Next year also brings translation of Sebald's A Place in the Country. And can Gill Hornby do for chick-lit what brother Nick did for lad-lit?
Be afraid … Stephen King's sequel to The
Shining, Doctor Sleep, will be published in September. Photograph: Rex
Features
The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things, by Paula Byrne
Paula
Byrne, a Jane Austen scholar and author who believes she found a lost
portrait of Austen last year, has written a new biography of the novelist,
revealing her as "far tougher, more socially and politically aware, and
altogether more modern" than we thought. Out to mark the bicentenary of Pride
and Prejudice (prepare for Austen overload next year), it is already
creating a buzz. HarperPress,
17 January.
A Place in the Country, by WG Sebald
This long-awaited
translation is a fusion of biography and essay from the revered author of The
Rings of Saturn and Austerlitz, who died in 2001. A reflection on six
figures who shaped him, including Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Robert Walser and Jan
Peter Tripp, it has been described by its publisher as "a window into the mind
of this much-loved and much-missed writer". Hamish Hamilton, 2 May.
The Hive, by Gill Hornby
Nick Hornby is the
undisputed king of lad-lit; now his sister Gill is set to make her literary
debut with The Hive, a novel about female friendship, motherhood and
one-upmanship at the school gates. Its publisher, who bought it for a six-figure
sum in a heated auction, is promising it will be "irresistible, brilliantly
observed and wickedly funny". Little,
Brown, 23 May.
Doctor Sleep, by Stephen King
More than 30 years on,
America's master of horror is returning to one of his most enduring characters,
Danny Torrance, the little psychic boy whose father went mad in the Overlook
Hotel in The
Shining. Danny is now Dan, and middle-aged, using his "shining" power to
help the dying in a hospice, when he meets a 12-year-old girl threatened by a
great evil. Hodder
& Stoughton, 24 September.
Untitled, by William Boyd
Following Sebastian Faulks
and Jeffrey Deaver, William Boyd – winner of most literary prizes going – takes
on James Bond. The author of Restless and Any Human Heart is being tight-lipped:
all he has said is that it will be set in 1969, and be a return to
"classic Bond". Jonathan
Cape, autumn.
Untitled, by Helen Fielding
Having notched up sales of
15m around the world, Bridget Jones will return, in a "different phase" of her
life, this autumn. Helen Fielding hasn't said if the perennial Mark Darcy/Daniel
Cleaver/Bridget Jones love triangle will still be in play, but reassuringly
revealed that Bridget will still be dieting, while trying to give up drinking
and smoking. Jonathan
Cape, autumn.
No comments:
Post a Comment