It’s time to spring forward into some March books!
Spring is just around the corner, and as the days slowly get longer and the first scent of warmer days begin (likely followed by more snow), there’s never been a better time to start looking at adding to your reading list. This month, we’re welcoming a wide range of exciting new releases that bend their genre conventions and chart a new path forward of possibility in literature. Some of our most anticipated books of the year are coming out this month, so get ready to be dazzled in March!
Partially Devoured
By Daniel Kraus
Counterpoint
Few authors understand the art of thrills like Daniel Kraus, and in Partially Devoured his knowledge is on full display. Partially Devoured is a fascinating deep dive into Night of the Living Dead that weaves together cultural reporting, frame-by-frame analysis, and personal narrative to explore the ways the famed horror film forever changed moviemaking and the way we look at American life. The book is a breathtakingly ambitious project in both the scope and depth of the research, yet Kraus absolutely delivers to create something astonishing. Partially Devoured is filled with grief, love, and fascination throughout every frame and word.
Replica
By Lisa Low
University of Wisconsin Press
Replica is an electric debut from poet Lisa Low. With incredible wit, charm, and raw emotion, Low redefines the possibilities around thinking and writing about identity and the power of representing oneself in the world. Every poem is intricately layered with wordplay and clear emotion. Replica is an utter delight from start to finish.
Python’s Kiss
By Louise Erdrich
Harper
March brings us a collection two decades in the making from Pulitzer Prize- and National Book Award-winning author Louise Erdrich. A girl decides to spend her life with a stone. A man is confronted with a folk-singing thief. A woman enters a corporately owned afterlife to seek revenge on her father. Erdrich’s stories are entire worlds of vivid characters and shocking moments of catharsis, full of range and beauty. Python’s Kiss is a striking example of Erdrich’s generational talent.
Now I Surrender
By Álvaro Enrigue
Translated by Natasha Wimmer
Riverhead Books
Following his history-bending novel You Dreamed of Empires (one of my favorites of 2024), Álvaro Enrigue returns with Now I Surrender, which deconstructs the narrative of how the American West was won through a captivating story about a woman’s desperate flight from an Apache raid which lands her in the center of the Mexico-US border wars. Few authors are as ambitious as Enrigue, and his latest is further proof. Part epic and part alternative Western, Now I Surrender takes precise aim at the lies that the nation is built upon.
Be Easy
By Adrian Matejka
Liveright Publishing Corporation
Adrian Matejka brings the music in his latest poetry collection, Be Easy. In these melodic and lyrical poems, Matejka moves deftly between the personal and the historical to create a portrait of life in the Midwest while also complicating the ideas of place and identity. Be Easy is a testament to the joys of a poet working at the top of his game. These are poems to dig into and deconstruct by the word, as there’s so much to discover for the careful reader.
Hard Times
By Jeff Boyd
Flatiron Books
Hard Times follows an English teacher at a high school on the South Side of Chicago who must balance his family’s interest in moving north with his desire to hold onto his community. This page-turning thriller perfectly balances grittiness with utmost sincerity, which makes for an unforgettable journey from start to finish. Hard Times is a memorable celebration of Chicago that never wavers from all its complications and imperfections.
Seasons of Glass and Iron
By Amal El-Mohtar
Tordotcom
In this otherworldly short story collection, Amal El-Mohtar takes readers on a journey consisting of everything from letters and reference materials to folktales and lyrical prose. El-Mohtar’s stories are full of invention and lyricism, as every entry takes on the stature of myth through his brilliant writing. This is a necessary read from an immensely talented writer.
I Am Agatha
By Nancy Foley
Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster
When Agatha, a bristly painter fleeing her own darkness, decamps to rural New Mexico, she meets an ill widow named Alice who keeps a steady vigil at her daughter’s backyard grave. But when Alice goes missing, Agatha must embark on a mission to bring her home to safety. I Am Agatha is a tender and skillful delight of a debut.
I Was Alive Here Once: Ghost Stories
Edited by Sarah Coolidge
Two Lines Press
Two Lines Press’s Calico Series, which curates works of translated literature around a particular theme, region, or style, produces some of the most consistently interesting and insightful books. I’m thrilled to see that their latest edition arrives in March, which highlights ghost stories from around the world. Featuring work from Korea, Yemen, Tanzania, Iceland, and more, these stories explore the ways in which ghost stories transcend genre and theme. From vengeful spirits to mournful metaphors of our political and ecological horrors, I Was Alive Here Once is an essential collection for anyone interested in the many ways our past haunts our present.
The Valley of Vengeful Ghosts
By Kim Fu
Tin House Books
In the wake of her mother’s death, Eleanor uses her inheritance to purchase a model home in a valley-turned-construction site. But when torrential rain begins to seep in through the cracks of the house, her reality begins to blur into a phantasmagoria of ghosts from her past and present. The Valley of Vengeful Ghosts illustrates the horrors of home ownership and everyday life, brought to life by Kim Fu’s blisteringly ingenious writing.
The Young Lords Speak: Building Revolution on the Streets of Chicago
Edited by Jacqueline Lazú
Forward by José “Cha Cha” Jiménez
Haymarket Books
In the 1960s and 70s, the Chicago-based street gang the Young Lords mobilized their community for liberation and against gentrification, poverty, racism, and police brutality alongside Fred Hampton and the Black Panther Party. The Young Lords Speak provides an in-depth exploration of the Young Lords Organization and the ways in which it continues to inspire the ongoing struggle for Puerto Rican liberation. Weaving together archive, memoir, political speeches, and ethnography, this book is a more than worthy portrait of the Young Lords and their influence in Chicago.
Whidbey
By T Kira Madden
Mariner Books
Birdie Chang is on the run from a recently resurfaced Calvin Boyer, who abused her as a child. But after she arrives at Whidbey Island, she discovers in a bestselling memoir that she wasn’t the only woman that Calvin harmed. When the news arrives that Calvin was murdered, the resulting mystery unravels into a portrait of past violence and the flaws of rehabilitation in our country. T Kira Madden perfectly balances rage and empathy in this knotty, undeniable literary thriller.
