I'm Gilbert Cruz, editor of the New York Times book review, and this is the book review podcast.

Earlier this year, I had on our regular guest, my fellow editor, Jumanika Tib, to talk about some books coming out in the first couple months

of 2025. She's back. She's here. And we're going to do it again, talking about a few books

we're interested in that are coming out between now and June and the summer. Jumana, welcome back to the

pod. Do I need to say this every time? No, I feel like, I feel that the door is always open to this podcast studio, which I suppose should also make me somewhat nervous.

You walked right in. I waltzed right in. There are so many books coming up between now and summertime. We cannot talk about all of them. We can't even talk about most of them. But we are going to talk about a few. And the first one,

which you're going to mention, is out now, essentially, just came out. It's a book from a name that I

think many of our listeners might be familiar with. Tell us about it. Okay, yes. So this is

Dream Count by Chimamanda and Gozi Aditya. It's been a long time since we've seen a work of fiction from her

at least a decade. And she really is like a, if they're, to the extent that they're still

literary like rock stars, she is one, right? We got Beyonce quoting her. We got, you know, gift editions with her quotes.

Like, she's a big deal. And it's a pleasure to re-encounter her fiction and just see what she's up to.

So this is the story of four African women set during the pandemic.

It's centered on Chia, who is a Nigerian travel writer who's based in the states.

And it also includes her cousin, her best friend, and this woman named Cadillotu, who is her maid, who is from Guinea. So she's Guinean and everybody else is Nigerian.

And this is a story about motherhood and romantic love and familial love.

And it's a female connection.

And it has been interesting backstory because Adichie wrote this. I mean, she had a really

harrowing pandemic experience herself. Her father died fairly early on in the pandemic and less than

nine months later she lost her mother. So when she was grieving her mother, it sounds like she was

really just bold over, excavated, I think is the

word she used. She started writing fiction as a way to tap into how much she wanted her mother

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