Spring has sprung and along with the crocuses, you will need something decent to read and for once, there is a fecund crop of upcoming new books to choose from.
From ex-aide Cleo Watson’s “sex and skulduggery” romp in Westminster Whips to Max Porter’s latest, there should be something to suit all tastes.
1. Big Swiss by Jen Beagin
Big Swiss is currently being turned in to HBO series starring Jodie Comer and it has a very juicy premise indeed. Greta works as a transcriber for a sex therapist and she becomes particularly fascinated by one client who has never had an orgasm and whom she nicknames ‘Big Swiss’ (Comer plays her) and later meets in the dog park. The two women embark on a passionate affair that flips upside down what they think about fidelity, honesty and also, donkeys.
Out 18 May, Faber & Faber
2. Shy by Max Porter
Max Porter’s first book was the much-praised prose-poem novel Grief is a Thing with Feathers, which even won plaudits from Alan Bennett. Lanny, his second novel, is being made into a film with Rachel Weisz. Shy, his fourth book, is about a few hours in the life of a troubled teenage boy who is escaping Last Chance, a home for ‘very disturbed young men’. You can expect another sensitive exploration of boyhood and imagination from Porter – who has been kind to those of us who like a short book and this new novel is no exception.
Out now, Faber & Faber
3. Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton
Eleanor Catton is still the youngest ever winner of the Booker Prize for her historical doorstep of a novel The Luminaries (2013). Birnam Wood is her Macbeth-inspired follow up and transports the central ideas of Shakespeare’s tragedy to present day New Zealand. This is part of a growing trend of “cli-fi” or fiction about climate change and is nothing if not brutal. If you want a quick introduction to Catton’s work, however, it’s worth picking up her first novel and masterpiece, The Rehearsal.
Out now, Granta
4. Is This OK? by Harriet Gibsone
Harriet Gibsone was a 31 year old newly-wed when she realised she was experiencing early menopause with all its implications for her identity and fertility. This is her very funny and moving memoir about what she did next and if you want an idea of how the comedy hits, it has been endorsed by both Sara Pascoe and Bob Mortimer.
Out 25 May, Picador
5. Small Worlds by Caleb Azumah Nelson
Caleb Azumah Nelson’s first novel Open Water, won the Costa First Book Award. Small Worlds, his second, has been praised by all the right people, not least Raven Leilani, author of Luster. Small Worlds is about fathers and sons and takes place over three summers in its hero’s life, travelling from Ghana to London and back again.
Out now, Penguin
6. Whips by Cleo Watson
If you can’t remember how you know that a “puppy gate” was set up in Downing Street for Boris Johnson when the then Prime Minister proved himself unable to self-isolate during the pandemic, it was from ex-aide Cleo Watson’s Tatler article. Johnson also told her she was like an “ugly lamp” he had gained in his “divorce” from Dominic Cummings. Other delicious revelations proliferated and Watson has now written a novel called Whips which she describes as “sex and skulduggery in Westminster, set during a leadership contest.” She has also said “I like telling people it is the Matt Hancock arse-grab’ of debut novels, which is to say truly cringeworthy, but nonetheless gripping.” Irresistible.
Out 25 May, Little Brown
7. Good Girls by Hadley Freeman
The journalist Hadley Freeman has followed her impressive family memoir House of Glass, with an even more self-exposing book about her experiences as a teenager, spending almost three years on psychiatric wards being treated for anorexia. This is a heart-breaking account of what might lead someone to feel self-starvation is her only option and Freeman should be commended for her bravery in writing about this. Her hope is that it may help sufferers and their families out of the darkness and she was part-inspired to write it by anxious queries from friends whose daughters were exhibiting signs of anorexia. It also offers an illuminating insight into an awful disease for those of lucky enough to have a very sketchy understanding of it.
Out 18 April, 4th Estate
8. The Guest by Emma Cline
Emma Cline’s first novel, The Girls, was the book of Summer 2016. Its haunting evocation of the girls on the edges of the Manson cult gripped readers and won her fans from Lena Dunham to Richard Ford. She hasn’t written a novel since so The Guest is highly anticipated. Set in the glittering world of east coast wealth and glamour, it is about a young woman who has been working as an escort in the city and is now staying with Simon, her new sugar daddy, at his beach house for the summer.
Out 18 May, Penguin
9. Old Babes in the Wood by Margaret Atwood
Any new publication by the estimable Atwood – who is the author of more than 50 books – is an event and this new collection of 15 short stories is no exception. They feature beloved cats, a confused snail, Martha Gellhorn, George Orwell, a cabal of elderly female academics, and an alien tasked with retelling human fairy tales. If you have only read (or seen on TV) The Handmaid’s Tale by the same author, then this could be an enjoyable next step.
Out now, Vintage
10. Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld
A bookseller inadvertently sold the premise of this novel to me by saying she felt guilty for wolfing it down so salaciously. A thirtysomething TV script writer on a Saturday Night Live type show treats her current boyfriend like mediocre pizza, something that can be consumed in lieu of a more satisfying alternative. She also writes a sketch mocking the phenomenon of interesting but ordinary looking men dating beautiful women, noting that this never happens the other way around. Until, of course, it happens to her. Sittenfeld, whose previous novels include Rodham and Eligible, appears to have struck gold once again.
Out now, Transworld
11. Touching Cloth by Fergus Butler-Gallie
It’s hard not to love a priest who calls his memoir Touching Cloth and whose author bio mentions that he “grew up amidst a large family of maniacs”. Butler-Gallie’s publishers are billing this as “Richard Coles meets Adam Kay” which sounds quite odd but rest assured this account of a year in the life of young priest is worth your time. The funniest depiction of being a priest since Rev left our screens.
