99
Go Gentle by Maria Semple
A divorced philosopher living in New York believes she has mastered life through Stoicism — until a mysterious stranger draws her into a madcap, globe-trotting mystery. This latest from the author of the hit novel Where’d You Go, Bernadette? is one of those books which defies convention.
Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £20
Ghost-Eye by Amitav Ghosh
When a young girl in 1960s Calcutta insists she remembers a past life, a psychiatrist begins a case that reverberates decades later. Moving between continents and eras, Ghosh explores memory, reincarnation and environmental crisis with expansive, urgent storytelling.
John Murray, £20
Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke
Natalie has built a devoted online following documenting her traditional life with six children on an Idaho homestead. But just as her carefully controlled world begins to fracture, she wakes in 1805. A clever, addictive debut.
Fourth Estate, £16.99
Permanence by Sophie Mackintosh
Clara and Francis wake in an unfamiliar city with no memory of how they arrived. Free from the constraints of their real lives, they drift through a dreamlike world. Mackintosh probes the intoxicating pull and hidden cost of illicit love in this sensuous, unsettling speculative romance.
Hamish Hamilton, £18.99
My Year in Paris with Gertrude Stein by Deborah Levy
An unnamed narrator arrives in Paris to write about Gertrude Stein, gathering a loose circle of friends along the way. Levy blends fiction, biography and criticism in a playful, free-form meditation on Modernism, art and creative reinvention.
Hamish Hamilton, £18.99
Son of Nobody by Yann Martel
From the Booker Prize winning author of Life of Pi, adapted into the hit film, comes a story of a classics scholar at Oxford who uncovers a lost account of the Trojan War told through an ordinary soldier. As he translates it, the story begins to echo into his own life.
Canongate, £20
The Name Game by Beth O’Leary
Two strangers with identical names arrive on a small island to start afresh — only to find their new lives unexpectedly entangled. A warm, charming romantic comedy about second chances, identity and the joy of happenstance.
Quercus, £18.99
Jan Morris: A Life by Sara Wheeler
This authoritative biography charts the extraordinary life of the late Welsh historian, author and travel writer. It is a richly detailed portrait of a singular figure, capturing her complexity, contradictions and transition with sensitivity.
Faber & Faber, £25
The 21st Century Brain by Dr Hannah Critchlow
What does it mean to think well in the modern world? Neuroscientist Critchlow explores how our brains are shaped by constant change, arguing that adaptability and self-understanding are key to navigating today’s fast-moving, hyper-connected lives.
Torva, £22
The Nuremberg Women by Natalie Livingstone
Exploring the overlooked contributions of the women behind the Nuremberg trials, from journalists to witnesses, this compelling history offers a fresh, urgent perspective on justice and memory – and the crucial part women played in documenting them.
John Murray, £25
Original Sin by Kathryn Paige Harden
Examining whether our behaviour is shaped more by genetics than we like to admit, Harden draws on cutting-edge research and personal experience to challenge ideas of blame and responsibility and explore what it really means to be “good” or “bad”.
Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £22
Talking Classics by Mary Beard
The eminent historian makes a lively, accessible case for why the ancient world still matters, drawing connections between Greece, Rome and today. Packed with insight and wit, this is a spirited defence of classics for modern readers.
Profile Books, £16.99
Famesick by Lena Dunham
In this candid memoir, the writer and actor reflects on fame, chronic illness and creative ambition. By turns raw and darkly funny, she delves into the personal cost of success and the search for identity amid public scrutiny.
4th Estate, £18.99
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