With spring just around the corner, it’s almost time to step out into the sunlight after a particularly long winter. Are you ready? We certainly are! As you prepare to trek through the park once again and pack your favorite snacks for a picnic, consider tossing one of these new-to-paperback books in your tote. Easy to take on the go and impossible to put down, these eleven titles will have you immersed, even amid all the springtime bustle of the outdoors happening around you. Captivating storytelling and atmospheric settings abound in these stories that dole out unexpected turns and heart-rending conclusions in equal turns.
11 Delightful New Paperback Reads Coming Out This March
In this heart-rending debut, a Jewish mother and her five-year-old musical prodigy daughter, Shira, flee from the Nazis invading their hometown in Poland. They find solace in a hayloft, where they must keep quiet to stay hidden. There, Shira’s mother tells her stories of an enchanted garden where a bird sings all the songs a young girl composes in her head. When danger closes in around them, however, Shira’s mother must flee to give Shira a chance at survival without her.
In this stunning memoir-turned-family-saga, Hadley Freeman is stunned after her grandmother’s death to find an old shoebox containing a series of mysterious photographs, a coded telegraph from the Red Cross, and a sketch signed by Picasso. These clues launch her on a years-long quest across Europe to piece together the fragments of her grandmother’s family’s history to Paris to Long Island to Auschwitz. In these astonishing discoveries lies not only the truth of Hadley’s family’s experience, but the outline of the lives of many Eastern European Jews in the last century.
Writer Hadley Freeman investigates her family’s secret history in this “exceptional” (The Washington Post) “masterpiece” (The Daily Telegraph) uncovering a story that spans a century, two World Wars, and three generations.
Hadley Freeman knew her grandmother Sara lived in France just as Hitler started to gain power, but rarely did anyone in her family talk about it. Long after her grandmother’s death, she found a shoebox tucked in the closet containing photographs of her grandmother with a mysterious stranger, a cryptic telegram from the Red Cross, and a drawing signed by Picasso.
This discovery sent Freeman on a decade-long quest to uncover the significance of these keepsakes, taking her from Picasso’s archives in Paris to a secret room in a farmhouse in Auvergne to Long Island to Auschwitz. Freeman pieces together the puzzle of her family’s past, discovering more about the lives of her grandmother and her three brothers, Jacques, Henri, and Alex. Their stories sometimes typical, sometimes astonishing—reveal the broad range of experiences of Eastern European Jews during the Holocaust.
This “frightening, inspiring, and cautionary” (Kirkus Reviews) family saga is filled with extraordinary twists, vivid characters, and famous cameos, illuminating the Jewish and immigrant experience in the World War II era. Reviewers have asked: “is there a better book about being Jewish?” (The Daily Telegraph) Addressing themes of assimilation, identity, and home, House of Glass is “a triumph” (The Bookseller) and a powerful story about the past that echoes issues that remain relevant today.
Dannie Kohan is a planner. Unlike her go-with-the-flow best friend Bella, Dannie has spent her entire life crafting her future down to the tiniest detail. And when she finally nails the interview for the job of her dreams and receives a marriage proposal from her swoony boyfriend, it seems like all her hard work has paid off. But when she wakes up the next morning, she’s in a new apartment, married to someone else. She spends one hour five years in the future before returning to her present, with a new outlook and an unexpected purpose.
An Atria Book. Atria Books has a great book for every reader.
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The highly anticipated and much beloved memoir from the iconic and fearless First Lady Michelle Obama is now available in paperback. BECOMING follows Michelle’s journey from Chicago’s South Side to the White House. Along the way, she reflects on the challenges and rewards of being a working mother, the inevitability of facing one’s own failures, and how to lead in unprecedented times. By turns self-assured and vulnerable, assertive and generous, this memoir captures not only one woman’s story but an era in our lives and history.
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In small-town Ohio in the 1950s, no one knows the lives of their neighbors like telephone operators. Vivian, who works the switchboards at Bell on East Liberty Street, has made it a habit to listen in on the calls she connects and forms opinions about everyone she hears. But when Vivian connects the local town snob to a mysterious caller who has information that, if revealed, could destroy Vivian’s life, she can no longer remain just a gossiper. Now, she must find out the truth, by any means possible.
Not only is Ernest Hemingway one of the preeminent American modernists, but he is also the preeminent writer of short stories. A true master of the form, Hemingway and his stories often now stand as seminal texts in English classrooms and creative writing classrooms alike. In this edition of Hemingway’s short stories, readers can appreciate everything from old classics like “Indian Camp” and “Hills Like White Elephants” to less popular read but no less accomplished gems. Whether readers are old Hemingway fans or newcomers, THE HEMINGWAY STORIES provides the perfect all-in-one companion.
A new collection showcasing the best of Ernest Hemingway’s short stories including his well-known classics, as featured in the magnificent three-part, six-hour PBS documentary by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick—introduced by award-winning author Tobias Wolff.
Ernest Hemingway, a literary icon and considered one of the greatest American writers of all time, is the subject of a major documentary by award-winning filmmakers Ken Burns and Lynn Novick. This intimate portrait of Hemingway—who brilliantly captured the complexities of the human condition in spare and profound prose, and whose work remains deeply influential in literature and culture—interweaves a close study of biographical events with excerpts from his work.
The Hemingway Stories features Hemingway’s most significant short stories in chronological order, so viewers of the film as well as fans old and new can follow the trajectory of his impressive life and career. Hemingway’s beloved classics, such as “The Short and Happy Life of Francis Macomber,” “Up in Michigan,” “Indian Camp,” and “The Snows of Kilimanjaro,” are accompanied by fresh insights from renowned writers around the world—Mario Vargas Llosa, Edna O’Brien, Abraham Verghese, Tim O’Brien, and Mary Karr. Tobias Wolff's introduction adds a new perspective to Hemingway’s work, and Wolff has selected additional stories that demonstrate Hemingway’s talent and range.
The power of the Ernest Hemingway’s revolutionary style is perhaps most striking in his short stories, and here readers can encounter the tales that created the legend: stories of men and women in love and in war and on the hunt, stories of a lost generation born into a fractured time. This collection is a perfect introduction for a new generation of Hemingway readers and a vital volume for any fan.
THE SUN SISTER, the sixth installment in Lucinda Riley’s international bestselling series about six adopted daughters, follows Electra, a seemingly perfect supermodel who is thrown into a state of chaos by the death of her adopted father. A letter from a woman claiming to be her grandmother sends Electra on a journey to discover the truth of her past and parentage, a story that goes back to 1939 Kenya, where young Cecily meets a notorious bachelor and a mysterious woman who will alter the course of her life forever.
An epic and transporting novel, the latest installment of the “heart-wrenching, uplifting, and utterly enthralling” (Lucy Foley, author of The Guest List) Seven Sisters series, unravelling between the dazzling streets of modern-day New York City and the breathtaking plains of 1940s colonial Kenya.
Electra d’Aplièse is a top model who seems to have it all: beauty, fame, and wealth. But beneath the glittery veneer, she’s cracking under all the pressure. When her father dies, she turns to alcohol and drugs to ease the pain. As friends and colleagues fear for her health, Electra receives a shocking letter from a stranger who claims to be her grandmother.
In 1939, New Yorker Cecily Huntley-Morgan arrives in Kenya’s Lake Naivasha region for the exciting chance to stay with her godmother, the famous socialite Kiki Preston. But after a sheltered upbringing, she’s astounded by the hedonistic antics of the other ex-pats in the infamous Happy Valley set. Cecily soon grows to love her stunning but complicated new home, and she even accepts a proposal of marriage from an enigmatic older cattle farmer. After a shocking discovery and with war looming, Cecily feels isolated and alone. Until she meets a young woman in the woods and makes her a promise that will change the course of her life forever.
Featuring Lucinda Riley’s “engaging and mesmerizing” (Library Journal, starred review) storytelling and filled with unforgettable and moving characters, The Sun Sister explores how love can cross seemingly impossible boundaries.
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In this twisty and chilling thriller, three women are poised to fight to maintain the balances they’ve struck between their personal and professional lives. Laura, who recently returned to Morris and Wood after maternity leave, finds herself outmaneuvered (despite her close relationship with CEO Harry Wood) by the woman she’d hired to cover her desk. Mia, despite being brought on only as a temporary hire, has no intentions of leaving and a secret to protect. And Janie, who sacrificed it all to support her husband’s agency, has secrets of her own that are threatening at last to be revealed.
From the author of the “breathtaking, bone-chilling work of psychological suspense” (Cristina Alger, USA TODAY bestselling author) Her One Mistake, comes a riveting new suspense novel about three ambitious women whose lives are turned upside down after a horrifying fire threatens to expose a tangled web of lies.
Laura has returned to work at Morris and Wood after her maternity leave, only to discover that the woman she brought in to cover for her isn’t going anywhere. Despite her close relationship with the agency’s powerful CEO, she feels sidelined—and outmaneuvered—as she struggles to balance the demands of work and motherhood.
Mia was only supposed to be a temporary hire at Morris and Wood, but she’s managed to make herself indispensable to everyone. Everyone, that is, except Laura. If people only knew why she was so desperate to keep her job, they might not want her to stay.
Janie gave up everything to support her husband and the successful agency he runs. But she has her own dark secret to protect…and will go to any lengths to keep it safe.
With her signature “chilling, captivating” (Megan Miranda, New York Times bestselling author) prose, Heidi Perks weaves another bone-chilling and unputdownable thriller in the vein of Watching You and The Couple Next Door.
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Molly Bit is an actress. And soon, it’s clear that she’s not just going to become a starving artist; she’s destined for greatness. Yet as she sets out on her rise to fame, things get complicated: everyone—from her collaborator to her producer to her fans—wants something from her. And soon, what they want may cost Molly her life. In this haunting yet compassionate debut, Dan Bevacqua takes a closer look at the Hollywood system and our own complicity in its darkness.
A “slick page-turner” (Vanity Fair) about the rise of an enigmatic Hollywood star and her legacy, from Columbia MFA graduate Dan Bevacqua.
A tragic death was not part of the script.
Molly Bit is a great actress. From her first acting classes to her big break she is different from the others struggling to make it.
But fame is perilous. She uses—and is used by—the Hollywood system. Her collaborator is an addict. The producer who promises her stardom is ruthless and unhinged by grief. Fans, friends, strangers—they want and want. And one dangerously obsessed fan will take everything.
Insightful, witty, and shocking, Molly Bit “delves into the dark corners of fame…[while] managing to be a scathingly funny exposé of celebrity life” (Laura Sims, author of Looker) and explores the high stakes of our culture’s fascination with the famous and our complicity in their rise and fall. Molly Bit is a “fast, funny, and delightfully fun” (Adam Wilson, author of Flatscreen) debut novel that offers a heartbreaking reflection of fame, obsession, and art’s power to redeem loss.
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In this poetic, multigenerational tale, a family attempts to stay together against all odds in the midst of the Vietnam War. It’s the late 1940s in North Vietnam and Trần Diệu Lan and her children are forced to flee their family home when the Communists come to power. Years later, her granddaughter Hương is coming of age as she watches her family members leave to fight in the same bloody conflict that has tormented them for decades. THE MOUNTAINS SING offers a powerful portrait of the resounding impact of violence alongside the penetrating power of kindness.
Small and isolated, Beartown doesn’t have much going for it except its junior ice hockey team, and the pressure of representing their community is a lot for a group of teenage boys. When the tension explodes in a shocking way at the national semifinals, a young girl is traumatized, and the town is devastated. Soon, neighbors turn against one another and it seems Beartown is more at risk than ever before. A profound look at a small town, BEARTOWN is a captivating bestselling novel with a fresh new paperback cover featuring the new HBO miniseries.
Now an HBO Original Series
“You’ll love this engrossing novel.” —People
Named a Best Book of the Year by LibraryReads, BookBrowse, and Goodreads
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Anxious People, a dazzling and profound novel about a small town with a big dream—and the price required to make it come true.
By the lake in Beartown is an old ice rink, and in that ice rink Kevin, Amat, Benji, and the rest of the town’s junior ice hockey team are about to compete in the national semi-finals—and they actually have a shot at winning. All the hopes and dreams of this place now rest on the shoulders of a handful of teenage boys.
Under that heavy burden, the match becomes the catalyst for a violent act that will leave a young girl traumatized and a town in turmoil. Accusations are made and, like ripples on a pond, they travel through all of Beartown.
This is a story about a town and a game, but even more about loyalty, commitment, and the responsibilities of friendship; the people we disappoint even though we love them; and the decisions we make every day that come to define us. In this story of a small forest town, Fredrik Backman has found the entire world.
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