Coming in June and September - Poetry and Novels

 September 2025 books 

It's still April, National Poetry Month, but I found a book with poems and other writings by Nikki Giovanni. 

The New Book, Nikki Giovanni, Sept. 2, 2025, William Morrow, NetGalley

Genre: prose, poems, letters

Nikki Giovanni’s extraordinary new collection—a landmark of American literature—speaks to the fury of our current political moment while reflecting on the tragedies and triumphs of her early life.

"If there was a need for poetry that galvanized and inspired, there was also a demand for poetry that comforted and unified — and Ms. Giovanni provided on both counts." — The Washington Post

 

Pick a Color by Souvankham Thammavongsa,(September 30, 2025; Knopf Canada; NetGalley

Genre: adult fiction, Canadian fiction, Laotian 

Giller Prize and O. Henry Award winner, her novel is about loneliness, love, labour, and class, following a nail salon owner as she toils away for the privileged clients who don't even know her true name.

Pick a Color is by author Souvankham Thammavongsa, who also writes poetry and short stories. She was born in the Lao refugee camp in Nong Khai, Thailand, and was raised and educated in Toronto where she now lives. ..

 

Far and Away by Amy Poeppel
June 24, 2025; Atria, NetGalley

Women's fiction, humor, chick lit

Description

The “absolutely hilarious” (Real Simple) Amy Poeppel delights once again with a charming new novel about a house swap gone wonderfully awry.

Perfect strangers Lucy in Dallas and Greta in Berlin have agreed to a house swap—and boy, are they going to regret it.

What's on your reading list for summer, autumn? 

April - Reading Basho's Haiku during National Poetry Month

 

Graphic by The Lawrenceville School

I bought a book of poetry for a  young friend who is a budding poet just starting to make clever verses that rhyme. Poetry Is Not a Luxury has enough short poems to pique his interest in works that don't necessarily rhyme but are excellent views into the poets' minds.

Along the way, I decided to buy myself a book of poems as well.

On Love and Barley -Haiku of Basho, Jan. 7, 1986, Penguin Classics. 93 pages with 253 haiku poems. 

Description: Basho, one of the greatest of Japanese poets and the master of haiku, was also a Buddhist monk and a life-long traveller.  His poems combine 'karumi', or lightness of touch, with the Zen ideal of oneness with creation. 

Each poem evokes the natural world - the cherry blossom, the leaping frog, the summer moon or the winter snow - suggesting the smallness of human life in comparison to the vastness and drama of nature. 

Basho himself enjoyed solitude and a life free from possessions.  His haiku are the work of an observant eye and a meditative mind.

Excerpts from the book:

8

Spring night,

cherry-

blossom dawn.

12

Spring rain -

under trees

a crystal stream

I will read Basho's haiku, 253 of them in this collection, whenever I'm in the mood for short, poetic observations of nature.

Are you planning to read any poetry this month?