This post is inspired by the excellent list produced on Bookmunch. I have always been frustrated by how difficult it can be to cobble together a list of books released in the future so am delighted that someone has already done the hard work and saved me the hassle! I have simply added three additional titles, and some comment to the ones I am particularly excited about.
- The Lonely Polygamist by Brady Udall
- The Stars in the Bright Sky by Alan Warner
- Even the Dogs by Jon McGregor
Sounds like classic McGregor territory: the search for truth about the past in the objects and people of today. His first novel, If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things was a beautiful snapshot image of life on one street, and although the Booker longlisted follow-up wasn't quite as good, he remains an incredibly talented and powerful writer. One to look out for.
- The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ by Philip Pullman
Philip Pullman does my head in at times, with his endless hatred of C.S. Lewis and his militant hit-you-over-the-head-with-it atheism. But he remains a wonderful storyteller and any new book from him promises a wonderful adventure. Billed as being particularly aimed at those who know their gospels (which I don't!), I'm nonetheless looking forward to learning something more about a subject (theology) which I find endlessly fascinating but can easily become dense and dull. Basically, Pullman is doing what I wish everyone would do: putting non-fiction into fiction, so that my impatient brain can take it in and enjoy the process at the same time.
Bring on April!
- Naming the Bones by Louise Walsh
- Known to Evil by Walter Mosley
- Monster 1959 by David Maine
- Manhood for Amateurs by Michael Chabon
- It Feels So Good When I Stop by Joe Pernice
- Chronic City by Jonathan Lethem
- Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
- Nemesis by Philip Roth
- Wild Child by TC Boyle
- Three Days Before the Shooting by Ralph Ellison
- Solar by Ian McEwan
I was lucky enough to hear Ian McEwan reading from this in June of this year, and it is genuinely very funny. I was in a horrible mood going into the talk, but somewhere in the almost campus-novel comedy of his reading, my perception of Ian McEewan as a 'serious' writer was blown completely out of the water. An early tip for Booker success next year, I think.
- The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet by David Mitchell
- Point Omega by Don DeLillo
- The Pale King by David Foster Wallace
- The Pregnant Widow by Martin Amis
- Parrot and Olivier in America by Peter Carey
- 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
When 1Q84 was published in Japan earlier this year it led to a rush of interest akin to that which greeted the release of Dan Brown's new book. The print run was raised from 100,000 to 480,000 and with the plot kept completly secret bookstores were inundated with pre-orders and queues on the day of release. The first of a two volume novel, 1Q84 is described as 'classic Murakami - a "complex and surreal narrative" that "shifts back and forth between tales of two characters, a man and a woman, who are searching for each other".
No author reminds me why I love reading quite as well as Murakami.
- The Man From Beijing by Henning Mankell
- This Party’s Got to Stop by Rupert Thomson
- Beatrice & Virgil by Yann Martel
Well, it's Martel's first novel since the 2002 Booker winning phenomenon that was Life of Pi. Promising another mix of fable, fantasy, and theology this is a book that will attract huge public attention whenever it is released in 2010
- All That Follows by Jim Crace
- The Dead Republic by Roddy Doyle
- Little Hands Clapping by Dan Rhodes
- Lean On Pete by Willy Vlautin
- The Ask by Sam Lipsyte
- Zeitoun by Dave Eggers
- Castle J Robert Lennon
- Imperial Bedrooms by Bret Easton Ellis
- The Canal by Lee Rourke
- Canada by Richard Ford
- The Leaping by Tom Fletcher
- Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer
Already published in the U.S. where it has attracted a massive controversy and no little praise, Eating Animals sees Jonathan Safran Foer's on the verge of fatherhood and facing the prospect of having to make dietary choices on a child's behalf. His investigations into the meet industry ultimately required him to visit factory farms in the middle of the night, dissect the emotional ingredients of meals from his childhood, and probe some of his most primal instincts about right and wrong.
Not published here until Spring 2010, I am hoping that one of the many lovely people I know in the states might see fit to send it to me for Christmas this year (hint hint, wink wink!)
- King Death by Toby Litt
- Light Boxes by Shane Jones
- The Unnamed by Joshua Ferris
- The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Simm by Jonathan Coe
- The News Where You Are by Catherine O’Flynn
- The Greek Affair by Simon Van Booy
- Nazi Literature in the Americas – Roberto Bolano
- Rupture by Simon Lelic
- The Art of Pho by Julian Hanshaw
- George Sprott by Seth
- Taurus by Joseph Smith (author of The Wolf)
- The Widow’s Tale by Mick Jackson
Mick Jackson is an author who never ceases to surprise. From the charming madness of Underground Man, to the fabricated beastiary in Bears of England he never quite gives you what you expect and his work is all the better because of it. What you can be sure is that The Widow's Tale will be an enjoyable read, full of humanity, warmth, and a little dollop of the unexpected to boot.
- The Life and Opinions of Maf the Dog, and of his Friend Marilyn Monroe by Andrew O’Hagan
- In a Strange Room by Damon Galgut
- Luka and the Fire of Life by Salman Rushdie
The Sequal to Haround and the Sea of Stories, Luka promises another fable on the power of stories, and a life-affirming quest for life and passion. Published in October 2010 by Jonathan Cape, CCV publisher Dan Franklin has described it as “brilliant... as good as [Philip Pullman’s] Northern Lights”. I'm a huge Rushdie fan, next October can't come soon enough for me now.
- Monsters of Men by Patrick Ness
The final part of Patrick Ness's excuisite Chaos Walking trilogy, Monsters of Men promises another morally nuanced and occasionally disturbing tale of Todd and Viola, not to mention the very fate of New World itself.
The Knife of Never Letting Go is the most exciting and thrilling young adult novel I have read in many years and The Ask and the Answer was a worthy sequal. Told in a gritty acerbic voice, and shot through with moments of utter beauty, Chaos Walking will be a classic trilogy read for many many years to come.
- Ellipsis by Nikki Dudley
Last but by no means least is this thrilling debut from London poet and novelist Nikki Dudley. Exciting, phsychologically complex, and disconcerting, it is a powerful tale of two misfits trying to uncover long hidden secrets about themselves and their pasts'. Dudley has an often startling eye for description and her simple poetic prose will delight readers looking for something slilghtly different in the crime thriller genre.
“This was still the era – it would end later in that famous decade – when to be young was a social encumbrance, a mark of irrelevance, a faintly embarrassing condition for which marriage was the beginning of a cure.”
It is 1962 and Edward and Florence arrive at a hotel on the Dorset coast to enjoy their honeymoon. But as they sit down to dinner each of their minds is pre-occupied with the physical intimacy they know is awaiting them that night. They are both excited and terrified, each completely in love but unable to recognise this depth of passion in the other. But as the events of that single night unfold the lives of the young couple are forever changed by their inability to communicate the love which they are anxiously waiting to consummate.
On Chesil Beach is a frighteningly intimate study of the psychology of sexuality and love. Set in 1962 it aims to take a look at the world before the sexual liberation of the 1960’s, at characters liberated in their minds but still constrained by unbeatable social pressure. Perhaps Ian McEwan has over-stated the social conditions of the age; is their very Victorian attitude to sex really relevant to the early 1960’s? After all, many of the preconditions for the sexual revolution had already taken place – the advent of the pill, the explosion of teenagers as a social group with spending power, the post-war end of austerity – and theirs is the generation which conducted it. Were it not for his spectacular characterisation this novel might read like a condescending history of a forgotten age.
But it doesn’t. Perhaps the biggest talent in Ian McEwan’s repertoire is his ability to create real, believable characters. One really believes that he has fallen in love with them, imagined them into being to be themselves and tell their own story rather than to make a social point. Edward and Florence may or may not be reflective of their generation, but they are most certainly reflective of their own unique and timeless troubles. Theirs is a thoroughly believable relationship, full of barely recognised strengths and widening pitfalls. It is heartbreaking to watch the events of that night unfold, and because it is McEwan, we know exactly how it is going to end. There will be no magical reprieve for these characters.
Many of McEwan’s novels deals with that single decisive moment when life teeters in a knife edge and the direction of the characters future is determined. It is there most obviously in Atonement and Enduring Love and is again brilliant realised here. But unlike the above, On Chesil Beach is foremost a novel about how that decisive moment came to be rather than its repercussions. In a blow by blow journey through the awkward minds of the two protagonists we feel the constraint of their individual situations, the unavoidable rush of what is to come. By keeping the focus so limited the reader feels present throughout, almost voyeuristically so, and every reader will find something to recognise in the awkward minds of Edward and Florence.
Reminiscent of Vikram Seth’s An Equal Music in its pace and tone and the fullness of its characters, On Chesil Beach is the story of good love going wrong. With its slow, detailed prose and focus on reflection, it feels like reading a pale memory of a forgotten age. At only 166 pages On Chesil Beach is a beautifully short novel. There is not one superfluous sentence or wasted description, it is a novel by a writer in total control of their craft.
8 out of 10
