Fiction
As always, previewing the bestsellers is a matter of rounding up the usual
suspects. John Grisham (whose The Associate should please fans by
returning to the themes of his best-known novel, The Firm), Jodi Picoult,
Stephen King, Josephine Cox, Wilbur Smith ... they all have new novels this
year. James Patterson, who has done for fiction what Ford did for motor
cars, has eight. However, following the collapse of the supermarket supplier
EUK (a Woolworths subsidiary), these bestselling “brands” may not match
their usual sales figures.
Who are the new names who might add some variety to the charts? To answer this
question in recent years, one has had simply to refer to the authors
selected by Richard and Judy for their various book clubs. Now, however, the
pair are lurking on the digital channel Watch, which not many people are
watching. Whether from there they can promote the careers of writers as
effectively as they did Picoult's remains to be seen - although there is
some research to suggest that the Richard and Judy imprimatur can transcend
the viewing figures.
Among the debut novelists for whom publishers have high hopes are the
journalist Anthony Quinn, who has set The Rescue Man (January) in his native
Liverpool during the Second World War; Alan Bradley, who has written a
village crime mystery set in the 1950s and called The Sweetness at the
Bottom of the Pie (January); (Dame) Joan Bakewell, the Government's champion
of the elderly and, at 75, fiction newcomer (All the Nice Girls, March);
Reif Larsen, whose The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet (May) is about a
12-year-old mapmaker making a long journey to Washington to collect a
science prize; Eleanor Catton, who wrote the distinctive The Rehearsal
(July), about a sex scandal in a girls' school, at the age of 22; and Matt
Hilton, a policeman and martial arts expert who introduces his hero, Joe
Hunter, in Dead Men's Dust (June).
And then there are those aiming to rival the success of the celebrity novelist
Katie Price - Sharon Osbourne (an as-yet-untitled first novel for the
summer) and Martine McCutcheon (The Mistress, July).
Several translated works will get a lot of attention. The late Roberto
Bolaño's novel 2666 (January) comes on the back of US reviews hailing it as
a towering masterpiece. Jonathan Littell's The Kindly Ones (March), another
epic, arrives after a Prix Goncourt victory. (Littell, son of the thriller
writer Robert Littell, is an American writing in French.) Wetlands by
Charlotte Roche (born in High Wycombe but living in Germany) is an extremely
graphic portrait of a young woman's sexuality, and has been a European
sensation, selling hundreds of thousands of copies (February).
Also controversial will be Beginners (September) by Raymond Carver (pictured
above), the late author's debut collection as it was before his editor,
Gordon Lish, produced a pared-down version - it was Lish's work, rather than
Carver's, that came to define the term “Carveresque”. Among the other
literary highlights of 2009 will be Kazuo Ishiguro's stories about music,
Nocturnes (May); the wonderful Sarah Waters with The Little Stranger (June);
the intense and original David Peace's Occupied City (July); the brilliant,
unprolific Lorrie Moore's A Gate at the Stairs (September); Margaret
Atwood's God's Gardeners (September); Martin Amis's The Pregnant Widow
(September); and (if he'll forgive my placing him in this category) Nick
Hornby's Juliet, Naked (Viking, September).
Two intriguing curiosities are Shirley Hughes's wordless Bye Bye Birdie
(April), the great illustrator's first work for adults; and the always
unpredictable Dave Eggers' novelisation, accompanying a film, of Maurice
Sendak's classic Where the Wild Things Are (October).Biography
At the turn of each year we think, wishfully: “Surely the celebrity memoir
boom must come to an end.” Each year we are disappointed. Nevertheless,
there are likely to be fewer examples of the genre in this recessionary
year. Leona Lewis (October), the X Factor winner, will offer an interesting
gauge of the market; interest in Jack Dee (October) and Derren Brown
(November) is probably less susceptible to swings of fashion. There will
also be memoirs from Jerry Hall (September) and Andy Williams (October).
Literary lives include Edmund White on Rimbaud (January, reviewed on page 11),
Lilian Pizzichini on Jean Rhys (May), John Carey on William Golding
(September), and Margaret Drabble's memoir The Pattern in the Carpet
(April). In history, politics and current affairs, there is Paddy Ashdown's
autobiography in April; Ion Trewin will tell us whether the real Alan Clark
was the same as the one presented in Clark's scabrous Diaries (September);
William Shawcross will tell us whether Elizabeth the Queen Mother really was
the “ghastly old bigot” portrayed recently by Edward Stourton (September);
and September will also bring Shirley Williams, the last significant
politician of the Wilson/Callaghan/Thatcher era to commit an account of
those years to print.
Tennis books do not sell, is the usual publishing wisdom. Pete Sampras (April)
and, particularly, Andre Agassi (September) may follow John McEnroe in
proving it wrong.
Anniversaries
This is an anniversary year for Robert Burns, Arthur Conan Doyle, Kenneth
Grahame, A.E. Housman, Jerome K. Jerome, Malcolm Lowry, Edgar Allan Poe, and
Alfred, Lord Tennyson. But the most significant birthdays for publishers
involve Charles Darwin (above right), who was born 200 years ago and whose
On the Origin of Species was published 150 years ago.
There will be an anniversary edition of On the Origin of Species, with a cover
design by Damien Hirst, from Penguin. Cambridge University Press will have a
scholarly edition. Books about Darwin and evolution include Why Evolution is
True by Jerry Coyne (January); Darwin's Sacred Cause by Adrian Desmond and
James Moore (January); a children's book, What Mr Darwin Saw by Mick Manning
and Brita Granstrom (February); Darwin: A Life in Poems by Ruth Padel
(February); The Young Charles Darwin by Keith Thomson (March); and Darwin's
Armada by Iain McCalman (April). Only the fittest will survive this level of
competition; and the best-adapted may be the scientific heavyweights Steve
Jones, with Darwin's Island (January), and Richard Dawkins, with The
Greatest Show on Earth (September).
Science and religion
The appearance of Richard Dawkins's bestselling The God Delusion provoked a
series of books agreeing or taking issue with him. The provocative Terry
Eagleton's Reason, Faith, and Revolution (May) condemns both houses:
Eagleton “demolishes” the view of God held by Dawkins and Christopher
Hitchens, while unleashing a “stinging assault” on organised Christianity.
Karen Armstrong, a former nun, also challenges Dawkins and Hitchens, in The
Case for God (August).
The former publisher Christopher Potter gives us, in 320 pages, You Are Here:
A Portable History of the Universe (March). Stephen Hawking has a new book,
The Grand Design (October); and Melvyn Bragg brings his Radio 4 explorations
of science and history to book form in In Our Time (September).
Britain and current affairs
Andrew Marr studies Britannia (October), and Roy Hattersley goes In Search of
England (November). Mark Girouard, doyen of architectural historians, offers
Elizabethan Architecture (June). Chris Mullin will give a Labour maverick's
sceptical view of the Blair and Brown years in his Diaries (March).
In a credulous age, some refreshing debunking should be provided by Francis
Wheen in Strange Days Indeed (April), about the paranoia of the 1970s, and
by David Aaronovitch, the Times columnist, in Voodoo Histories (May), about
conspiracy theories.
Children's
Unless J.K. Rowling springs another surprise like Beedle the Bard, this will
be, movie tie-ins apart, a post-Harry Potter year. Stephenie Meyer's
Twilight series is the new teenage craze, certainly among girls; but the
author has brought it to an end. The novel that is being promoted as the
next cult hit is Gone by Michael Grant (April) - “Lord of the Flies for the
Heroes generation”. In the autumn there will be a similar or even greater
amount of hype for Eoin Colfer's authorised sequel to Douglas Adams's The
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy novels.
More quietly published but also excitedly awaited titles include Gullstruck
Island by Frances Hardinge (January), about a child with the power to leave
her body; Solace of the Road by Siobhan Dowd (February), the last novel by a
gifted writer who died of cancer at the age of 47; My Secret Diary (March),
in which Jacqueline Wilson (above) recalls her teenage years; and Philip
Reeve's Fever Crumb (May), a prequel to his Mortal Engines quartet. Julia
Donaldson publishes her first novel, a teenage thriller called Running on
the Cracks (March) and Axel Scheffler becomes the third illustrator of T.S.
Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, for an edition published as
part of Faber's 80th birthday celebrations.
