Top Ten Reads for April
From gothic nightmare wrapped in Japanese mythology to the countries confronting our shared challenges. An indictment of malignant forces in London to a speculative fable about the suspended reality of love affairs. Presenting your Top Ten Reads for April
Permanence by Sophie Mackintosh
Permanence by Sophie Mackintosh
02/04/2026
A dreamlike, speculative fable about the suspended reality of love affairs from the author of The Water Cure, Blue Ticket and Cursed Bread. Clara and Francis awake in an unfamiliar city, unable to remember how they got there. Wandering the city is intoxicating: they are usually confined to hotel rooms. But how long can any paradise last—and how does it tax its denizens? In sensuous prose, Mackintosh probes the price of illicit romance and the tensions imposed by secrecy, imagining a parallel world where lovers can live openly.
London Falling
London Falling
07/04/2026
In 2019, teenager Zac Brettler mysteriously fell to his death from a luxury London apartment building on the Thames. Afterwards, his grieving parents discovered that Zac had been leading a fantasy life as the son of a wealthy Russian oligarch. The reliably brilliant author of Baillie Gifford-winning Empire of Pain and the recently dramatised Say Nothing investigates what happened in this powerful “indictment of the culture that has transformed London into a haven for the malignant forces.”
Yesteryear
Yesteryear
09/04/2026
An unsettling and addictive debut that uses intersecting time frames on an Idaho homestead to explore issues around privacy, parenting, politics and Christianity. Yesteryear Farm’s six children have won legions of online followers who need not know about the two nannies and producer hovering out of shot—until that producer rocks the boat. When Natalie and Caleb’s carefully crafted fantasy seems about to implode, Natalie wakes up in an alternate reality—Yesteryear in 1805. As she tries to find her way back to her real life, Natalie must unravel how she got here.
Transcription
Transcription
09/04/2026
Lerner’s fourth novel recounts an interview and its aftermath, exploring friendship, memory and parenthood. When the narrator travels to his university town of Providence to conduct what will be the final published interview with his 90-year-old mentor, he drops his phone in the hotel sink. He proceeds anyway, without a recording device, reconstructing their conversation from memory—but when he later admits what happened, he is surprised by the reaction. A powerfully distilled novel about fatherhood, mortality, inheritance and the technologies shaping our lives, from the author of Leaving the Atocha Station and 10:04.
Famesick
Famesick
14/04/2026
From the actor, writer, director and producer behind Girls, Too Much and the bestselling memoir Not That Kind of Girl, Famesick explores the pitfalls of celebrity, and whether the dream of living a creative life outweighs them. With her signature wit, candour and, occasionally brutal honesty, Dunham is a thrillingly funny, painfully vulnerable guide to the correlation of fame and mental health.
Braver New World
Braver New World
16/04/2026
The award-winning author of Why the Germans Do it Better and In Search Of Berlin travels to 10 countries—including Austria, Morocco, Taiwan and Japan—that are confronting our shared challenges with bravery and imagination. “What unites them is a refusal to accept that difficult problems are unsolvable.”
My Year in Paris with Gertrude Stein
My Year in Paris with Gertrude Stein
16/04/2026
This exhilarating novel from the author of Hot Milk and August Blue is a free-wheeling hurtle through Modernism. An unnamed narrator is living in Paris to write about Gertrude Stein, the avant-garde American poet, art collector and queer icon. While there, Levy’s narrator gathers a circle of new friends, with whom she walks, eats raclette and searches for a lost cat. Characteristically, the form reflects its subject, splicing fiction with biographical nuggets, imaginary vignettes and critical analysis to paint a vivid portrait of Stein, a writer who broke free of the 19th-century norms to experiment with new ways of living and writing.
Murder In Paris '68
Murder In Paris '68
23/04/2026
The author of A Waiter in Paris delves deep into the 1960s Parisian underworld and an unsolved crime. It concerns the murder of Stevan Marković, friend, bodyguard and associate of matinee idol Alain Delon, who had a shady past and a taste for bad company and high living.
Japanese Gothic
Japanese Gothic
30/04/2026
A mind-exploding, bone-shivering gothic nightmare wrapped in Japanese mythology, samurai legacy, and time-bending terror. The author of Bat Eater delivers a wildly inventive take on the haunted-house horror novel, interwoven with Japanese mythology, in which two people living centuries apart discover a door between their worlds.
Chasing Aliens
Chasing Aliens
30/04/2026
The Orwell Prize-winning author of Down and Out: Surviving the Homelessness Crisis charts his wild road trip chasing aliens through the UFO heartlands of America. Going deep into UFO religion, conspiracies, far-right subcultures and cutting-edge science and how they bleed into one another in the American mind, this title is described as “Hunter S Thompson meets Louis Theroux with a Mancunian accent.”
