14 Books I'm Most Anticipating in March 2023
This month's Bar\Heart Book List is a whiplash. Just like the world.
Hey, ya’ll!
It’s time for the March Bar\Heart Book List of the 14 new books I am most anticipating this month.
This list is heavy on nonfiction, taking us everywhere from Matthew Desmond’s new polemic on poverty to a comedy of manners set in New York’s 1%. Plus, there’s an aging country star facing her childhood, a bestselling author watching Hollywood destroy her novel, a deep dive into the Reality Winner case, and a beautiful new memoir by Samin Nosrat’s bestie.
Just a reminder that these are books I am anticipating this month. Many have not yet been released, but I showcase them early and encourage you to pre-order. Why? Because those early sales all count toward week one sales.
Why is that important? Because authors need several thousand sales in one week to have a chance at making the New York Times’ bestseller list. So a pre-order is more helpful than later sales because it can propel you on to the list and hopefully 🤞help you find a wider audience. (But all sales are good! All readers are wonderful! We love you all!)
For real. It just happened to Rebecca Makkai, whose book, I Have Some Questions for You was on the February Bar\Heart Booklist. It was published on Feb. 21 and made the next week’s New York Times’ bestseller list — unlike her previous novel, which was a runaway critical success. Here’s how she explains it:
The Great Believers has steadily sold well and found an incredible audience, but to make the list, you need a ton of sales all in one week.
So please, if you’re ordering and can order early, please do so. And shop with your local bookseller or via Bookshop.org, which support indie bookstores. That’s what I link to below, and I do earn a few dollars for any book you buy through them.
Ok. Happy reading! And leave me a comment at the end about which books you are most excited about.
Oh! P.S.: This list is too long for many email services, so you might want to read this on the Substack site or on app. Didn’t know Substack has an app where you can get all of your favorite newsletters in one place? You do now! Download it here.
Fiction | Satire | Feminist
American Mermaid by Julia Langbein
Doubleday; March 21, 2023
Plot: Broke English teacher Penelope Schleeman is as surprised as anyone when her feminist novel American Mermaid becomes a best-seller. Lured by the promise of a big payday, she quits teaching and moves to L.A. to turn the novel into an action flick with the help of some studio hacks. But as she's pressured to change her main character from a fierce, androgynous eco-warrior to a teen sex object in a clamshell bra, strange things start to happen. Threats appear in the screenplay; siren calls lure Penelope’s co-writers into danger. Is Penelope losing her mind, or has her mermaid come to life, enacting revenge for Hollywood’s violations?
Why I’m Excited: Honestly, I was curious and liked the cover. Then I watched this book-promo video and Julia’s takedown of the Little Mermaid made me laugh.
Critics: “American Mermaid is, like a mermaid herself, a beautiful mix of two things. It is a brilliantly funny and perfectly modern satire, as well as being an elegant exploration of soulfulness, longing and belonging, and the ungovernable wildness of nature herself. I’ve never read anything quite like it, and I loved it.” — Elizabeth Gilbert, bestselling author of City of Girls and Eat, Pray, Love
Fiction | Literary Mystery
Biography of X: A Novel by Catherine Lacey
Farrar, Straus and Giroux; March 21, 2023
Plot: When X—an iconoclastic artist and shape-shifter—falls dead in her office, her widow CM, wild with grief, hurls herself into writing X's biography. She traces X’s peripatetic trajectory over decades, from Europe to the ruins of America's divided territories, and through her collaborations and feuds with everyone from Bowie and Waits to Sontag and Acker. And when she finally understands the scope of X’s defining artistic project, CM realizes her wife’s deceptions were far crueler than she imagined.
Why I’m Excited: It’s on everyone’s lists and I love a book about art and artists.
Critics: [A] staggering achievement . . . [a] masterpiece about the slippery nature of art, identity, and truth." ―Adrienne Westenfeld, Esquire
Nonfiction | Social Science | Economics
Bootstrapped : Liberating Ourselves from the American Dream by Alissa Quart
Ecco; March 14, 2023
Plot: The promise that you can “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” is central to the story of the American dream. However, time and again we have seen the way this foundational myth, with its emphasis on individual determination, brittle self-sufficiency, and personal accomplishment, does not help us. Instead, as income inequality rises around us, we are left with shame and self-blame for our condition. Looking at a range of delusions and half solutions—from “grit” to the deceptions of hyper-capitalist philanthropy, from the false Horatio Alger story to the rise of GoFundMe—Quart reveals how we were steered away from robust social programs that would address the root causes of our problems.
Why I’m Excited: You might be surprised to know that I have a degree in economics and have a long-standing interest in poverty and inequality – something Alissa Quart focuses on daily as the executive director of the Economic Hardship Reporting Project. She always writes with clarity and compassion. I will read anything by her.
Critics: “Quart’s vision of an America where no one needs to put on “codified theatrical performances via social media” to get the help they need is a breath of fresh air. This eloquent and incisive call to action inspires.” -Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Nonfiction | Biography | Espionage
Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs: A Journey Through the Deep State by Kerry Howley
Knopf; March 21 2023
Plot: You may think you know the story of Reality Winner, who leaked classified information about Russia’s interference with the 2016 elections. But Howley shows us there’s so much more. Following Winner’s unlikely journey from rural Texas to a federal courtroom, Howley maps a hidden world, drawing in John Walker Lindh, Lady Gaga, Edward Snowden, a rescue dog named Outlaw Babyface Nelson, and a mother who will do whatever it takes to get her daughter out of jail. Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs is a free fall into a world where everything is recorded and nothing is sacred, from a singular writer unafraid to ask essential questions about the strangeness of modern life.
Why I’m Excited: I feel like the story of Reality Winner completely passed me by. But I’d love to have a deep dive into her life with Kerry Howley, whose work at New York magazine is always so vivid and sharp.
Critics: This is a work of profound moral and political importance, and an exhilarating evolution of an art form by one of our great contemporary writers. Howley meditates on freedom, privacy, storytelling, and the state, carefully following the threads of the War on Terror to the political upheavals of the present day. Not only is Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs a necessary expansion and corrective to established narratives of decades of American overreach and cruelty, it is a beautiful, stylish, nuanced, and empathetic work of art, unlike any I've read before." — Lydia Kiesling, author of The Golden State
Fiction | Comedy of Manners
Community Board by Tara Conklin
Mariner Books; March 28, 2023
Plot: Darcy Clipper, prodigal daughter, nearly thirty, has returned home to Murbridge, Massachusetts, after her life takes an unwelcome left turn. Murbridge, Darcy is convinced, will welcome her home and provide a safe space in which she can nurse her wounds and harbor grudges, both real and imagined. But Murbridge, like so much else Darcy thought to be fixed and immutable, has changed. As Murbridge begins to take shape around Darcy, both online and in person, Darcy will consider the most fundamental of American questions: What can she ask of her community? And what does she owe it in return?
Why I’m Excited: I’ve read the first few chapters and it’s a fun, propulsive read. And I’m enjoying her use of the “community board” – those NextDoor type posts many of us are too familiar with – to anchor the story and absurdity.
Critics: “I can’t believe how good this book is! Tara Conklin once again dazzles with a hilarious, heartfelt, and wholly original tale. She writes about depression and grief with such a light touch, and her mesmerizing sentences immediately draw you into this quirky and fun community—one I was sad to leave behind! Read this!” -Etaf Rum, author of A Woman Is No Man
Nonfiction | Social Science | Feminist
Emotional Labor: The Invisible Work Shaping Our Lives and How to Reclaim Our Power by Rose Hackman
Flatiron Books; March 28, 2023
Plot: “Emotional labor.” The term might sound familiar. . .but what does it mean exactly? Initially used to describe the unacknowledged labor flight attendants did to make guests feel welcomed and safe—on top of their actual job description—the phrase has burst into the national lexicon in recent years. Hackman traces the history of the term and exposes common manifestations of the phenomenon. She describes the many ways women and girls are forced to edit the expressions of their emotions to accommodate and elevate the emotions of others. But Hackman doesn’t simply diagnose a problem—she empowers us to combat patriarchy and forge pathways for radical evolution, justice, and change.
Why I’m Excited: Rose is an acquaintance and I’ve been following her work on this subject for years.
Critics: “In this welcome and informative volume, Hackman gives us a bracing, wide-angle view of the many hidden theaters of emotional labor―at the kitchen sink, check-out counter, corporate meeting. Done wisely, emotional labor is a great gift to civilization we should all know about―intimately.” ― Arlie Hochschild, author of National Book Award finalist Strangers in Their Own Land and the New York Times bestseller The Second Shift
Fiction | Coming of Age | Country Music
The Farewell Tour by Stephanie Clifford
Harper; March 7, 2023
Plot: It’s 1980, and Lillian Waters is hitting the road for the very last time.Jaded from her years in the music business, perpetually hungover, and diagnosed with career-ending vocal problems, Lillian cobbles together a nationwide farewell tour featuring some old hands from her early days playing honky-tonk bars in Washington State and Nashville, plus a few new ones. She yearns to feel the rush of making live music one more time and bask in the glow of a packed house before she makes the last, and most important, stop on the tour: the farm she left behind at age ten and the sister she is finally ready to confront about an agonizing betrayal in their childhood.
Why I’m Excited: I’m interested in the protagonist and how the story compares to works about men in the brokedown phase of their music careers, such as Crazy Heart. Also, any book Sherman Alexie says to read by dusty barlight is probably a book for me.
Critics: What happens when your coming-of-age story begins with your retirement tour? What happens when we become too old to feel young? Stephanie Clifford's novel is about regret, love, despair, country music triumph and failure, and betrayal. It's about ‘the music spreading...out from the migrant camps and down from the mountain towns, over radio waves, into jukeboxes.’ It's about a Nashville where everybody is hungry for fame and a Walla Walla, Washington, where everybody is broken by shame. This is a novel to be read by dusty barlight and wheatfield sunlight. I loved it.” — Sherman Alexie
Fiction | Thriller
The Lost Americans by Christopher Bollen
Harper; March 14, 2023
Plot: When the lifeless body of Eric Castle, a weapons technician for a major American defense contractor, is found under his hotel balcony, both his employer and the Egyptian authorities quickly declare his death a suicide. But the dead man’s sister, Cate, doesn’t believe Eric took his own life and is determined to get to the truth. Unfortunately, Cate’s quest raises more questions—and problems—than she ever imagined, as she takes on not only the arms company’s top brass but the Egyptian military, secret police, and a slew of American expats with their own reasons to keep the dead buried once and for all.
Why I’m Excited: I love a good literary thriller set in a beautiful locale. I’m hoping for a Tailor of Panama or Constant Gardener-type book.
Critics: “Sharp new literary thriller.” – Vanity Fair
Fiction | Comedy of the 1%
Pineapple Street by Jenny Jackson
Pamela Dorman Books; March 7, 2023
Plot: Rife with the indulgent pleasures of life among New York’s one-percenters, Pineapple Street is a smart, escapist novel that sparkles with wit. Full of recognizable, loveable—if fallible—characters, it’s about the peculiar unknowability of someone else’s family, the miles between the haves and have-nots, and the insanity of first love—all wrapped in a story that is a sheer delight.
Why I’m Excited: A smart, absorbing book set in the riches of New York? Ordering this now for my summer beach-reading needs. Plus, everyone from Vogue to Time to Bustle has it on their most-anticipated lists. Jackson is also an editor at famed publishing house Knopf and has worked with some great talents, such as Emily St. John Mandel and Cormac McCarthy.
Critics: “A delicious new Gilded Age family drama… a guilty pleasure that also feels like a sociological text.” —Vogue
Nonfiction | Economics | Social Science
Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond
Crown, March 21, 2023
Plot: The United States is the richest country on earth, yet it has more poverty than any other advanced democracy. Why? Sociologist Matthew Desmond sets forth a new and hard-won answer to this question, revealing that there is so much poverty in America not in spite of our wealth but because of it. Drawing on history, research, and original reporting, he argues that affluent Americans knowingly and unknowingly work to keep poor people poor.
Why I’m Excited: If you haven’t read his previous book, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Evicted, go get that now. I’ll wait. Once you’ve read it, you’ll understand why Matthew Desmond is a must-read on my list. He makes big arguments that will piss some people off – but they are well reported and ask everyone to rethink their place in the system.
Critics: “Reading Poverty, by America, I felt like Matthew Desmond was sitting at my kitchen table, explaining the complexities of poverty in a way I could completely understand. This book is essential and instructive, hopeful and enraging. It is a road map for how we can be better people, working together to build a better country.” — Ann Patchett
Fiction | Rural | Family
Take What You Need by Idra Novey
Viking; March 14, 2023
Plot: Set in the Allegheny Mountains of Appalachia, Take What You Need traces the parallel lives of Jean and her beloved but estranged stepdaughter, Leah, who’s sought a clean break from her rural childhood. In Leah’s urban life with her young family, she’s revealed little about Jean, how much she misses her stepmother’s hard-won insights and joyful lack of inhibition. But with Jean’s death, Leah must return to sort through what’s been left behind. What Leah discovers is staggering: Jean has filled her ramshackle house with giant sculptures she’s welded from scraps of the area’s industrial history. There’s also a young man now living in the house who played an unknown role in Jean’s last years and in her art.
Why I’m Excited: I honestly can’t say. But each time I winnowed this list, I couldn’t bring myself to remove Take What You Need. Maybe it’s the setting. Maybe it’s because I want to understand the giant sculptures welded from local scrap. I can’t quite pinpoint my interest – but sometimes that’s the exact reason you need to read something.
Critics: Ms. Novey…is adept at spooling out tensions to keep readers eagerly turning pages. More importantly, she knows how to forge ‘some new kind of beauty’ by fusing disparate materials—scrap metal, fractured mirrors, camera lenses—that reflect shattered families and egos, dead-end poverty, divisive disdain and distrust, hope and love. Take What You Need is a heart-rending book, but it’s also a beautiful celebration of ‘the glorious pleasure of erecting something new,’ be it a work of art or a human connection.” —Wall Street Journal
Nonfiction | Sociology | History
The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War by Jeff Sharlet
W.W. Norton & Co.; March 21, 2023
Plot: Across the country, men “of God” glorify materialism, a gluttony of the soul, while citing Scripture and preparing for civil war—a firestorm they long for as an absolution and exaltation. Lies, greed, and glorification of war boom through microphones at hipster megachurches that once upon a time might have preached peace and understanding. Political rallies are as aflame with need and giddy expectation as religious revivals. At a conference for incels, lonely single men come together to rage against women. Framing this dangerous vision, Sharlet remembers and celebrates the courage of those who sing a different song of community, and of an America long dreamt of and yet to be fully born, dedicated to justice and freedom for all.
Why I’m Excited: I wouldn’t say I’m excited, but this sounds like a must-read to understand the forces at work in our country and how we counter the rising hate.
Critics: "At once heartbreaking and quietly hopeful.… These dispatches immerse readers in the currents threatening to pull a nation apart, while skirting the nihilism that could drag us under." - Jessica Bruder, author of Nomadland
Fiction | Crime | Family
What Happened to Ruthy Ramirez by Claire Jimenez
Grand Central Publishing; March 7, 2023
Plot: The Ramirez women of Staten Island orbit around absence. When thirteen‑year‑old middle child Ruthy disappeared after track practice without a trace, it left the family scarred and scrambling. One night, twelve years later, oldest sister Jessica spots a woman on her TV screen in Catfight, a raunchy reality show. She rushes to tell her younger sister, Nina: This woman's hair is dyed red, and she calls herself Ruby, but the beauty mark under her left eye is instantly recognizable. Could it be Ruthy, after all this time?
Why I’m Excited: The reviews talk about Jimenez’s writing and its special quality that allows the characters to tell their own versions of the truth. I can’t wait to read this debut for its story and craft.
Critics: “Claire Jiménez traces how a family copes years after a devastating tragedy. The result is a moving portrait of a fractured family – and the thrilling journey they take to find out what happened to Ruthy Ramirez.” — Time
Nonfiction | Memoir
What Looks Like Bravery: An Epic Journey Through Loss to Love by Laurel Braitman
Simon & Schuster; March 14, 2023
Plot: Laurel Braitman spent her childhood learning how to outfish grown men, keep bees, and fix carburetors from her larger-than-life dad. Diagnosed with terminal cancer, he went to spectacular lengths to teach her the skills she’d need to survive without him. But by her mid-thirties she is a ship about to splinter on the rocks, exhausted by running from her own bad feelings. We follow as Laurel changes course, navigating multiple wildernesses—from northern New Mexico and western Alaska to her own Tinder app. She learns the hard way that no achievement, no matter how shiny, can protect her from pain, and works to transform guilt and regret into gold.
Why I’m Excited: It sounds gorgeous and healing and like what I need to read right now. Plus, Samin Nosrat is one of her besties, and I loved her interview with Anne Helen Peterson in
.Critics: “Gripping and gorgeous, this memoir is drawn from wisdom that only comes from life-altering loss. With breathtaking candor, Braitman sits us down by the campfire and shares a story that is relatable in its humanity but filled with the unexpected details that make for a riveting, mesmerizing tale. It made me understand my own childhood in a whole new way. What Looks Like Bravery is deeply, surprisingly healing.” —Kevin Kwan, New York Times bestselling author of Crazy Rich Asians
You made it all the way to the end. You must really love books! ❤️