34 Books We Can’t Wait to Read: March 2025

Fiction

Woodworking by Emily St James — March 4 (Zando - Crooked Media Reads)

“Woodworking is a wonder of unexpected characters in complex relationships in a more-than-meets-the-eye small town in an unusual coming-of-age story—several actually—all of which would be great enough, but it also manages to celebrate trans lives without pandering or overgeneralizing, to offer hope without minimizing or sugar-coating, and to tell a story whose pages you can’t stop turning. Emily St. James’s debut is complicated in the best ways and straightforward in the best ways too, empowering, important, and even heartwarming in its insistence on that which is true for all of us, in spite as well as because of our differences.” — Laurie Frankel, New York Times bestselling author of This Is How It Always Is

Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy — March 4 (Flatiron Books)

“At once a gripping mystery, an exquisitely written ode to the natural world, and a taut, psychological thriller, Wild Dark Shore is a triumph. Charlotte McConaghy is masterful in her ability to show the intricate connections between place and the human heart, and Wild Dark Shore shows her at the height of her powers. Breathtaking.” — Hannah Kent, international bestselling author of Burial Rites

The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami — March 4 (Pantheon)

“The Dream Hotel offers a stark vision of the future—in which America is a surveillance state, ruled by the intertwined forces of capital and government, powered by all-too-fallible algorithm that determines criminality based on citizen’s dreams. That’s plainly a metaphor for extant practices of social control, but Laila Lalami’s extraordinary new novel is more than just a political warning; the book is an exploration of the psyche itself, the strange ungovernable forces of fate and emotion that make us human.” — Rumaan Alam, author of Leave the World Behind

Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie — March 4 (Knopf)

Chiamaka is a Nigerian travel writer living in America. Alone in the midst of the pandemic, she recalls her past lovers and grapples with her choices and regrets. Zikora, her best friend, is a lawyer who has been successful at everything until—betrayed and brokenhearted—she must turn to the person she thought she needed least. Omelogor, Chiamaka’s bold, outspoken cousin, is a financial powerhouse in Nigeria who begins to question how well she knows herself. And Kadiatou, Chiamaka’s housekeeper, is proudly raising her daughter in America—but faces an unthinkable hardship that threatens all she has worked to achieve. A trenchant reflection on the choices we make and those made for us, on daughters and mothers, on our interconnected world, Dream Count pulses with emotional urgency and poignant, unflinching observations of the human heart, in language that soars with beauty and power.

Ultramarine by Mariette Navarro (translated by Eve Hill-Agnus) — March 4 (Deep Vellum Publishing)

A female captain in a male-dominated field, the unnamed narrator of Ultramarine has secured her success through strict adherence to protocol; she now manages a crew of twenty men and helms her own vessel. Uncharacteristically, one day, she allows her crew to cut the engines and swim in the deep open water. Returning from this moment of leisure, the crew of mariners no longer totals twenty men: now, they are twenty-one. Sparse and psychological, Ultramarine grips the reader in a tussle with reality, its rhythmic language mimicking the rocking of the boat.

See Friendship by Jeremy Gordon — March 4 (Harper Perennial)

“Jeremy Gordon has written The Savage Detectives for the post-Facebook era. Wonderfully funny and astonishingly intelligent, See Friendship explores that painful impact of shame and secrecy as well as the slipperiness of memory. Gordon is a brilliant observer of a media industry, and with tremendous subtlety, he traces the effects of that industry from broad social currents down into the granularity of a single human life. A stunning first novel.” — Brandon Taylor, author of The Late Americans and Filthy Animals

I Leave It Up to You by Jinwoo Chong — March 4 (Ballantine Books)

“Funny and wickedly observant with a cast of characters so endearing I laughed out loud and was moved to tears, Jinwoo Chong’s I Leave It Up to You is a delicious meal of a book, with courses of drama, tragedy, and comedy. Jack Jr.’s efforts to separate himself from his raucous, loving, over-reaching Korean American immigrant family are rendered with brilliant finesse and beauty.”— Jimin Han, author of The Apology

The Sleeping Land by Ella Alexander — March 4 (Unnamed Press)

“Sleeping Land reads like an excavation of human character, with all our mortal derangements, charms and mysteries brought to the surface. Alexander’s distinctive brilliance makes every page a wonder in this psychologically astute and also very, very funny novel.” — Rivka Galchen, author of Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch

Optional Practical Training by Shubha Sunder — March 4 (Graywolf Press)

“Optional Practical Training is a knockout wonder. Shubha Sunder has created a rich and blazingly layered portrait of a young woman named Pavitra, who is fighting to not only be an artist, but fighting to discover a true sense of herself in a world that has so many ideas about how her life should be. This is a beautiful, and beautifully intimate, quest of a book—one where you will find yourself cheering for Pavitra very, very loudly—and I loved every page of it.”— Paul Yoon, author of The Hive and the Honey

Sexy Life, Hello by Michelle Kicherer — March 4 (Banana Pitch Press)

After getting fired from her job as a fourth grade teacher, Jane takes on two jobs at once: as a nanny for twin babies and as a sexter for a famous porn star. Soon, Jane is feeding Franny and Zooey with one hand and shooting off ridiculous sexts with the other. At first, she feels it’s like a joke: a lot of her clientele are into scat play or “mystical bestiality.” By the end of her first month on the sexting-nanny jobs, Jane is making significantly more money than she could have ever made as a teacher. She sees a way to move out of her rundown childhood home on the California Central Coast; a way to finally have a nice place of her own. And it feels great-until Jane realizes she isn’t as anonymous as she thought.

Stag Dance by Torrey Peters — March 11 (Random House)

“Torrey Peters is often describing something that has never been described before and it’s never something minor, it’s something massive that has been missing from our understanding and enjoyment of the world. Stag Dance is hot, heartbreaking, and thrillingly victorious.” — Miranda July, New York Times bestselling author of All Fours

Liquid: A Love Story by Mariam Rahmani — March 11 (Algonquin Books)

“Liquid is an absolute lifeline—Mariam Rahmani’s prose expands what’s possible on the page, with a novel that’s loving, cutting, mournful, and hilarious. Rahmani knows LA and Tehran. Rahmani knows sex, pleasure, and pain. Rahmani knows loss, and care, and the stickiness in-between. Liquid is a dream of a book—written with heart and feeling and longing and clarity, bracingly astute, elastic, and precise—an absolute delight expanding the possibilities in American fiction.” — Bryan Washington, award-winning author of Family Meal and Memorial

The Antidote by Karen Russell — March 11 (Knopf)

“The Antidote is an achingly gorgeous book about dust, memory, basketball, murder, yearning, photography, and the way the land holds both the memory of what went before and the dreams of what may come. Karen Russell is one of our most humane and generous writers; this book is as profound as it is wonderfully strange.” — Lauren Groff, author of The Vaster Wilds

VHS by Chris Campanioni — March 11 (Clash Books)

“Chris Campanioni has created yet another sexy and stunning book. VHS defies categorization. It revels in its rebellion. It is both nostalgic and visionary, an expertly crafted balance between the surreal and achingly familiar dimensions of memory. As raw and unapologetic as Reinaldo Arenas, Campanioni is a singular talent; a director, cinematographer, poet and superb storyteller rolled into one. VHS is pop. It’s retro. And it has all the makings of a cult classic.” — John Manuel Arias, author of Where There Was Fire

Luminous by Silvia Park — March 11 (Simon & Schuster)

“Luminous is full of complex characters, damaged and broken and beautiful. It’s a novel full of pleasures, big and small, gorgeous sentences from which Park weaves a rich, layered story of family and work, of history and speculation, of Korea, past, present and future. A bold exploration of what it means to have a mind, a body, a self, and even a soul. An impressive debut.” — Charles Yu, author of National Book Award winner Interior Chinatown

Goddess Complex by Sanjena Sathian — March 11 (Penguin Press)

“Goddess Complex is the most interesting, illuminating, and bold contemporary novel of ideas I’ve read in years. Sanjena Sathian has given us a world that’s split—between India and America, between acid and ache, between the longing to reproduce and the longing to remain inviolate, between comedy and horror—in a way that affords us that rarest of opportunities: a space to truly think.” — Sarah Thankam Mathews, author of the National Book Award finalist All This Could Be Different

Hot Air by Marcy Dermansky — March 18 (Knopf)

“Unapologetically and pleasurably absurd....This novel is a romp, full of the witty, razor sharp prose characteristic of all Dermansky’s books. I cannot recommend this novel enough.” — Roxane Gay, New York Times best-selling author of Bad Feminist

Animal Instinct by Amy Shearn — March 18 (Penguin Random House)

“Animal Instinct is almost mysteriously kind and hot and funny—like Grace Paley crossed with Miranda July, crossed with, like, Tina Fey. I loved it so much. A joyful pandemic sex novel that’s also a scathing critique of marriage? It’s the book I didn’t know I needed.” —Catherine Newman, New York Times bestselling author of Sandwich

Everybody Says It’s Everything by Xhenet Aliu — March 18 (Random House)

“Everybody Says It’s Everything is a gut-punch of a novel, by turns tender and fierce, heartbreaking and hilarious. Albanian adoptees Drita and Pete hunger for belonging and purpose. Adrift, will they find themselves and their way back to each other? Against the backdrop of the Kosovo War, and set in Waterbury and in the Bronx, Xhenet Aliu deftly examines class, diaspora, loyalty, and family chosen and received. Powerful and deeply moving.” — Vanessa Hua, author of Forbidden City

Hunchback by Saou Ichikawa (translated by Polly Barton) — March 18 (Hogarth)

“Told from the perspective of a disabled woman who asserts her sexual autonomy unapologetically, Hunchback is a personal exploration of pleasure and an indictment of the ableism and sexism embedded in society. Hunchback might be considered radical by nondisabled readers because it honestly depicts the innermost thoughts and desires of a disabled woman, which speaks to the lack of disability representation in publishing. . . . Insightful, humorous, and honest.” — Alice Wong, disability activist and author of Year of the Tiger

Passing Through a Prairie Country by Dennis E. Staples — March 18 (Counterpoint)

“Taking readers on a journey through the lavish Hidden Atlantis Casino, where no clocks hang on the walls, to the timeless realm of mysterious and death-dealing spirits, Dennis E. Staples delivers an otherworldly story that’s haunting, darkly humorous, and chock full of fascinating Native lore.” — Nick Medina, author of Indian Burial Ground

O Sinners! by Nicole Cuffy — March 18 (One World)

“O Sinners! invites us to be fully and vigorously present for the rhapsodic truths of our lives, including the birth of animals, the death of loved ones, and the home-seeking that occupies our decades. Nicole Cuffy has opened a door into a world where mares and wolves live alongside grief and love and memory, each its own creature, each equally dreamlike and real.” — Megha Majumdar, author of A Burning

Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One by Kristen Arnett — March 18 (Riverhead Books)

“Brilliant on the relationship between comedy and suffering, and on the bravado and vulnerability of performance…A dazzling, sexy, and hilarious triumph.” — Laura van den Berg, author of The Third Hotel

Root Rot by Saskia Nislow — March 25 (Creature Publishing, LLC)

Nine children travel with their families to their Grandfather’s vacation property, where strange things begin to happen: eyes blink from the bottom up, mushrooms ooze blood, people’s faces don’t hang right anymore—except they do, once you look more closely. Transformations warp the children’s sense of time and place, the very land itself seeming to encroach upon them. As The Liar watches the children succumb one by one to an unknown fate, she must make sense of absent stars in the night sky, vials of amber liquid that taste of milk, a funny little rope tied in knots. She’s faced with a choice: join or resist, only the choice is not so simple.

Cover Story by Celia Laskey — March 25 (Grand Central Publishing)

“An endearingly funny and propulsive look at the ever-changing nature of celebrity, second chances, and what it takes to be our most authentic selves. (And if that’s not enough, there’s a dog that will steal your heart.) A beautiful reminder of how far queer people have come, in part by bravely telling our stories. I am a Celia Laskey fan.” — Steven Rowley, New York Times bestselling author of The Guncle

Tilt by Emma Pattee — March 25 (S&S/ Marysue Rucci Books)

“Tilt is a remarkable debut—a gorgeous, haunting blend of a suspenseful survival thriller and a fierce portrait of maternal love. I was so mesmerized that I blew off all my responsibilities, threw all other reading aside, and blistered through the whole thing in one sitting, loving every moment." — Angie Kim, New York Times bestselling author of Happiness Falls and Miracle Creek

Paradise Logic by Sophie Kemp — March 25 (Simon & Schuster)

“I devoured Sophie Kemp’s charming, peculiar, and hilarious debut novel, Paradise Logic. Her iconic heroine Reality Kahn recalls Mary Robison’s Money Breton and Lena Dunham’s Sarah Jo, but ultimately, Kemp’s novel is sui generis.” — Anna Dorn, author of Perfume & Pain

Non-Fiction & Poetry

For disobeying by Sasha Hawkins — March 1 (Calamari Press)

For disobeying is a metafictive take on the power dynamics of sexuality and the roles we as humans are expected to play, the directives we’re expected to obey, in seeking approval. By focusing a candid yet critical lens on Marlon Brando and other notable men, the author flips the script on gender, age, race, inheritance, and societal status, luridly exposing the mechanisms by which trauma and mental illness destroy and reinvent the concept of self. By inhabiting Brando’s body, the author replicates the dysphoria of abuse, cathartically acting out not only through the perspective of a lover and idol, but a father figure, a person of status, someone that has proudly given you a chance at a life, but at the same time resentful of the parts of themselves they see in you that they incestuously want back. We compassionately experience both sides of the sexual violence—recepient/victim and giver/aggressor—and through this bipolar method-acting we can cope and understand the bodies/roles given to us at birth, bodies that seek approval from figures other than their own.

Sucker Punch by Scaachi Koul — March 4 (St Martin’s Press)

“Scaachi Koul’s Sucker Punch is an absolute knockout. An instantly essential entry into the modern divorce canon, Koul’s collection of essays is packed full of diamond-sharp writing, exemplary wit, eviscerating truths, and—most importantly—a rib-shattering amount of heart. Here is Scaachi Koul at her most vulnerable, while somehow still casually holding onto her rightfully-earned crown as one of America's funniest living writers.” — Isaac Fitzgerald, author of Dirtbag, Massachusetts

Pieces You’ll Never Get Back by Samina Ali — March 4 (Catapult)

“Every woman, and every man in her life, should read this book. Beautifully crafted, clear, and disarming, it is not a new motherhood memoir so much as it is a profound meditation on faith and connectedness, the self and uncertainty, and above all, recovery and resurrection. It’s an intimate portrait of one woman as she moves amid the wilderness between life and death, and it is astounding.” — Nina McConigley, PEN Open Book Award-winning author of Cowboys and East Indians

Rehearsals for Dying by Ariel Gore — March 11 (Amethyst Editions)

“Rehearsals For Dying is one of the most innovative and compelling memoirs exploring life and grief I’ve ever read—and I’ve read a lot of them. Ariel Gore’s observational wit and empathetic heart made this a book I read in two sittings. With a refreshing and propulsive structure, Ariel queers the grief memoir in a way I didn’t know I needed. She asks the unanswerable questions and explores the unspeakable answers.” — Chloé Caldwell, author of Women

True Mistakes by Lena Moses-Schmitt — March 14 (University of Arkansas Press)

“Who are we to ourselves? Alone or in the world, in the past or in the future? Can we change, or stop changing? Who is reflected in ‘the painting, which is actually the window’? True Mistakes is full of movement, and its poems are endlessly questing--that effort which suggests both a search and a question. They make living an act of asking.” — Elisa Gabbert, author of Any Person Is the Only Self

Run the Song: Writing About Running About Listening by Ben Ratliff — March 18 (Graywolf Press)

Run the Song is the story of how a professional critic, frustrated with conventional modes of criticism, finds his way back to a deeper relationship with music. When stumped or preoccupied by a piece of music, Ratliff starts to think that perhaps running can tell him more about what he’s listening to—let’s run it, he’ll say. And with that, the reader in turn is invited to listen alongside one of the great listeners of our day in this wildly inventive and consistently thought-provoking chronicle of a profoundly unsettling time.

Trauma Plot by Jamie Hood — March 25 (Pantheon)

“Jamie Hood is not only an uncommon thinker, but a world-class explorer of unthought. She descends into the terrifying dark of the unsayable with the dimmest of flashlights and returns bearing verbal gems, treasures, and marvels. Trauma Plot is a glass case of such wonders.” — Torrey Peters, bestselling author of Detransition, Baby