32 new eBooks and audiobooks coming out April 27 - May 3

Since the release of his blockbuster The Tipping Point 21 years ago, Malcolm Gladwell has carved out a place for himself in “big ideas” nonfiction writing. The funny thing is, Gladwell doesn’t really write that kind of book anymore. His last book, Talking To Strangers, originated as a long-form podcast (Gladwell hosts the hit show Revisionist History), breaking from the tried and true template whereby a lay audience is presented with distilled academic studies and illustrative anecdotes; instead, the (audio)book captured voices of people working through the questions and problems that Gladwell is interested in on the topic of how we form ideas about what others are thinking or feeling. In his new book The Bomber Mafia, another audio-first work of non-fiction, Gladwell looks at how new technologies, airplanes and incendiary bombs in this case, were seized upon by creative minds bent on winning the second world war as decisively as possible. Even for readers who’ve never waded into a full-length work of WWII history, the story of warring personalities and the ethics that drove them makes it a fascinating listen (there’s a lot of tape of them speaking for themselves) with implications for how we weigh what matters in our debates about technology today.

As vaccinations roll out and we start to think about what comes after, a pair of books on trauma and resilience are arriving at just the right moment. In What Happened To You? Oprah Winfrey and brain and trauma expert Dr. Bruce D. Perry discuss how we’re shaped by the hardest things that happen to us. As you’d expect from a personality like Oprah, the book is focused on how to use a deeper understanding of our past to better shape our future -- and courtesy of credentialed co-author it’s informed by the latest science on how our brains actually work.

You Are Your Best Thing is a collection of writing edited by another duo: “Me Too” movement founder Tarana Burke and writer and researcher Brené Brown. When Burke pointed out how Brown’s writing on vulnerability comes up short for Black people, the pair began conceiving of a book that would deal with the concept, as well as the concept of shame resilience, in a way that makes sense for the Black experience. Included are more than a dozen pieces of writing from Black writers about these concepts from a variety of perspectives.

Dial A for Aunties was headed to Netflix even before readers could get a look at it -- but the book is out now and there’s still no release date on the streaming series, so readers still have time to read spoiler-free. Described as “Crazy Rich Asians meets Weekend at Bernie’s,” the story promises laughs and sighs -- and gasps.

More books coming out April 27 - May 3

💭 Big Ideas

• Sure, I'll Be Your Black Friend: Notes from the Other Side of the Fist Bump by Ben Philippe
• White Magic: Essays by Elissa Washuta
• Effortless: Make It Easier to Do What Matters Most by Greg McKeown
• The Bomber Mafia: A Dream, a Temptation, and the Longest Night of the Second World War by Malcolm Gladwell
• What Happened to You? Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing by Oprah Winfrey & Dr. Bruce D. Perry
• Karma: A Yogi's Guide to Crafting Your Destiny by Sadhguru

🗣 True Stories

• The Haunting of Alma Fielding: A True Ghost Story by Kate Summerscale
• Women of the Pandemic: Stories from the Frontlines of COVID-19 by Lauren McKeon
• How Y'all Doing? Misadventures and Mischief from a Life Well Lived by Leslie Jordan
• Driven: Rush in the ’90s and “In the End” by Martin Popoff
• You Are Your Best Thing: Vulnerability, Shame Resilience, and the Black Experience by Tarana Burke & Brené Brown

💘 Romance

• Finding Ashley by Danielle Steel
• Dial A for Aunties by Jesse Q. Sutanto
• Anchored Hearts by Priscilla Oliveras
• Follow Your Heart by Brenda Jackson
• The Road to Rose Bend by Naima Simone
• An Earl, the Girl, and a Toddler by Vanessa Riley

🗡️ Thrillers, Action, and Crime fiction

• The Secret Talker by Geling Yan
• No Good Deed by J. Robert Kennedy
• Sooley by John Grisham
• Bone Rattle by Marc Cameron
• Mydworth Mysteries: Secrets on the Cote d'Azur by Matthew Costello

🖊️ Literary Fiction

• The End of Men by Christina Sweeney-Baird
• Sisters at War by Clare Flynn
• Letters Across the Sea by Genevieve Graham
• Whereabouts by Jhumpa Lahiri
• The Good Father by Wayne Grady

✨ Fantastical tales of Other Worlds and Other Times

• Juniper Wiles by Charles de Lint
• Gilded Serpent by Danielle L. Jensen
• Here, There Be Monsters by John Wilker
• Fugitive Telemetry by Martha Wells
• Star Wars: Thrawn Ascendancy (Book II: Greater Good)by Timothy Zahn