Here are the April releases we recommend for when you need to avoid doing something else.

From Jen at Brown Dog Solutions:

Beartown by Fredrik Backman, trans. by Neil Smith (Atria Books, April 25)

I haven’t done a very good job of hiding the fact I love Fredrik Backman’s work. I’ve adored each of his previous three books published in the US, for their individual distinctiveness as well as their commonalities. But Beartown surpasses them all.

This time Backman takes a bit of a darker tone, and has an entire cast of protagonists as opposed to a central main character enhanced with supporting characters.

Beartown is a sleepy little village struggling in the economy. Jobs have left, but the town uses its hockey program as a reason to get up every day. Some residents are players or coaches, some former players and devout fans. This year, the junior team is positioned to go all the way to the championship. This could mean big things for Beartown: a hockey academy, a new arena, population growth. But a fateful night shakes the entire town and more than just the championship dreams could be extinguished.

Even though Backman’s tone is darker and graver than before, he still employs his smart wit and insightful perspective. Dialogue is sparse but sharp and the characters are brilliantly authentic.

One needn’t be a fan of hockey to love this book. Backman uses the sport as a vehicle for his rich themes, but it could have easily been replaced by any other sport…or community focus. Beartown is a universal tale of humanity—its strengths, weaknesses, beauty, and hideousness. Once again, Backman has stolen my heart with his larger-than-life tale of the common man.

Climate of Hope: How Cities, Businesses, and Citizens Can Save the Planet by Michael Bloomberg and Carl Pope (St. Martin’s Press, April 18)

Conservative former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg and liberal former Sierra Club executive director Carl Pope teamed up on this book to show how efforts to save the planet are not only environmentally productive, they’re economically productive as well.

These two leaders look at the individual parts of climate change and offer solutions to the smaller parts, not one idea for the entire issue. They illustrate how this makes it more manageable as well as profitable. And they emphasize the need—and plausibility—for local governments, businesses, and citizens to take on these tasks instead of waiting for change from the federal government, especially in the current political climate.

The two men alternate chapters, addressing topics such as renewable energy, housing, food, and transportation. They don’t agree on everything, but Climate of Hope is a beautiful example of how progress can be made despite partisan differences.

It’s enlightening, motivating, and accessible, and should be required reading: for the good of the planet, the good of the people, and the good of the economy.

From Erin at In Real Life:

Ragdoll by Daniel Cole (Ecco, April 4)

This is one of the best debut novels I’ve ever read. The story opens with a detective, William Fawkes—or Wolf, as he’s known—with a sketchy past being pulled into a case involving a corpse comprised of stitched-together parts from six different bodies.

Pretty gross, right? Only, it’s not. This character-driven story is told with a respect for the victim that’s almost eerie. It’s not gratuitous. It is descriptive, but gracefully so.

Wolf and his backstory are at the center of the mystery of The Ragdoll (as the corpse is called), but the supporting cast—Wolf’s police colleagues, his TV reporter ex-wife and her colleagues, the victims and their families—makes this tale one to remember. As they each play their part in figuring out who the six victims are and what connects them, the urgency around catching the killer is palpable. Daniel Cole wastes no words; perhaps his former life as a paramedic honed his ability to vividly communicate just enough information.

Ragdoll is the first in a series; Cole’s publishing contract includes three books. If what comes next is anywhere near as good as RAGDOLL, readers are in for a wonderfully wild ride.

From Lauren at Malcolm Avenue Review:

Resurrecting the Shark: A Scientific Obsession and the Mavericks Who Solved the Mystery of a 270-Million-Year-Old Fossil by Susan Ewing (Pegasus Books, April 4)

Heads up, shark and adventure nerds! Resurrecting the Shark is the story of the people who came together over the course of about a hundred years to solve the mystery of a 270-million-year-old fish fossil.

Now known as Helicoprion (“spiral saw”), this paleozoic shark has a two-foot-tall whorl of teeth sitting midline in its lower jaw like a circular saw, making Sharknado feel like staid Sunday programming. The fossil became a passion project in geology, taxonomy, paleontology, and the arts, from Australia to Russia to the United Sates.

Resurrecting the Shark is the compelling story of how it was ultimately determined what the fossil was, what it looked like, how it ate, how it lived and where.

Goodbye, Things: The New Japanese Minimalism by Fumio Sasaki (W. W. Norton & Company, April 11)

The minimalism movement has become quite popular lately, but Japanese editor Fumio Sasaki’s story of how he found greater happiness by giving up his possessions is more than just another piece of grist for the mill.

Sasaki shares his process (getting rid of just about everything, including his bed) and the emotional transformation that resulted. It’s a very personal journey, but the ideas and concepts are presented in a way that is both motivating and adaptable. Including photos and a list of tips, the book is physically beautiful (and minimal), as well as a fascinating read.

[Editor’s note: I need Fumio Sasaki to come to my apartment.]

From Patti at Patti’s Pens & Picks:

Song of the Lion by Anne Hillerman (Harper, April 11)

It makes me happy that Ms. Hillerman is continuing her father [Tony]’s series with Joe Leaphorn, Jim Chee, and Bernadette Manuelito. I like the marriage of Bernadette and Jim, and I love that Bernadette has a strong lead role in Ms. Hillerman’s books. I also like the respect that Bernadette and Jim have for Joe Leaphorn, and that they consider him a mentor.

In Song of the Lion, a bomb goes off in the parking lot of a high school, bringing another situation to light. How these two situations connect is a darn good story. Recommended!

From PCN:

Cruel is the Night by Karo Hämäläinen, trans. by Owen Witesman (Soho Crime, April 11)

Four friends sit down to dinner one evening in London, but some or all of them might end up dead before the night is over.

As the meal progresses, everyone gets more drunk and their true feelings for each other emerge, resulting in all-out violence. There’s even a sword involved.

Cruel is disturbing and darkly humorous, and fast-paced enough that you can probably devour it in one bite.

What are you reading this month?

Then my 18-year-old niece Aline, who voted for the first time, posted the following on Facebook. I thought it was fiercer and more eloquent and hopeful than anything I could write. She gave me permission to reprint it here. —PCN

*****

I woke up this morning feeling unbelievably small, sore-throated, and unable to shake this Zora Neale Hurston line from my head: “No, I do not weep at the world—I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife.” I think I skipped straight from numbness to knife-sharpening.

I recognize that I still come from a place of relative privilege and that this election doesn’t hold as many tangible risks for me as it does for others. Even as a daughter of immigrant and refugee parents, I’ve been lucky enough to have socioeconomic security and education.

But I know how alienating it feels to be a young woman. There’s something desperately lonely about being a teenage girl, especially a nonwhite one in largely white spaces, especially one who’s always wanted more for as long as she can remember.

It’s the kind of Otherness that you can feel anywhere, it’s that pang of fear while walking down a street alone at night, that silence when someone says something casually racist or sexist because you don’t want to be a bitch, that urge to dumb yourself down in conversations so you don’t seem unaccommodating.

It’s almost painful to watch how consummately civil Hillary Clinton’s been in the wake of these results—I’m not asking her to act otherwise, because I understand why she needs to be—but the injustice behind that rationale makes me upset.

I saw a Facebook comment about her in the wake of her concession speech calling her a “power-seeking bitch”—ostensibly for having the sheer nerve to campaign for president in the first place—and it made me think about all the names we have for women who dare to vocalize wanting. Nasty woman. Bitch. Cunt. Et cetera.

The fact that this election’s revealed the vitriolic hatred at America’s core makes me angrier than ever, but I’m glad I’m still feeling something. If fighting to make this country better means I’ll be the nasty, bitchy nightmare of a woman I always feared I’d become, I couldn’t be more excited.

Then tragedy struck. Wilson’s mother was diagnosed with breast cancer and would not live to see the release of Matilda. After her mother’s death, Wilson started having anxiety attacks and OCD symptoms. As she entered puberty, casting directors stopped calling.

Where Am I Now? contains engaging, poignant accounts of the actress-turned-storyteller’s struggles to find her identity after losing her mother and Hollywood’s adoration: “I didn’t want to stop acting because I had to, because I was too ugly.”

Wilson covers difficult topics but can leaven a painful anecdote with incisive wit. Remarking on a harsh review in which a movie critic expresses a desire “to shake [Wilson] by her tiny adorable shoulders until her little Chiclet teeth rattle,” Wilson writes: “What better way to show one’s edgy coolness than hypothetical child abuse?”

When fans ask for a picture with her, she panics: “I don’t photograph well, and…they’re going to put it on the Internet, where not everyone knows I’m funny and charming and generally a decent person.” But that’s exactly how she comes across in this memoir, with a sense of self-acceptance that indicates she knows where—and who—she is now.

This review originally appeared in Shelf Awareness for Readers and is reprinted here with permission.

In case you don’t recognize it, that’s Disney/Pixar’s Inside Out, with characters representing emotions inside the head of a little girl named Riley. When the movie came out in June, Mr. PCN and I had seen it with Mari and her children—which include a girl named Riley.

When we arrived at the house, we were greeted with this banner as we stepped through the window into Riley’s mind.

Inside was this brilliant table:

Notice the “memories” on the walls.

The hors d’oeuvres and snacks area:

Here’s the live version of, from left, Anger, Sadness, Disgust (in front of Sadness), Joy (Mari), and Fear.

The one in front on the ground? That’s my friend Christian as the lovesick volcano from the short film Lava, which played before Inside Out in theaters. Christian trounced us all for best costume. You can see more of his volcanic splendor in the group shot below.

Hope your holidays glow brightly and bring you much joy. (To see more of Mari’s feasts for the eyes, visit her site.)

We went from Orange Co. up to San Francisco and Seattle and the San Juan Islands, stopping along the way in places like Santa Barbara and Morro Bay.

Sunset sail in Marina del Rey. I was on the boat in the center. A passerby took the photo.

Hiking Mt. Rainier. Photo: Aline Dolinh (Mr. PCN is in blue on the bridge)

Seattle is where the EMP Museum has the Star Wars costume exhibit, which featured these guys.

Photo: Mena Dolinh

Photo: Mena Dolinh

Speaking of Star Wars, I have a fun giveaway for you. A marketing rep from Underoos (yes, that Underoos) contacted me to let me know Underoos are now for adults, too. The rep sent along a free set in the design of my choice, and of course I chose something Star Wars related, though it was a tough choice between this and Wonder Woman.

From the Underoos site. Did you think I would pose in my underwear?

The starry blue background is beautiful and R2 pops, but it’s a transfer that sometimes makes a crinkling sound when I move, and I suspect it won’t last long after repeated washings. The set is 100% cotton and very comfortable.

Underoos is letting me give away one set in any design to one PCN reader. To enter, leave a comment letting me know which design you would choose and why. Giveaway ends next Thursday, August 27, 9 p.m PST. US addresses only.

We rented a cabin in the mountains near Big Bear Lake, where it was blissfully quiet. It was too windy and choppy on the water for kayaking so we took a tandem bike around the lake. The air was crisp, the temp about 40 degrees, and this was our view.

After we had lunch, we came back to the cabin and built a fire. That’s a jacuzzi tub to the left.

The cabin also had a private deck, where I’d take my coffee in the morning…

…but it was cozier to stay inside by the fire and dig into my stack of books. I brought 3, was able to finish the top 2 (reviews to come), and have started the third.

And that’s about all I did on my spring vacation. How was your weekend? What did you read or watch?

Oprah’s experience was in Zurich, where a shop assistant apparently refused to show her a handbag and said it was “too expensive.” Too expensive. For Oprah.

Oprah told Entertainment Tonight the clerk was racist. The owner said the incident was simply a misunderstanding, because “who wouldn’t want to sell a purse for 35,000 francs?”

I don’t know what happened in Oprah’s situation, so I’ll share something that happened to me. I was making a movie in Berlin, and on a day off, I went to a stationery shop to see if I could pick up some nice writing paper and cards so I could write home. This was before we all had e-mail, and costs for international calls were prohibitive.

Christopher Reeve

If you’ve seen the eleventy-four hundred thousand trailers and advertisements out there, you know a new Superman movie is coming out this Friday, the 14th. I’m just excited as any fanboy out there, if not more.

I still have vivid memories of exiting a movie theater in 1978, after seeing Richard Donner’s Superman, and believing a man could fly, just as the tagline promised I would. I can’t describe that feeling, except to say it was like believing in magic. Not the sleight-of-hand kind—the kind you can’t explain but know exists.

I don’t know if Man of Steel will have that effect on me, but on the eve of its release, I’d like to share my list of favorite superhero movies ever, ones that made me think big things were possible for even the smallest and most awkward of us.

In no particular order, my top five are:

1. Superman. In addition to the reasons above, Margot Kidder’s Lois Lane had great chemistry with Christopher Reeve’s Superman, and I still know all the words to their theme song, “Can You Read My Mind?” Don’t judge.
2. Batman Returns. Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman did it for me.
3. Iron Man 3. More fun than the first two, and Pepper got strong.
4. The Dark Knight Rises. I’m a Christian Bale fan, but the first two entries in Christopher Nolan’s reboot had Katie Holmes and Maggie Gyllenhaal as female leads. Bale finally had not one but two formidable actresses—Marion Cotillard and Anne Hathaway—to play against in the third one.
5. Spider-Man 2. This was fun for me all around, in every way.

Now someone just needs to make a good Wonder Woman movie so I can add it to my list.

Which ones are your favorites? Or are all superhero movies the same to you?

So last week, I went down to Marina del Rey to try paddleboarding. I’m scared of drowning because I almost drowned twice as a child, once before learning to swim, and once after. Despite lessons with the Red Cross, and my following instructions exactly, I never became a strong swimmer, and can’t tread water at all. There’s something about my bony body that just wants to sink. My swimming instructors were confounded, too.

Even though I fully expected to go in the water while paddleboarding, I put on a long-sleeved shirt and yoga pants. Mr. PCN, in a surf tee and swim trunks, asked me in the car, “You’re wearing a bathing suit underneath, right?”

“Nope.”

“You brought a change of clothes?”

“No.”

“Are we renting wetsuits?”

“Nah.” After he gave me a strange look, I added, “Maybe this will make me try harder to stay on the board. I don’t want to give myself permission to fall because I’m wearing something water-friendly.”

Mr. PCN shrugged.

When we got to the marina, the paddleboard rental guy also looked at my street clothes as if thinking, “Okaayyy, crazy lady.”

“Do first-timers go in the water often?” I asked.

“Oh, yeah,” he said, no hesitation.

The winds were strong that day, causing choppy waters. For the first ten minutes, I paddled while on my knees because my board never felt steady enough for me to stand up. But then we moved away from the main channel and toward where boats were docked, where the water was calmer.

I got up in steps. First I stuck my butt up, then I was in chair position, then finally I was standing straight up. And I stayed standing! The wind was blowing through my hair, the sun was shining, the view was better from up there—what in the world had I been afraid of?

I paddled along like that for a while, feeling the stress of the day and my fears draining from me. I was top of the world, or at least queen of the harbor.

Then this motorboat came up from behind, too close. Its wake rocked my board hard. As I wobbled like a gymnast who’d just landed badly on the balance beam, I was sure I’d go in the water, but I fell to my knees and managed to hang on. I breathed a sigh of relief when the boat moved farther away.

But I found myself unable to get up again. That close call robbed me of all my confidence. It was scarier to stand up again than it was originally when I didn’t know anything about paddleboarding. Part of my brain said, “Next time, you may not be so lucky. Play it safe and stay on your knees. You can still make it back to the dock in dry clothes.”

I did that—paddle while on my knees—for the next few minutes. Until another part of my brain said, “Are you kidding me?! If you fall, you’re supposed to get back up again. You didn’t even fall in the water, and you’re gonna stay on your knees? You’ll just let that man in the boat ruin your day?”

While my brain fought with itself, I started paddling harder and faster. Mr. PCN, alongside me on his own board, said, “Uh-oh, I’ve seen that look before. She’s getting mad. ”

And I realized I was mad. I was doing so well! Now look at me, all small and scared. Without further internal debate, I stood up.

Other boats zipped by, kicking up big waves. I hung on. We were going against the wind, and my arms were screaming in protest. I kept paddling.

As we approached the dock, the rental guy tried to hide his surprise that I wasn’t soaking wet. When we got close, he told us to stop paddling and let him guide us in with a really long paddle.

“We do it this way because people come in too fast, crash the board against the dock, and knock themselves off,” he explained.

I started to relax, exhausted but exhilarated that I’d had a good day. Then I noticed the guy was pulling me in too fast. He was going to crash my board and throw me off! Seriously??

I’d already handed over my paddle so I couldn’t stop my forward trajectory. There was only one thing to do: wait for the crash to throw me off, but use the momentum to launch myself at the dock. I dangled there briefly until the rental guy reached down and helped me up, apologizing profusely.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “You’re not the first person who tried to knock me off my feet today. But I’m fine.”

I thought about all this when the news these past several days made me want to cry and hide and not go outside again for a while. But I remember what it felt like after that first boat tried to capsize me, and I tell myself:

Stand up and keep paddling.

The first is happening over at Elizabeth Gilbert’s Facebook page, starting Thursday, March 21, 8 a.m. ET and going until Sunday night, March 24, 11:59 p.m. ET. Gilbert is the author of the massive bestseller Eat, Pray, Love, and she’s asking the public to vote on the cover for her next book, a novel titled The Signature of All Things that Viking will release on October 1.

Gilbert says this process of cover selection has never been done in publishing, so why not express your opinion and see if your favorite cover wins? Vote here (you might need a Facebook account).

The other thing I’ve been submitting votes for this week is the Star Wars bracket tournament to determine the favorite character in that whole galaxy. Luke is being pitted against Yoda? Princess Leia going up against her own mother? I can’t imagine anyone beating Han for the ultimate title, but hey, if I don’t participate, who knows what could happen? Go here if you’re interested.

Speaking of Star Wars, I adore this mashup of Han and Leia with Carl and Ellie from the movie Up. Artist James Hance has this and many more wonderful prints at his website, appropriately called Relentlessly Cheerful Art. Also check out this series, in which Hance depicts young Han and baby Chewie as Christopher Robin and Pooh (the prints are no longer available). If I could afford it, I’d buy almost everything he offers.

That’s it for now. Enjoy your Friday-adjacent day!