28 books that are absolute must-reads this spring

Forget the dreary days and heavy reads of January.

The weather is warming, the flower are blooming— and captivating, juicy new books are hitting store shelves.

Have a look.

FICTION

James
Percival Everett (Doubleday)

Everett’s 2020 novel “Telephone” was a Pulitzer finalist.

His latest is a reimagining of “Huckleberry Finn” told from the point of view of Jim the escaped slave.

It’s drawing comparisons to Barbara Kingsolver’s “Demon Copperhead.” Out now

Table for Two: Fictions
Amor Towles (Viking)

The latest from the bestselling author of “A Gentleman in Moscow” and “The Lincoln Highway” is a collection of short stories.

Six take place in New York City, while the seventh is a longer novella set in Hollywood’s golden age and featuring the Evelyn Ross character from Towles’s “Rules of Civility.” Out now

City in Ruins 
Don Winslow (William Morrow) 

In the third and final installment in the Danny Ryan trilogy — which also includes blockbusters “City of Dreams” and “City on Fire” — the Irish dockworker-turned-mobster is now a wealthy, respected casino owner with a beautiful family.

But, when he tries to expand his Vegas empire, he starts a war with other power brokers — and his past comes back to haunt him. Out now

The Divorcées
Rowan Beaird (Flatiron Books) 

In the mid-1900s, unhappy wives flocked to Reno, Nevada, for quick and easy divorces.

The state’s only requirement was six weeks of residency, which could be easily fulfilled with a stay at a “divorce ranch” resort.

This buzzy debut is set on one of the ranches, as a prim midwestern housewife named Lois soaks in her new freedom and mingles with glamorous fellow guests. Out now

The Husbands
Holly Gramazio (Doubleday)

It’s “Sliding Doors” in the time of Tinder.

Lauren, a young London woman, returns to her flat after a boozy night out for a friend’s bachelorette party and discovers she has a husband named Michael that she doesn’t recognize — and has no recollection of marrying.

When Michael goes up to the attic to fix something, a different husband comes down.

Lauren soon realizes that she can send her hubby up to the attic and get a new, different partner to try out, but it creates a ripple effect in the lives of her friends, family and neighbors. April 9

A Calamity of Souls
David Baldacci (Grand Central)

The bestselling author’s latest is being hailed by some as his best ever.

It’s set in Virginia in the late 1960s, where a white lawyer and a black lawyer with little in common team up to defend a black man accused of murder.

Baldacci, a former trial lawyer herself, brings a keen eye to the proceedings. April 16

The Paris Novel
Ruth Reichl (Random House) 

The second novel from the former New York Times restaurant critic and Gourmet editor-in-chief naturally involves some sumptuous meals.

A cautious woman grieving the death of her estranged mother is forced out of her comfort zone when she gets a one-way ticket to Paris as an inheritance. April 23

This Strange Eventful History
Claire Messud (W. W. Norton & Company)

This sprawling 448-page epic follows the pieds-noir Cassar family for seven decades, as they’re separated during World War II and later reckon with their relationship to their Algerian homeland.

Patriarch Gaston and his wife anchor the narrative with their love story.

Messud, who was long listed for the Booker Prizer with 2006’s “The Emperor’s Children,” has said the new book was partly inspired by her own family’s saga. May 7 

Long Island
Colm Tóibín (Scribner)

Toibin’s acclaimed 2009 novel “Brooklyn” told the story of a young woman named Ellis Lacey — played by Saoirse Ronan in the Oscar-nominated film adaptation — emigrating to NYC from Brooklyn in the 1950s and falling in love with Italian plumber Tony.

The new book picks up in 1976, and finds Ellis and Tony married with teenage children and living on Long Island.

But one day an Irishman knocks on the door and tells Ellis that Tony has impregnated his wife and he intends to leave the baby on her doorstep. April 30

You Like It Darker: Stories
Stephen King (Scribner)

The horror master’s latest is a collection of 12 thrilling short stories, including one called “Rattlesnakes” that’s a sequel of sorts to his 1981 classic “Cujo.”

It focuses on a grieving widower who unexpectedly gets an inheritance — but that comes with some unpleasant conditions. May 21

Lies and Weddings
Kevin Kwan (Doubleday)

The latest from the author of “Crazy Rich Asians” features more lavish weddings and lusty affairs of the wealthy.

Rufus Leung Gresham is the son of a glamorous supermodel and on track to be an earl, but his playboy lifestyle has depleted his trust fund.

So, his mother comes up with a plan for him to seduce a rich woman at his sister’s wedding.

Too bad Rufus has always loved the girl-next-door, whose daddy is a mere doctor, not a sultan. May 21

You Are Here
David Nicholls (Harper)

This sweet love story from the author of the acclaimed “One Day” focuses on two wayward souls pushed together by a mutual friend.

Michael can barely stands to be home since his wife left, and spends his days wandering the English countryside.

Marnie has locked herself away in her London flat to avoid friends and memories of her bitter divorce. May 28

The Winner
Teddy Wayne (Harper)

Columbia Pictures has already snapped up the right rights to this sexy, darkly comic thriller.

Conor O’Toole, a strapping, working-class law student, takes a summer job teaching tennis in an exclusive gated enclave near Cape Cod.

When few residents sign up for lessons, Conor finds gets an extremely satisfying side gig servicing a wealthy older woman.

Things get complicated when he falls in love with a gal his own age.

Wayne’s writing is at once breezy and sharp as Conor gradually transforms from a sympathetic scholarship kid to a junior Patrick Bateman. May 28

Godwin
Joseph O’Neill (Pantheon)

O’Neill first novel, 2008’s Pen/Faulkner-award winning “Netherland,” used cricket as a window into post-9/11 immigrant life in New York City.

His latest uses soccer to examine global capitalism and the aftermath of colonialism.

A British soccer agent convinces his half-brother, a writer based in Pittsburgh, to go with him to Africa to scout a talented teen whom he thinks could be the next big football phenom. June 4

NONFICTION

A History of the World in Twelve Shipwrecks
David Gibbins (St. Martin’s Press) 

Gibbins, an underwater archaeologist and the author of the Jack Howard novels, examines history through the lens of various key shipwrecks over the centuries — from a Viking warship in the 10th century to a British cargo steamship destroyed by Nazi U-boats during World War II. Out now

Sociopath: A Memoir
Patric Gagne (Simon & Schuster)

Growing up, Patric Gagne always felt different: She didn’t have the same reactions as her peers, and seemed to have no emotions at all.

In college, she learned she was a sociopath — and feared what she might become.

In this revealing memoir, she shares how she came to terms with her diagnosis, got a PhD in psychology and rekindled her relationship with a high school boyfriend. Out now

Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI
Ethan Mollick (Portfolio)

A Wharton professor urges readers to engage with AI as a co-worker rather than fear it as a competitor.

“Things are about to get very strange,” writes Mollick. “Many of the companies developing AI are going further, hoping to create a sentient machine, a truly new form of co-intelligence that would coexist with us on Earth. To get a handle on what this means, we need to start from the beginning, with a very basic question: What is AI?” Out now

Somehow: Thoughts on Love
Anne Lamott (Riverhead Books)

For her 20th book, the beloved author of “Bird by Bird” explores love in its various iterations, from the devotion one has to a difficult child to late-in-life romance.

“Love is our only hope,” she writes. “Love acts like Gandhi and our pets and Jesus and Mr. Bean and Mr. Rogers and Bette Midler. Love just won’t be pinned down. Love is Florence Nightingale and Coyote Trickster, who messes with us by way of his teachings about how we might possibly, grudgingly, awaken to the glory of life.” April 9

Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder
Salman Rushdie (Random House)

The acclaimed, 76-year-old winning author of “The Satanic Verses” and “Midnight’s Children” reflects on the violent 2022 attack that stole his sight in one eye — and almost took his life.

“This was a necessary book for me to write: a way to take charge of what happened, and to answer violence with art,” Rushdie has said. April 16

Everest, Inc.: The Renegades and Rogues Who Built an Industry at the Top of the World 
Will Cockrell (Gallery Books) 

Cockrell talked with guides, Sherpas, amateur climbers and Hollywood types to craft this compelling look at how the industry of climbing the world’s tallest peak came to be.

But despite the tragedies and over-commercialization of the mountain in recent decades, Cockrell’s tall tale is ultimately an uplifting one. April 16

An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s
Doris Kearns Goodwin (Simon & Schuster)

Kearns Goodwin’s previous books include presidential histories such as “Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln” and the Pulitzer-prize winning “No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Homefront in World War II.”

With her latest, she gets personal, reflecting on the turbulent decade as she and her late husband of 42 years, Kennedy speechwriter Dick Goodwin, experienced it. April 16

The Rulebreaker: The Life and Times of Barbara Walters
Susan Page (Simon & Schuster)

This look at the legacy of the late, groundbreaking journalist, who passed away in 2022, relies on some 150 interviews to a paint a broad, nuanced view of Walters.

Page writes of her work ethic and ambition stemming, in part, from a need to hold it together after her famous father’s attempted suicide; her complicated marriages, big interviews and other career accomplishments — including launching “The View” at age 67, when many of her female contemporaries had been put out to pasture. April 23

The Backyard Bird Chronicles 
Amy Tan (Knopf)

In 2016, overwhelmed by social media and the divisiveness plaguing the country, the “Joy Luck Club” author and self-proclaimed “Tiger Mom” turned to birding in search of peace and hope.

This charming book, which she both wrote and illustrated, shows her softer side — and her talent for drawing. April 23

The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War 
Erik Larson (Crown)

The bestselling author of “The Splendid and the Vile” and “The Devil in the White City” sheds a light on November 1860 to April 1861 — the five months between Abraham Lincoln being elected president and the start of the Civil War. April 30

The Swans of Harlem: Five Black Ballerinas, Fifty Years of Sisterhood, and Their Reclamation of a Groundbreaking History
Karen Valby (Pantheon)

Before there was Misty Copeland, there was Lydia Abarca.

At the height of the civil rights movement, she was a founding member of Dance Theater of Harlem, the first black woman to appear on the cover of Dance magazine, and the first black prima ballerina for a major company.

Yet, she and her pioneering contemporaries had largely been forgotten to history — until now. April 30

The Year of Living Constitutionally : One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Constitution’s Original Meaning
A.J. Jacobs (Crown)

Jacobs follows up his 2007 bestseller “The Year of Living Biblically” with another annual experiment.

He walks around Manhattan with a musket and a tricorne hat, shares his opinions with strangers via messages written on parchment with a quill, lights his home with a candle and tries to take over his wife’s job (since 18th-century American women weren’t allowed to sign contracts).

The resulting book is both hilarious and illuminating. May 7

You Never Know: A Memoir
Tom Selleck (Day Street Books)

The 79-year-old “Magnum P.I.” hunk shares his journey from college athlete to “Dating Game” host to major movie star.

He also dishes on friendships with various A-Listers — including Frank Sinatra, Carol Burnett and James Garner — along the way. May 7

Amphibious Soul: Finding the Wild in a Tame World 
Craig Foster (HarperOne)

This memoir, from the creator of the Academy Award-winning documentary “My Octopus Teacher,’ reflects on a career spent traveling to far-flung places and communing with nature.

“I’ve come to know and love many extraordinary creatures,” Foster has said. “I’ve learned a great deal about their secret lives, but, ironically, they’ve taught me so much about my own life and my humanity.” May 14