Need some fresh fiction (or semifictionalized memoir) for spring? Here are six good bets, newly out in paperback. Happy reading!
“Becoming Duchess Goldblatt” by Anonymous (HMH Books, $15.99). Quite possibly the greatest book ever to be born from a pseudonymous Twitter account, this nonfiction gem is written by a reclusive real-life writer who created a wise, enchanting online persona for herself, inspired by the Frans Hals painting “Portrait of an Elderly Lady.” (Sample recent tweet: “I’ve left a cardboard box lined with old towels by the back door. When my sadness comes crawling home in the wee hours, it can sleep it off outside.”) Duchess Goldblatt wants the world to be a better place; by the time you’ve finished this moving, funny memoir, it will be.
“If I Had Your Face” by Frances Cha (Random House, $14.99). Cha’s debut novel, set in contemporary Seoul, South Korea, follows four young women making their way through a world in which success seems dictated by appearance. “At first you might make the mistake of thinking Cha’s story is all about wealth and plastic surgery and the pursuit of an impossible standard of beauty,” wrote New York Times reviewer Elisabeth Egan. “But take a closer look and you’ll find the sisterhood at the heart of this ambitious book.”
“The Cactus League” by Emily Nemens (Picador, $17). Need a good baseball novel for spring? This one’s a delight, written by a former Seattleite who said she was inspired by going to Mariners games with her father. Set in Arizona during spring training, the book follows a series of people connected to professional baseball: a coach, a player’s wife, a sports agent, a fan. Reading it last year, I wrote that, “We get inside their heads, one by one, and watch as their stories gradually and gracefully converge under the cool, late-February Arizona sunshine — a complex structure that Nemens makes look as easy as a major-leaguer nonchalantly catching a line drive.”
