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Kousha Navidar: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Kousha Navidar, in for Alison Stewart. Hey, thanks for spending your Friday with us. Before we get into this hour, just a heads up for next week. I'll actually be off, but it's for a good reason. I'm getting married. We've got a lot of conversations for you to look forward to, even though I won't be here with other WNYC guests. Be sure to tune in for that. We'll hear some advice about the do's and don'ts of dating over 50. We'll get some expert financial advice and hear live performances from some teenage jazz students involved with Jazz at Lincoln Center's Essentially Ellington Competition. It'll be great.

Now, for our final hour today and in honor of spring, we're talking about all that comes with the season, like how to care for your plants, dispelling myths about those dreaded seasonal allergies, and what great books you may want to consider reading. Hey, speaking of books, this Monday, April 29th, is our April Get Lit book club event. We've spent the month reading Stephen Graham Jones's novel, My Heart is a Chainsaw. The novel tells the story of a half-indigenous woman named Jade who feels alienated from the other people in her small town. She only finds comfort in horror movies, but when real-life murders start happening in her town, Jade uses her horror knowledge to try and get to the bottom of what's going on.

We'll also hear a special performance from this month's musical guest, Frank Waln. Waln is a Lakota multi-genre musician and public speaker and Stephen Graham Jones has said that Waln's song, AbOriginal was an inspiration for his Indian Lake Trilogy. Again, join us at our Get Lit with All Of It book club event this Monday, April 29th. It's at 6:00 P.M. at the New York Public Library, Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library, and you can still get your free tickets now at wnyc.org/getlit. All right, now on to the show.

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Kousha Navidar: You know by listening to us on a daily basis, that spring is a big season for books. Both big name and up-and-coming authors are publishing new titles, and it can be overwhelming to keep up with all the books you want to read at your local library or bookstore. Recently, our Get Lit producer and resident book queen, Jordan Lauf joined guest host Tiffany Hanssen to recommend some books to read this spring. We also took your calls to hear about the books you're looking forward to reading. A reminder, this is an encore broadcast, so as much as we would love to, we unfortunately can't take your calls live right now.

Tiffany started by asking Jordan about how one recent trip to the Museum of Natural History got Jordan interested in her first book selection for us.

Jordan Lauf: Okay. I went to the Museum of Natural History, and I looked at the dinosaurs as one does and I was like, "Dinosaurs are really cool." The room that really blew me away was the room of all the extinct giant mammals. I didn't realize how big sloths used to be. They were massive. I was standing there looking at these giant sloths and I thought to myself, "I have to learn more about this." I feel like I got some basic dinosaur education in kindergarten, but I got nothing about the extinct mammals. I really recommend The Rise and Reign of the Mammals: A New History, from the Shadow of the Dinosaurs to Us. It's by Steve Brusatte.

He also wrote a really great book about dinosaurs, which I did read. That one's great if you're into dinos. If you are interested in the giant sloths, et cetera, this is a really cool history of mammals. There's some human stuff in there too. I also really liked that he gives a history of the paleontologists who are working on this stuff as well. Last night I was reading and I learned that this poor guy who was a German paleontologist came to Britain during World War II to escape, got arrested, and spent the rest of World War II in an internment camp because he was wandering around with maps and they thought, "Oh, this guy looks suspicious. He's a German guy wandering around with maps." He was just looking for some molars. He was looking for some fossils.

Tiffany Hanssen: Right.

Jordan Lauf: He continued to assemble some skeletons while in the internment camp.

Tiffany Hanssen: Wow.

Jordan Lauf: You get incredible historical details like that.

Tiffany Hanssen: Yes. All right, that's a great recommendation. The Rise and Reign of the Mammals. All right, Wendy in Springfield, welcome to All Of It. Hi, Wendy, you have a recommendation?

Wendy: Yes, I have two books. The first is Coleman Hill: A Novel by Kim Coleman Foote. What she's done is taken her actual family, their pictures are actually on the cover, and also integrated fictional aspects. It tells the story of the traumas that her family endured when they came to the so-called promised land of the North in the 1920s and what happened to these two interrelated families that become integrated by marriage.

The second one is another book by a Black female author, Go Back and Get It by Dionne Ford. Now, this is factual. She looks at the journey of her genealogy. She goes back to the original enslaver, which was the beginning of the branch of her family, and looks at the patterns that are also in her life. She's trying to heal from traumas that she has by going back and looking at her family tree. They're both very interesting. In some ways similar but very different, and both very good.

Tiffany Hanssen: Great. Thanks, Wendy. We have a recommendation for Fledgling by Octavia Butler. Very interesting, fresh take on vampires, if vampires are your thing. All right, Debbie in Brookville. Good morning, Debbie.

Debbie: Good morning. I just got done reading John Boyne's, it's a sequel to The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. I don't know if you had heard of that. I know that he's also written The Heart's Invisible Furies. He's an Irish writer. This was very compelling because it's World War II-- well, it's present day, but the father was the commander that welcomed, if you will, the people from the trains into the camps and this was one of his two children. The question is when is a monster's child culpable and how much guilt and complicity do you carry if you are 12 and this is your parent?

I thought it brought up a lot of-- we all say, "Oh we would never do that or how could that happen?" This brought up in present day quite a lot of interesting, I've been mulling over and I finished it two days ago and I just can't stop thinking about the themes.

Tiffany Hanssen: Thanks, Debbie. The follow-up to The Boy in Striped Pyjamas, which also has an adaptation, right?

Jordan Lauf: It does have an adaptation, yes. That's a book I read I think in middle school and has really stuck with me. That sounds interesting.

Tiffany Hanssen: Jordan, let's turn to books that are coming up this spring, Jennifer Croft.

Jordan Lauf: Yes. Jennifer Croft actually came on our show a couple of months ago because she is an award-winning translator. She works primarily with the Polish writer Olga Tokarczuk, who won, I believe, the Nobel a couple of years ago for her collection of work. Jennifer is her translator into English. I'm really excited about this one because this is Jennifer's debut novel. It's titled The Extinction of Irena Rey and it draws on her experience as a translator for the plot.

The setup of this is that eight translators who are working with one famous Polish author, so very similar to Jennifer's life, are all coming together to work on translating this woman's latest masterpiece. They're all translators in different languages, but they're coming together for this collaborative exercise and they find that she's gone missing. It's got a mystery element to it where they're trying to figure out what happened to this woman, but also it's got the translation aspect, which I find really interesting just learning about translation as an art.

Tiffany Hanssen: Fascinating. Yes, it's an art.

Jordan Lauf: Totally. I think this one's going to be really interesting for people who are interested in learning more about translation.

Tiffany Hanssen: All right. Title again?

Jordan Lauf: That is The Extinction of Irena Rey by Jennifer Croft. I believe it is out March 5th.

Tiffany Hanssen: Jordan, we have a textbook recommendation, Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver's modern day David Copperfield. The first novel I've been able to focus on since my son was born almost two years ago, says, "Nina, Nyna, Nina." Also, Jordan, looking across the pond, as they say, Lady Macbeth.

Jordan Lauf: Yes. Lady Macbeth, if you're interested, if you ever thought, "Huh, I wonder a little more what was going on with her." There's a novel for you coming out. It's called All of our Yesterdays by Joel H. Morris. It's giving backstory to one of drama's most infamous characters. It's a piece of historical fiction. It's set in Scotland. If anyone read Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell, I really loved that take on Shakespeare and that story set in that historical time. I think it'll be interesting to read a piece of historical fiction based on one of his characters.

Tiffany Hanssen: A couple of things coming into the socials here. "The Fraud by Zadie Smith was just so excellent and right now really enjoying A Life of One's Own by Joanna Biggs and with my kids we're enjoying Ramona's World by Beverly Cleary." Oh, Beverly, I mean, let's just-

Jordan Lauf: Classic, right?

Tiffany Hanssen: Your head was nodding with The Fraud.

Jordan Lauf: The Fraud is great. I can't believe I'm admitting this, but it's the first Zadie Smith book I've ever read. I haven't read White Teeth yet. I need to. That one is also based on a real historical event, a trial in Victorian England, in which a man claimed that he was the heir to a long-lost fortune, except he so clearly was not. This trial captivated Victorian England for years and people just got really obsessed with it. It was one of those first tabloid trial cases.

Tiffany Hanssen: Jordan, let's go to the phones. Emma in Woodland Park, New Jersey. Good morning, Emma.

Emma: Good morning. Hi.

Tiffany Hanssen: You have a recommendation?

Emma: Yes, I do. My recommendation is, it's an older title, but I recently revisited the works of Kurt Vonnegut, and I wanted to recommend Slapstick specifically. I found it really insightful for the current time with the message of loneliness and isolation, especially post-pandemic. It has this surreal overtone and science-fiction overtone to it, and I really enjoyed it. It really added some insight into my life.

Tiffany Hanssen: Thank you so much, Emma. Earlier, Jordan, we were talking about accessible sci-fi. We have a recommendation for The Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel, sci-fi time travel done in a more realistic way. I find her to be very accessible.

Jordan Lauf: I totally second that. I thought that that one was maybe her most accessible, actually, in terms of speculative fiction, sci-fi that I thought was really engaging, but you could completely wrap your head around.

Tiffany Hanssen: Right. Oscar-buzzy movie out, American Fiction, there's an author who has a book out.

Jordan Lauf: Yes. Percival Everett, who is the author behind the novel that American Fiction is based on, has a new one coming out. This one is called James. Like the Lady Macbeth book that's coming out, this one explores a literary character who maybe needs a little more backstory. This one is the story of Huckleberry Finn, but instead, it's told through the eyes of the enslaved character, Jim, who travels with them on their journey. Percival taking the spotlight away from Huckleberry Finn and giving it to Jim and telling a little more of his story. I think it's going to be an excellent piece of historical fiction.

Tiffany Hanssen: All right, let's bring our listeners back in. Let's go to Edgardo in Williamsburg. Good morning, Edgardo. Welcome to All Of It.

Edgardo: Good morning. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you. Thank you, thank you. I want to talk about my own book. It's actually called La Borinqueña. It's our first hardcover collected edition, collecting our first four graphic novels that we've been publishing for the last eight years. The first issue is actually a part of the permanent collection of the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, DC, and this hardcover book is actually part of our philanthropic work that we do in Puerto Rico. So far, we've awarded $200,000 in grants to nonprofits throughout the archipelago, and the superhero is an original project that I created eight years ago here in Nueva York.

It's an opportunity to promote, but also to recognize an important part of New York City's culture and heritage, the Puerto Rican community, of which I am a part of.

Tiffany Hanssen: Edgardo, thank you so much for the recommendation and the plug. We appreciate that. I saw a really funny thing on social media the other day. Jordan, this person asked their kid for a book recommendation, of course, and she said, "Who's your favorite author?" She said, "Well, besides myself?" I can appreciate that. All right. Reading Genesis. Let's talk about that one.

Jordan Lauf: I think there is a big audience out there for trying to engage with the Bible, one of our most famous texts, but historically pretty hard to get through and hard to navigate on your own. Marilynne Robinson, who is a literary icon, and if you're familiar with her work, she writes a lot about religion and faith and themes, works like Gilead, really are centered on that. Reading Genesis is a nonfiction book from her, which is exploring Genesis, first book in the Bible. It's her take, her analysis, her thoughts on this piece of Christian theology. I think because it's coming from her, it'll be very accessible and literary and poetic and maybe a more philosophical engagement with that work.

If you're someone who's looking to engage with the Bible in a thoughtful way, and maybe you want to start right at the beginning, right with Genesis, this one could be a really interesting place to begin.

Tiffany Hanssen: We heard from someone who's going back and reading Kurt Vonnegut. We have another text here, "I'm about to start my third reading of Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. I'm obsessed. It's descriptive in how it paints a lost and violent picture, but there is redemption. Every sentence transports me to the scene." I'm going to put you on the spot. Is there anything that you have gone back to read recently that like, "Oh," I don't know, it was published decades ago, or are you really just forward-looking at this point?

Jordan Lauf: Because of my job, I tend to be a little more forward-looking. I will say I read Anna Karenina for the first time a couple of years ago, and that felt like a part of my literary-

Tiffany Hanssen: I did that too.

Jordan Lauf: -canon that was missing. It's long, it takes you a while to get through, but I'm really glad that I did it. It's a really good winter read. It's in Russia. It's got the snowy scenes, the train station, all that good stuff. If you're looking for a classic to engage with, if you haven't tried Anna Karenina-- Oh, actually I'll say Jane Eyre. Jane Eyre is a favorite that always holds up for me. I've reread that one a couple of times.

Tiffany Hanssen: All right. A couple more texts here. "Chris Miller's Chip War provides excellent insight into the memory chips that changed the world." "I have a book recommendation, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing by Matthew Perry, real authentic account of his life as an addict, and it helps readers understand just some of what they go through, plus addicts are so misunderstood. Whether or not you're a fan of friends, this is a great read." Let's move on to something coming up in April, Jordan, The Familiar. Tell us about that.

Jordan Lauf: Yes, this one's by Leigh Bardugo, who is really beloved by adult fantasy lovers. I was actually at a party a couple of weeks ago, and a couple of people asked me like, "Hey, have you read the new Leigh Bardugo? Have you heard of it?" There's definitely excitement out there for this one. It's titled The Familiar, and it's set in the golden age of the Spanish Empire. If you're picking up a theme on my recommendations, I do love a historical novel. This one is centered on a woman who is involved in magic, has some magical abilities, and she finds herself caught up in the Spanish royal court and their machinations of empire. I think for people who maybe liked R.F. Kuang's book, they might find this one to be a next good read.

Tiffany Hanssen: I want to make sure that we get to this. Salman Rushdie has a book coming out in April.

Jordan Lauf: Yes, it's Knife. It's his memoir, which is talking about if you're not familiar about the terrorist attack he experienced and his recovery. I think this is obviously a story that shook the literary world. It's incredibly important and I'm glad that he has put pen to paper on it and will be sharing his side of the story in this way.

Tiffany Hanssen: Last but not least, more history. Erik Larson has a new book coming out in April also.

Jordan Lauf: Yes, if you're like, "What should I get my dad for Father's Day?" Try Erik Larson. Dad's Everywhere. Love Erik Larson. It's a surefire hit. His new one is titled The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War. It takes you from Lincoln's election all the way to the lead-up of the Battle at Fort Sumter. It's really those early days of conflict over North and South and the breakout of the Civil War. He's just so readable and engaging if you're looking for a new history book to try out.

Kousha Navidar: That was All Of It and Get Lit producer Jordan Loft speaking to guest host, Tiffany Hansen, about new books to check out this spring.

 

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