Literary acclaim continues to build for Moroccan-American author Laila Lalami’s The Dream Hotel (Pantheon), the April pick for Roxane Gay’s Audacious Book Club. Lalami will join Gay on April 30, 2025 at 8 pm E.T. for a conversation about dreams, data extraction, and AI. It’s over Zoom, so it’s easy to take part.

Each month, Gay selects a standout title for her community of passionate readers, with online discussions and, when possible, live Zoom conversations with the authors themselves for paid subscribers. With The Dream Hotel, readers can look forward to talking about Lalami’s latest work alongside one of the most influential literary voices today.

This is how Lalami describes the book.

Yes, eerie and timely. The novel raises questions that lots of people are asking about how much access it much access in a world where Silicon Valley is out to extract data from all domains of life.

This marks the second major book club selection for The Dream Hotel, which was also Jenna Bush Hager’s pick for the Read with Jenna book club in March. The back-to-back endorsements make it clear that The Dream Hotel is one of the most important books of the year.

Roxane Gay is an American writer, editor, and cultural critic. She is a literary powerhouse, with ton of influence on what readers pay attention to. Gay has been described as a “literary evangelist” because of how she freely shares ideas about writing with writers and also champions books she loves to her massive social media following. You can join her in conversation with Lalami by registering here here. 

Find our more about The Audacious Book Club on their substack page. Follow Lalami on Instagram here.