Though this isn’t the drag queen and TV personality’s first memoir, it’s arguably RuPaul’s most revealing. Excavating questions of childhood love, a reckoning with his challenging father and the power found in thinking more expansively about gender (especially as a “feminine Black man, in violation of society’s norms by virtue of just existing,” as he writes), “The House of Hidden Meanings” is a powerful coming-of-age of a prominent queer icon.
Dey Street, March 5
As a mother disturbed by Donald Trump’s presidency and the misogyny and inequalities she sees as endemic to many facets of American life, Raboteau turns a critical eye on a number of contemporary issues, including police relations, pollution and the pandemic. The author is an English professor and also a street photographer, who finds hope in “making private anxieties public concerns,” as she writes, as well as in murals and signage, people and birds, as she seeks refuge for herself and her children.
Holt, March 12
The philosopher takes aim at the new interpretations and weaponization of “gender” in what might be read as a follow-up to their pioneering 1990 book, “Gender Trouble.” No longer just “a box to be checked,” gender has become a politicized concept — and one at the heart of a number of moral panics among far-right and authoritarian movements, Butler writes. The book offers thoughtful arguments placed within larger sociopolitical movements, showing why the modern conception of gender deserves, in Butler’s view, a rigorous examination.
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, March 19
In her 2018 testimony in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the author, a psychologist and professor, alleged that Brett Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted her at a high school party. Full of unforgettable moments and pathos, Ford’s words dominated headlines. Nearly six years later, she provides a behind-the-scenes look at both the lead-up to her testimony and its aftermath.
St. Martin’s, March 19
In his ode to his home state, Ohio, and basketball, the National Book Award finalist weaves in insightful reflections about so-called bad neighborhoods, grief and staying put in Columbus even as so many peers chose to leave. Dotted with poetic aphorisms and split into sections reflecting a basketball game — a pregame, quarters and a game clock counting down subsections — basketball becomes a lens through which almost everything else in life might be refracted.
Random House, March 26
The Washington Post’s nonfiction book critic mixes analyses of popular culture with an incisive look at literature, film and sex. Rothfeld pushes several steps beyond the surface to reveal a variety of arguments, like how disgust can be a reprieve from banality, how democratizing culture has done so little for politics and how minimalism depletes us spiritually.
Metropolitan Books, April 2
This “anti-memoir” grapples with being a parent and a child as nature is decimated. The book wastes no time exploring the disturbing, persuasive specifics of how humans harm and slaughter animals, reducing them to objects. Full of personal anecdotes and curious histories, this book suggests a shift in our view of ourselves — one in which we are no longer at the center of the world.
Norton, April 2
Rushdie was grievously injured in 2022 after being stabbed onstage at a literary event. Now, he tells the harrowing story of his attempted killing and recovery, advancing an argument about the power of art to counter violence.
Random House, April 16
Sanger, a New York Times journalist, and Brooks, a foreign policy writer and researcher, offer a deeply-reported account of America’s relations with Russia and China after the Cold War. The questions are timely — Will Xi invade Taiwan? How will cyberwarfare play out? Will the U.S. continue to be a global leader amid its internal political strife? — and anchored by a look at how is global power captured, held and lost.
Crown, April 16
To have a grievance is not inherently bad — it can be a motivator for important change. But as The New York Times contributing columnist and Duke professor lays out in his latest book, certain grievances have been confounded and taken too far. At once an excoriation of Fox News, college speech policing, self-obsession fueled by social media and “oppression Olympics,” this is a book that finds faults and possibilities on both sides of the political aisle. A final “antidote” chapter proposes a reprieve rooted in humility.
Avid Reader Press, April 30
The daughter of an Indian father and Filipino mother, Nezhukumatathil has crafted 40 short essays, each centered on a different food, from mangoes to waffles. Most include a historical dive and an insightful takeaway, such as how messiness is part of cooking, as it is of life. (And yet, she writes, “you make it anyway.”)
Ecco, April 30
Larson, one of today’s pre-eminent nonfiction storytellers, trawls a variety of archives to explore the historically momentous months between Abraham Lincoln’s election and the Battle of Fort Sumter — the end of which, in 1861, began the Civil War.
Crown, April 30
Long before Misty Copeland, there was the Dance Theater of Harlem: This account, building on an article for The New York Times, follows Sheila Rohan, Gayle McKinney-Griffith, Lydia Abarca-Mitchell, Marcia Sells and Karlya Shelton-Benjamin, pioneering dancers who performed for the likes of the Queen of England and Mick Jagger. Valby dives into the story of the group, including their successes and struggles, and brings their overlooked history to light.
Pantheon, April 30
Coming Home, by Brittney Griner with Michelle Burford
In a season of newsworthy memoirs, this will no doubt be one of the biggest. Griner, a W.N.B.A. star and two-time Olympic gold medalist, was detained by the authorities at a Russian airport for carrying hashish oil in her luggage. She was later jailed and eventually freed after nearly 10 months in a prisoner exchange. Her memoir, per her publisher, is about her time in a Russian penal colony, but it’s also about how her family and her love for her wife helped her through some of the most difficult moments.
Knopf, May 7
The front woman of Le Tigre and Bikini Kill, Hanna provides background on her challenging childhood and time at the Evergreen State College, and the excitement and risks of creating a punk “girl band” that became a rallying cry for feminism and a stand against male violence. Told in something of a stream of consciousness style, “Rebel Girl” jumps briskly through stories, including her struggle with Lyme disease and friendships with Kurt Cobain, Joan Jett and other musical legends.
Ecco, May 14
The British journalist’s 2019 book, “Midnight in Chernobyl,” clarified and retold a history many thought they already knew well. With “Challenger,” Higginbotham unearths new archival information and conducts original reporting to provide a detailed account of the disaster. The book takes a wide lens, exploring the tragedy and its aftermath but also the years leading up to it, including tracing the lives of the seven crew members who died.
Avid Reader Press, May 14
A journey into messiness and transcendence, this collection includes 10 essays on iconic divas, and draws on the author’s own experience. Moving from the “Mexican” side of San Antonio to the “white” side as a girl, Paredez, a poet and professor at Columbia University, recounts how “the sound of a diva’s voice” taught her what it meant to be Mexican. She explores the careers of divas — defined broadly — from Tina Turner to Venus and Serena Williams, and places them at the center of American ideas on feminism, the free market and freedom since at least the 1970s.
Norton, May 21
