Looking for some escapism and a new read? From Salman Rushdie’s tale of survival after being stabbed in 2022, to a collaborative novel set in lockdown, with contributions by everyone from Margaret Atwood to Celeste Ng, via a juicy campus drama from Such A Fun Age author Kiley Reid, these are just some of the bombshell literary launches of the year.
Some have just been released in hardback, others have finally been published in paperback, with a series of much-anticipated titles which haven’t yet been released. Here are the best in fiction and non-fiction.
Wandering Souls by Cecile Pin
In a poignant, sweeping narrative that oscillates between the world of the living and the dead, this haunting story tells the tale of Vietnamese children in the UK with an emphasis on heritage and hope.
Out now
Buy now £8.49, Waterstones
Come and Get It by Kiley Reid
This new hit tells of two rather different women forming an unlikely bond. Filled with razor-sharp wit, illicit behaviour and philosophical musings on our sense of self, it’s a slower mover than her debut novel but grad girl Millie and heartbroken author Agatha are a delight.
Out now
Buy now £14.95, Amazon
Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors
From the author of Cleopatra and Frankenstein comes this highly-anticipated story of four intrinsically interwoven yet radically different sisters who reunite at their childhood home in New York following an unexpected bereavement. Think Little Women but adapted for the contemporary female experience.
Available from May 23, pre-order now
Buy now £14.99, Amazon
I Have Some Questions For You by Rebecca Makkai
When film professor and podcaster Bodie Kane reluctantly returns to the New Hampshire boarding school where she spent four miserable years, she finds herself drawn to a brutal murder case. While teaching a two-week course, Kane unwittingly flits between past and present — diving down the rabbit hole to find her world turned upside down.
Out now
Buy now £8.49, Amazon
The Bandit Queens by Parini Shroff
An intrepid, darkly-comic tale of revenge, this follows recent widow Geeta who has decided she quite enjoys her newly peaceful life. However, the village presumes Geeta is guilty of murdering her disappeared husband - an entirely untrue rumour for this single woman in rural India.
Out now
Buy now £8.49, Amazon
The List of Suspicious Things by Jennie Godfrey
The year is 1979 and Miv’s father is threatening to move the Yorkshire-based family down South because of a series of murders and strange occurrences that have rocked their small town. Leaving her best friend Sharon is unthinkable, so the two girls become intent on solving the mystery of the disappearing women before it’s too late.
Out now
Buy now £8.00, Amazon
Butter by Asako Yuzuki
This cult-favourite Japanese tale about a female gourmet chef, a serial killer and the journalist dedicated to solving the case was inspired by a true story. With a captivating tagline of “There are two things that I can simply not tolerate: feminists and margarine”, we needn’t say much more.
Out now
Buy now £14.95, Amazon
Greta and Valdin by Rebecca K Reilly
An interwoven tale of messy love triangles and friendship trapezes, the eccentric Maori-Russian-Catalonian Vladisavljevic family’s titular children navigate love and queerness in present-day New Zealand.
Out now
Buy now £12.99, Amazon
Green Dot by Madeline Gray
A stomach-clenching wild ride with moments of deep introspection and narrative intimacy, we follow 20-something Hera on an illicit office romance. This is a must-read for those of a similar age navigating a 21st century existence.
Out now
Buy now £15.93, Amazon
Fourteen Days by Margaret Atwood and Douglas Preston
It’s rare to come across a novel with a star-studded author list, but Fourteen Days, edited by Margaret Atwood and Douglas Preston, has one. With chapters by John Grisham, Emma Donoghue and many more, we enter into the world of the tenants of a Manhattan apartment building as lockdown starts in 2020.
Out now
Buy now £15.96, Amazon
River East, River West by Aube Rey Lescure
A reversal of the traditional East-West immigrant narrative, Lescure’s breathtaking debut is a coming-of-age tale which explores familial drama, racial identity and the conflict between public and private existences in a developing world, as well as the lie at the heart of the capitalist dream.
Out now
Buy now £14.39, Amazon
Until August by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
A lost novel by the seminal author of One Hundred Years of Solitude was released on March 12 – over a decade after his death. Marquez uncovers the mysteries of love through our sultry yet introspective protagonist Ana Magdalena Bach who seeks a new lover each night. Until August is a story with desire at its core, and an essential summer read.
Out now
Buy now £13.43, Amazon
Long Island by Colm Tóibín
The sequel to Tóibín’s beloved Brooklyn is finally here, and it’s set to be another tear-jerker. Since leaving Brooklyn, Ellis and Tony have been married for twenty years and have two beautiful children – but when a man with an Irish accent shows up at their Long Island home, their secure and steady lives are flipped upside down.
Available from May 23, pre-order now
Buy now £18.40, Amazon
You Are Here by David Nicholls
From the author of One Day comes another rollicking romance fit for the modern reader. A particularly pushy mutual friend conspires to get two perennially unhappy individuals together – but Marnie and Michael threaten to form more than a simple friendship from their very first encounter.
Available from April 23, pre-order now
Buy now £10.00, Amazon
We Solve Murders by Richard Osman
That’s right, we can expect yet another release from literary machine and author of the beloved Thursday Murder Club series Richard Osman by September 12. In We Solve Murders, we’ll be following a father and daughter in-law duo as they attempt to stay one step ahead of a deadly enemy.
Available from Septermber 12, pre-order now
Buy now £11.00, Amazon
DallerGut Dream Department Store by Miye Lee
This surrealist bestseller is a devourable debut by Korean author Miye Lee. Ideal for fans of Before The Coffee Gets Cold, the novel takes place in an unknown town hidden somewhere within the collective subconscious that we enter when we sleep.
Within this town lies a humble department store where dreams are sold to creatures of all shapes, sizes and species looking to embark on their next adventure. We follow eager employee Penny during her first week at DallerGut’s dream shop, where she sells dreams to those looking to overcome personal obstacles.
Out now
Buy now £11.97, Amazon
Knife by Salman Rushdie
Due to give a lecture on the importance of keeping writers safe from harm, Rushdie stood on stage at the Chautauqua Institution, New York, in preparation. Then, a man clothed in all black charged at him with a knife. A moving treatise on the power of literature to heal, Rushdie tells all in this tale of his own survival.
Available from April 19, pre-order now
Buy now £16.00, Amazon
The Wager by David Grann
From the very first page of David Grann’s The Wager, it feels impossible to believe that you’re reading a non-fiction novel. The author holds up a magnifying glass to the enthralling tale of shipwreck and mutiny abord the doomed HMS Wager in 1741.
Out now
Buy now £8.99, Amazon
How To Say Babylon by Safiya Sinclair
A powerful female tale of the struggle to find and maintain a sense of identity within the confines of a patriarchally rigid Rastafarian upbringing, Sinclair’s moving memoir is a story about resilience in the face of oppression.
Out now
Buy now £10.11, Amazon
Crypt by Alice Roberts
Looking to human remains helps us to uncover the mysterious lives of those who came before us. While memento mori are far from comforting, Roberts guides us along the fascinating archaeological finds deriving from tombs, graves and crypts which have unlocked infamous tales of life, death and disease during the Middle Ages.
Out now
Buy now £11.00, Amazon
Why Is This Bastard Lying to Me? By Rob Burley
The question famously posed by Jeremy Paxton on behalf of us all, Rob Burley’s brilliant memoir is an insider’s look into the last three decades of British politics. The producer and former editor of BBC’s live political programmes weaves a disturbingly hilarious yarn in which he tells us what attempting to hold politicians to account live on telly is truly like.
Out now
Buy now £9.49, Amazon
On Giving Up by Adam Phillips
Psychoanalyst Adam Phillips delivers a beautifully illuminating narrative on why reaching are lowest lows are not only inevitable, but a necessary step to overcoming our greatest personal battles and feeling the warm sunshine beat down on our faces as we reach the end of the tunnel.
Out now
Buy now £15.29, Amazon
Just Friends by Gyan Yankovich
It feels as though there hasn’t been a singular moment in history where friendships spanning oceans and continents have been more integral to human survival. Yankovich takes this feeling and rolls with it in her brilliant non-fiction deep-dive into the conditions and complexities of 21st century friendships. As Fred Rogers would say, it’s a book about those who have loved us into being.
Available from July 4, pre-order paperback now
Buy now £14.99, Amazon
Who’s Afraid of Gender? by Judith Butler
A vital read by one of the greatest living third-wave feminist philosophers, Judith Butler navigates the tumultuous realm of gender identity in order to reveal just how straight forward it really is. Butler questions what it is society finds so disturbing about gender, tracing the history of gender politics through her invaluable theoretical lens.
Out now
Buy now £20.00, Amazon
Nexus by Yuval Noah Harari
From the author of Sapiens comes this much-anticipated history of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI. Harari’s Nexus is about how language and the flow of information has shaped the modern world. It’s
Available from September 10, pre-order now
Buy now £10.99, Amazon
Uncivilised by Subhadra Das
Subhadra Das tears down the masquerade of Western ‘civilisation’ to highlight the atrocious philosophies which not only served as a foundation for Imperialism but are retroactively nonsensical.
Out now
Buy now £20.00, Daunt Books
Vulture Capitalism: Corporate Crimes, Backdoor Bailouts and The Death of Freedom by Grace Blakeley
“It's not broken, it's working exactly as planned.” Incisive and intrepid, journalist Grace Blakeley casts the skeletons out of the closet and reveals the deliberately corrupt nature of the capitalist machine.
Out now
Buy now £20.00, Daunt Books
