We recommend: The best new book releases

Editor’s note: Dive into this wide-ranging list of recent and upcoming book releases, both fiction and nonfiction. Books that look at what happens to online child influencers away from the spotlight of social media’s constant scrutiny. A beloved tiger in Maharashtra who disappeared overnight. How the Kardashians provide a window into the contemporary media landscape. Novels about identity, belonging, migration, and the self. 

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Nonfiction

Like, Follow, Subscribe by Fortesa Latifi

April 7

One of the more dystopic byproducts of the times we live is the rise of “child influencers”. Parents shoving a camera in their innocent and trusting young kids’ faces, and reeling in the big bucks. It’s all rather unsavoury, and bound to affect the child’s psyche in ways we don’t yet understand. In Like, Follow, Subscribe, journalist Fortesa Latifi sets about trying to understand the multi-billion dollar child influencer industry, to understand the parents who try to mine their children’s lives for fame and money. She writes:

These children are lost in the wild woods of this industry as minors who are at the mercy of both the platforms they serve and the parents who are often holding the camera.

Through research, investigation, and interviews, Latifi looks at the many violations—ethical and legal—that may occur in this disconcerting corner of the internet, and the pressures being placed on young minds: from the child’s coming of age in the public eye and privacy violations to financial abuse or child labour. The New York Times, in a review, calls Latifi an “empathetic narrator” who “emphasizes how the lure of ‘life-changing money’ drives some families facing real financial hardships. She also reports on parents who regret posting intimate details about their children.”

Maya: The Biography of a Tiger by Anant Sonawane

April 10

In August 2023, Maya disappeared. The majestic tigress, born in 2010 in the Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve in Maharashtra, won hearts through her grace and intelligence, holding her own against the male tigers around her and responding to all threats in a measured manner. Anant Sonawane, a journalist who now serves as communications officer for the Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve and executive editor of Tadoba Diaries, has written an intimate insider account of this beloved tiger’s journey—sidestepping myths and legends, Sonawane instead presents Maya’s story with precision and clarity. As Nandita Banerji in Down to Earth writes:

Sonawane also constantly urges readers to not apply labels like “good” or “bad” for the behaviour of wild animals. The author thankfully avoids the common trap of over-sentimentalising his subject; while the book is deeply endearing, it stays grounded in biology. He paints a “true picture” of big cats as creatures of instinct, strategy, and raw power rather than Disneyfied versions of themselves.

Famesick by Lena Dunham

April 14

People can’t seem to be normal about Lena Dunham. Her new memoir, Famesick, has yet again sparked conversation about what an awful, no-good nepo baby hack she really is; her appearance is being dissected like it’s the 2010s again; her words are, again, being contorted into bad faith interpretations. It comes with the territory. The writer-actor—who created and starred in Girls, the popular and controversial HBO series about female friendship—takes readers through her 20s and 30s, gaining success and recognition off the back of Girls, and the chronic illnesses that affected her through this period. The Guardian writes that, despite Dunham’s questionable choices that she elucidates upon here, “…there’s an honesty and a fluency to her prose that makes her hard to dismiss. Illness, she writes, ‘wasn’t just a town I was passing through, but a city that I was going to pay taxes in’; when Girls first took off, it was ‘a miracle to me that I managed to speak cogently about the work, when I had to tell my feet to walk’.”

RFK Jr.: The Fall and Rise by Isabel Vincent

April 14

Isabel Vincent’s unauthorised biography of Robert Francis Kennedy Jr. (known familiarly as RFK Jr.), the anti-vax Secretary of Health and Human Services in Trump’s government, traces the tumultuous journey of the man over decades, drawing from his own private diary entries to craft a sharp portrait of a contentious figure. From being born into America’s politically dynastic (and, seemingly, cursed) Kennedy family, living through the grief of his uncle’s and father’s assassinations, to his struggles with drug addiction in the ’70s and ’80s, his rise as an environmental lawyer, to finally his role in Trump’s administration, Vincent tries to understand the motivations and inclinations of a man who, as she presents, continues to fail upwards.  

Dalit Women and the Fullness of Life by Christina Dhanuja

April 30

Part memoir, part social analysis, this new book by Christina Dhanuja seeks to move beyond the narrow perspectives within which Dalit women are viewed in society. Instead of merely tokenistic symbols of suffering or resilience, Dhanuja confronts caste realities and framings in society, presenting the lives of Dalit women as rich, complex, contradictory, and whole.  

Dekonstructing the Kardashians by MJ Corey

May 5

While not quite the first, Kim Kardashian and the Kardashian clan at large were early trailblazers of the typically modern day phenomenon of getting “famous for being famous”. This new book, which looks at the Kardashian universe, has been put together by MJ Corey, a social media creator who has garnered considerable following online by dedicating her feed to content related to the family: critical theory, memes, conversational videos, discourse; you know how it goes. The book is an extension of those experiments, contending with the role of the Kardashians in today’s media landscape, with Corey examining their position in pop culture through critical analysis, philosophical deconstruction, and references to public and theoretical discussions about the family.

Fiction

The Complex by Karan Mahajan

March 10

A sprawling (and often hard-hitting and bleak) tale, set across two continents over 15 years, about the sons and daughters of the late family patriarch SP Chopra, a famous architect in whose shadow they all exist. Political volatility meets family dysfunction at Modern Colony in north Delhi, as author Karan Mahajan, with stark realism, confronts the reality of India in the late 20th century, from the assassination of PM Indira Gandhi and the anti-Sikh pogrom that followed in the national capital to the protests against the Mandal Commission and the rise of the BJP.

Super by Lindsay Pereira

March 11

Sukhpreet, a local lad from Jalandhar, heads off to Canada with little more than dreams in his heart. He mortgages family land, forges documents, leaves love behind, and heads over to a foreign land, in this tale of migration, identity, and belonging by award-winning novelist Lindsay Pereira. Once he gets to what he believes to be the promised land, the reality is rather different from what he imagined. As Open Magazine writes:

Set in a bleak world in which the most ordinary living seems out of bounds, there are no winners in Pereira’s novel. Its most decisive individual actions, even murder, are shaped by forces beyond one’s control. Yet, people are made of hopes and dreams—the endless yearning to make life better or, as Sukhpreet says, super.

Saratchandra Chattopadhyay: Selected Stories, translated from the Bengali by Anchita Ghatak

April 13

Saratchandra Chattopadhyay’s keen understanding of the human condition is perhaps what set him apart. The renowned Bengali author and novelist of the early 20th century wrote about life in Bengali society, in the cities and villages, with empathy and care, and he remains an important voice in modern Indian literature; his work would often dive into the complexities of Indian society, critiquing the caste, class, and gender disparities that plagued it. This collection of short stories, selected and translated from the Bengali by Anchita Ghatak, serves as an introduction to Chattopadhyay’s impressive oeuvre.

Ghost Town by Tom Perrotta

April 28

Jimmy Perrini, stuck in suburbia in 1970s New Jersey, is the protagonist of this nostalgic drama by Tom Perotta (best known for his novels Election [1998] and Little Children [2004]). Upon the death of his mother, 13-year-old Jimmy befriends Eddie, an older kid who introduces him to weed, and Olivia, who tries to help Jimmy contact his mother through a Ouija board. The story is told mostly in flashback by a middle-aged Jimmy, who has found a decent if unrewarding career as an author. While Perotta’s storytelling gifts are evident in this coming-of-age novel with a side of horror, reviews do point to a tendency to resort to “formulaic” patterns that hold it back.

One Leg on Earth by ’Pemi Aguda

May 7

Nigerian writer ’Pemi Aguda’s much anticipated debut novel One Leg on Earth is the story of college graduate Yosoye, who heads to Lagos in Nigeria to work for a fancy architectural firm to build the future: a luxury development project called Omi City. She’s excited about what lies ahead. But once she’s there, she learns of mysterious deaths in the city. And she finds out she’s pregnant. And that there seems to be some sort of curse on pregnant women.