The Literary Year 2012
JANUARY The year in books begins with the
ultimate English legend: The Death of King Arthur: A New Verse Translation
(Faber), in which Simon Armitage follows his interpretation of Sir Gawain
and the Green Knight with a reshaping of the 15th-century Alliterative
Morte Arthure for modern ears. As quintessentially American as Arthur is
English is The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach (Fourth Estate), the
door-stopping debut novel about baseball that has had its young author hailed
as the new voice of his nation. Harbach’s equivalent in non-fiction is surely
Jodi Kantor, the celebrated New York Times reporter whose unique White
House access resulted in The Obamas: A Mission,
A Marriage (Allen Lane).
And what would her subjects think of Roger Scruton’s conservative programme for
conservation, Green Philosophy: How to Think Seriously About the Planet
(Atlantic)?
FEBRUARY There’s much gritty wilderness in
Booker-nominated Kate Grenville’s new novel Sarah Thornhill (Canongate),
a dark love story which returns to the early Australia of her celebrated The
Secret River. Another hotly anticipated novel is Hope: A Tragedy (Picador),
a mordant look at the burdens of history – and mothers – by the cult memoirist
Shalom Auslander, who surely deserves a place in Colm Tóibín’s essays on
writers and families, New Ways to Kill Your Mother (Viking). In Religion
for Atheists (Hamish Hamilton) Alain de Botton chooses what best to steal
from religion to feel good. The ultimate in literary non-fiction comes from
Granta in the form of Joseph Roth: A Life in Letters, translated by
Michael Hofmann. From the big dog of Austro-Hungarian letters to Hollywood’s
most famous canine star: Susan Orlean has written the definitive biography of
Rin Tin Tin (Atlantic); and a more esoteric cinematic history comes from the
genre-busting Geoff Dyer, whose study of the Russian film Stalker, Zona
(Canongate), spirals off into unexpected directions. Traditionalists who prefer
their history linear, human and unashamedly British will appreciate All the
King’s Men: The British Soldier from the Restoration to Waterloo by the
celebrated historian Saul David (Viking).
MARCH At last, the long-awaited personal
history from an extraordinary former Bishop of Edinburgh, Richard Holloway. Leaving
Alexandria: A
Memoir is published, of course, by Canongate. Also set in the Scottish
capital is a novel by Jennie Erdal, Naim Attallah’s one-time ghostwriter: The
Missing Shade of Blue is a tale of philosophy and friendship. Capital
is both title and subject of John Lanchester’s hefty new novel from Faber about
the state of the nation post-financial crisis; William Boyd turns his attention
to the many crises in wartime Europe with Waiting For Sunrise (Bloomsbury);
and, after a seven year wait, Tim Lott is to publish a new novel, Under the
Same Stars (Simon & Schuster) about two brothers driving across
America’s Deep South. Travels of a more fantastical hue are to be found in Gulliver’s
Travels, illustrated and updated by cartoonist Martin Rowson (Atlantic). In another homage to a past writer, Peter
Ackroyd tackles his hero in Wilkie Collins (Vintage). Masha Gessen’s new
book, The Man Without a Face (Granta), tells the story of Vladimir
Putin’s rise to power. Another big book in world affairs will be Pakistan on the Brink: The Future of Pakistan, Afghanistan and the West by
Ahmed Rashid (Allen Lane).
After which serious business you can cheer yourself up with Various Pets
Dead and Alive, a wry comedy about the offspring of hippy parents by Marina
Lewycka.
APRIL Spring is heralded by two novels of the
Eighties, Skagboys (Jonathan Cape) by Irvine Welsh, a prequel to Trainspotting,
and Can We Still Be Friends?, the debut by Vogue editor Alexandra
Shulman (Fig Tree) about a group of young women in the age of big hair and
pixie boots. Another literary look at past relationships is The Beginner’s
Goodbye (Chatto) by that faultless veteran Anne Tyler, a bittersweet ghost
story about what happens to a marriage when a dead spouse reappears. Bound to
be every bit as moving is The Chemistry of Tears by Peter Carey (Faber),
in which a museum, a grieving lover and a 200-year-old automaton teach lessons
about the science of love. For the same subject in non-fiction form try The
Science of Love and Betrayal by Robin Dunbar (Faber): the Oxford Professor
of Evolutionary Anthropology shows what new discoveries in psychology and
ethology tell us about falling in love. One man who knew a thing or two about
love was Tolstoy, the subject of a new biography by AN Wilson (Atlantic). Savage Continent sounds like it too
could be a book about the rocky terrain of the heart but is in fact an incisive
new portrait of Europe after the Second World
War by Keith Lowe (Viking). An alternative version of post-war history can be
found in the book of poems edited by Carol Ann Duffy on the occasion of a very
special anniversary: in Jubilee Lines (Faber), 60 poets each write about
one of the years of Her Majesty’s reign. Another permutation of biography by
proxy is offered by Philip Hensher, whose Scenes from Early Life (Fourth
Estate) is a fictionalised memoir of his husband’s Bengali family in war-torn
Seventies Pakistan.
MAY May promises rich pickings for history
buffs, kicking off with What, When, How and Why (Weidenfeld), a memoir
by Bernard Lewis, aka “the White House’s favourite historian”. The Spectre
of Vichy by Allan Massie (Jonathan
Cape) undertakes to remind us of the
noble aims of Vichy France; and Just Send Me Word: A
Story of Love and Survival in the Gulag by Orlando Figes (Allen Lane) tells
of a huge and extraordinary set of letters sent between lovers separated by war
and gulag. Major current affairs titles to beef up your armchair pontificating
are This Is Not The Way: Jews, Judaism and the State of Israel by David
Goldberg (Faber), a liberal London rabbi’s controversial take on Jews and the
Middle East, and Islamism and Islam by Bassam Tibi (Yale), which
elucidates some crucial differences between the religion and its attendant
“-ism”. Sure to be a hit is Mrs Robinson’s Disgrace: The Private Diary of a
Victorian Lady (Bloomsbury) by Kate “Mr Whicher” Summerscale, a
spicy tale of romantic intrigue in 19th-century Edinburgh. But 2012’s two most important
books by and about women are Are You My Mother? by Alison Bechdel
(Jonathan Cape), the genius American artist and writer’s follow-up to her
award-winning memoir Fun Home, this time concentrating on the women she
has loved; and Hilary Mantel’s Bring Up the Bodies (Fourth Estate) a
novelisation of the downfall of Anne Boleyn, that pivotal event in Tudor
history. Roads to our past don’t come much richer than The A303: Highway to
the Sun by Tom Fort (Simon & Schuster) a meditation on the great route
to the west and its ancient origins. Further unexpected treats are to be found
in Hedge Britannia by Hugh Barker (Bloomsbury), a look at how hedges
contribute to national identity; and if you like that, you’ll love the complete
history of wayfaring, Ramble On by Sinclair McKay (Fourth Estate).
JUNE Still rambling on (in the most sensitive
and intelligent way possible) is Robert Macfarlane, whose The Old Ways: A
Journey on Foot (Hamish Hamilton) charts his walks along the byways of
Cambridgeshire. Also keeping their eyes to the ground are the heroes of Reading
the Rocks: How a Club of Gentleman Geologists Changed the World by Brenda
Maddox (Bodley Head), an introduction to the major figures of Victorian geology
whose discoveries redefined life on Earth. That unique chronicler of houses and
streets, Gillian Tindall, focuses on Three Houses, Many Lives (Chatto)
to evoke four centuries of social change in England. Or for a fictional look at
the lives behind the facades of pretty houses, Faber is publishing Michael
Frayn’s Skios, a story of mistaken identity on the sun-baked Greek
island. Less sunny but equally insightful will be Canada
by the Pulitzer-winning Richard Ford (Bloomsbury),
the tale of one boy’s road-trip with his fugitive parents. Another much-admired
American writer and thinker, Siri Hustvedt, has a collection of essays about Living,
Thinking, Looking – ie being human – coming from Sceptre, and two titles on
Yale’s list complement it nicely: The Woman Reader, a history by Belinda
Jack and My Dear Governess: The Letters of Edith Wharton to Anna Bahlmann,
the proceeds of 2009’s discovery of the correspondence between the novelist and
her German teacher-turned-assistant.
JULY Wharton would surely have approved of How
Much is Enough? Money and the Good Life by Robert and Edward Skidelsky (Allen Lane), a
radical new assessment of what we really want from life. And what is and isn’t
worth wanting is the theme of the new novel by Stuart Evers, the supercool
winner of last year’s London Book Award: If This is Home (Picador)
follows a confused Englishman who runs away to Las Vegas. Similarly hip and pacy is
Booker-nominated James Kelman’s Mo Said She Was Quirky (Hamish
Hamilton), a race through 24 hours in the life of an ordinary young woman. And
don’t forget the latest offering by Lionel Shriver, The New Republic
(HarperCollins). Expect political satire, journalists and terrorism.
AUGUST August, typically a spare month for
fiction, nevertheless has two strong contenders for the prize of top summer
read. Picador is buzzing with excitement after securing the rights to Tigers
in Red Weather by Liza Klaussmann, the debut novel by the
great-great-great-granddaughter of Herman Melville, which takes us on a
jazz-imbued tour of the glossy East Coast lives of a wealthy Fifties family. By
contrast, Enid Shomer’s The Twelve Rooms of the Nile (Simon &
Schuster) promises little glitz or glamour but heat and mud aplenty in an
atmospheric imagining of the friendship that grew between Florence Nightingale
and Gustave Flaubert on their 1849 Nile
journey.
SEPTEMBER Egypt and its neighbours are
thoroughly analysed by Jeremy Bowen in Anatomy of a Revolution (Simon
& Schuster), the BBC correspondent’s view of the Arab Spring. Sonke Neitzel
and Harald Welzer’s Soldaten (Simon & Schuster) is a selection of
transcripts from secretly-recorded conversations between German soldiers in the
Second World War. Already a bestseller on the Continent, it promises an
unsanitised glimpse into the Nazi barracks. It’s the English Civil War that
provides the setting for Lawrence Norfolk’s keenly anticipated novel John
Saturnall’s Feast (Bloomsbury), whose hero
is a 17th-century orphan who becomes the greatest cook of his generation. A less
jolly but no doubt equally rewarding read will be Zoo Time by Howard
Jacobson (Bloomsbury), a literary attack on
the internet. The internet – and celebrity cooks – are sure to feature in Modernity
Britain, the follow-up to Austerity Britain by David Kynaston (also Bloomsbury).
OCTOBER-DECEMBER One of the most talked-about books of
autumn will be Empire of the Mind: The Dawn of the Techno-Political Age
(John Murray) by Eric Schmidt, the former Google CEO, and Jared Cohen, a US
government adviser. With insights from politics and industry, it claims to be
the first comprehensive study of the interplay between technology and world
affairs. It’s the role of new technologies in music that concerns Talking
Heads’ David Byrne in How Music Works (Canongate), apparently the
closest he’ll ever get to writing an autobiography. And finally, there’s a true
biographical treat in store with the long-awaited arrival of Patrick Leigh
Fermor by Antony Beevor and Artemis Cooper (John Murray), the sure-to-be-glorious
life of the 20th century’s greatest Hellenic traveller. What more civilised way
to round off a varied and inspiring year in books?
Will this year be the year you write that book? Why not contact a member of
the Words Worth Reading Ltd team and find out how they can help you make it
happen!
