Books to read in spring

The clocks have changed, the days are getting longer, and if your pollen allergy hasn’t reminded you yet: it’s spring! This season is often associated with rebirth and renewal. After the long winter slumber, we’re ready to stretch our legs and return to life outdoors. It’s the perfect time to dive into stories of transformation, growth, and the beauty of nature, without forgetting that all of this comes with a flipside. What follows is a selection of books that begin with difficult circumstances: grief, inner turmoil, the contradictions of our times, but ultimately allow us to appreciate rebirth and joy even more deeply.

Fiore di poesia - Alda Merini
Poetry

Fabrizio De André once sang, "Nothing grows from diamonds / Flowers bloom from dung." This could perfectly describe the life of Alda Merini. Her poetry stems from a profound and radical pain, taking many forms—personal wounds, mental nightmares, spiritual yearning. Yet her verses are full of rich contradictions: while rooted in suffering, they express a panicked vitality with tones of sensual happiness, bursting with eroticism, earthly rhythms, and cosmic vibrations.

The Rarest Fruit - Gaelle Belem
Science/True Story

This fictionalized biography tells the true story of Edmond Albius, a Creole boy born to enslaved parents. Orphaned at birth, he is raised by Ferréol, a widowed French colonist and orchid enthusiast, who shares with him his love for plants. Set in the 19th century on the French colony of Bourbon Island, Edmond soon discovers a groundbreaking method for cultivating vanilla—the rarest fruit—forever altering the fate of an entire nation.

Happy Are the Happy - Yasmina Reza
Polyphonic Novel

The title of this novel comes from a quote by Borges and reminds us that those who manage to be happy are truly happy. Yasmina Reza weaves together the lives of multiple characters, exploring their romantic, familial, and friendly relationships. Through short chapters, each from a different point of view, the author reveals the tensions, misunderstandings, and fragilities behind everyday life. The title suggests that happiness lies not in the absence of pain, but in embracing all of our emotions—even the most contradictory. This book is about shared solitude, unspoken desires, and the complexity of human connection.

La casa delle magnolie - Flavia Biondi
Graphic Novel

The gardens of our childhood, with their scents, have the power to bring back forgotten memories. In this comic, Flavia Biondi tells the story of Amelia, who returns home to sell the house that holds her most precious youthful memories. There she meets Ada, a substitute teacher in town. Two very different people who would’ve never crossed paths—yet that might be a good thing. There’s also an old house that creaks and breathes with the weather. It will stop being a painful memory or a problem to fix and begin to welcome them before Amelia even realizes what’s worth protecting, what can’t be sold, and what she had forgotten.

Peach Blossom Spring - Melissa Fu
Family Saga

This family saga transports us to China in 1938, where the war with Japan has already taken Meilin’s husband. She must flee to save the life of her son, Renshu. What begins is a never-ending escape: grueling marches through contested countryside, between communists and nationalists, and the struggle to build a new life in bomb-ravaged cities. Spanning three generations and two continents, this extraordinary novel not only tells the unforgettable, emotional story of modern China, but also celebrates the power of family bonds in the journey to build a better future and find one’s place in the world. Peach Blossom Spring represents exactly that: a distant hope, the dream of an ideal tomorrow.

Natural Histories - Guadalupe Nettel
Short Stories

Through the stories of their animals, Guadalupe Nettel masterfully portrays the lives of fragile men and women, consumed by unrequited love and caught in pivotal life moments where irreversible decisions must be made. In these five stories, animal life—governed by instinct and nature’s unyielding rules—mirrors human relationships. A woman, watching her fighting fish, confronts the cruelty at the end of a romantic relationship. A cockroach-infested home becomes the stage for a war of species that echoes family conflict. A cat and her kittens offer a reflection on motherhood—when it’s wanted and when it isn’t. A fungus and a viper each reveal, respectively, the mysterious bond between two lovers and the pain of a forbidden passion.

The Nation of Plants - Stefano Mancuso
Botany

Stefano Mancuso, an Italian neuroscientist and essayist, is known for giving a voice to plants and highlighting their vital importance. In this book, the most powerful and widespread “nation” on Earth finally speaks. The eight articles of the Constitution of the Nation of Plants reflect the eight essential pillars that support plant life—and life as a whole. This constitution aims to make us more respectful living beings, toward the Earth and, ultimately, toward ourselves.

On Time and Water - Andri Snær Magnason
Climate Change

Okjökull was once a glacier that stretched across nearly 20 square kilometers of Iceland. Today, it’s just a lifeless strip of ice. And in the next two centuries, every glacier on the island could be declared dead. But long before that, our children and grandchildren will be living in a world drastically different from the one we inherited: rising temperatures and sea levels, chemical shifts in the oceans, the destruction of ancient ecosystems, intensified storms and floods, the erosion of habitable land—and the mass displacement of living species, including humans. So why do we stay still, or nearly so? Perhaps because those hundred or two hundred years feel distant. Scientific warnings about “global warming” and “ocean acidification” don’t always reach us emotionally or cognitively. They remain white noise—until stories, myths, and imagination give them a soul. That is the mission of Andri Snær Magnason, a storyteller who has dedicated his life to science and environmental activism. Weaving together family tales, imagined conversations with future descendants, and journeys through skaldic and romantic poetry, On Time and Water brings scientific facts to life through shared culture and helps us take one step closer to understanding what’s at stake.