The Hottest Reads of 2009

Lauzc · The Hottest Reads of 2009

Full article can be found online.

Fiction

Debut Novelists:

* Anthony Quinn ~ The Rescue Man (January)
* Alan Bradley ~ The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie (January)
* (Dame) Joan Bakewell ~ All the Nice Girls (March)
* Reif Larsen ~ The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet (May)
* Eleanor Catton ~ The Rehearsal (July)
* Matt Hilton ~ Dead Men's Dust (June)

Celebrity Novelists:

* Sharon Osbourne ~ an as-yet-untitled first novel for the summer
* Martine McCutcheon ~ The Mistress (July)

Translated Works:

* Roberto Bolaño ~ 2666 (January)
* Jonathan Littell ~ The Kindly Ones (March)
* Charlotte Roche ~ Wetlands (February)

Controversial:

* Beginners ~ Raymond Carver (September)

Other literary highlights:

* Kazuo Ishiguro ~ Nocturnes (May)
* Sarah Waters ~ The Little Stranger (June)
* David Peace ~ Occupied City (July)
* Lorrie Moore ~ A Gate at the Stairs (September)
* Margaret Atwood ~ God's Gardeners (September)
* Martin Amis ~ The Pregnant Widow (September)
* Nick Hornby ~ Juliet, Naked (September)

Intriguing curiosities:

* Shirley Hughes ~ Bye Bye Birdie (April)
* Dave Eggers ~ Where the Wild Things Are (October)

Biographies

* Leona Lewis (October)
* Jack Dee (October)
* Derren Brown (November)
* Jerry Hall (September)
* Andy Williams (October)

Literary lives:

* Edmund White on Rimbaud (January)
* Lilian Pizzichini on Jean Rhys (May)
* John Carey on William Golding (September)
* Margaret Drabble ~ The Pattern in the Carpet (April)

History, politics and current affairs:

* Paddy Ashdown's Autobiography (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)
* Shirley Williams, the last significant politician of the Wilson/Callaghan/Thatcher era to commit an account of those years to print (September)

Tennis books:

* Pete Sampras (April)
* Andre Agassi (September)

Anniversaries

* Robert Burns
* Arthur Conan Doyle
* Kenneth Grahame
* A.E. Housman
* Jerome K. Jerome
* Malcolm Lowry
* Edgar Allan Poe
* Alfred, Lord Tennyson

But the most significant birthdays for publishers involve Charles Darwin, 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

* Terry Eagleton ~ Reason, Faith, and Revolution (May)
* Karen Armstrong ~ The Case for God (August)
* Christopher Potter ~ You Are Here: A Portable History of the
Universe (March)
* Stephen Hawking ~ The Grand Design (October)
* Melvyn Bragg ~ In Our Time (September)

Britain and Current Affairs

* Andrew Marr ~ Britannia (October)
* Roy Hattersley ~ In Search of England (November)
* Mark Girouard ~ Elizabethan Architecture (June)
* Chris Mullin will give a Labour maverick's sceptical view of the Blair and Brown years in his Diaries (March)
* Francis Wheen ~ Strange Days Indeed (April)
* David Aaronovitch ~ Voodoo Histories (May)

Children's

* Michael Grant ~ Gone (April)
* Eoin Colfer's authorised sequel to Douglas Adams's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy novels (summer)
* Frances Hardinge ~ Gullstruck Island by (January)
* Siobhan Dowd ~ Solace of the Road (February)
* Jacqueline Wilson ~ My Secret Diary (March)
* Philip Reeve ~ Fever Crumb (May)
* Julia Donaldson ~ Running on the Cracks (March)
* 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

annecater · Re: The Hottest Reads of 2009

Fiction

Debut Novelists:

* Alan Bradley ~ The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie (January) - I reviewed this for Waterstone's and wasnt impressed at all

Celebrity Novelists:

* Sharon Osbourne ~ an as-yet-untitled first novel for the summer
* Martine McCutcheon ~ The Mistress (July)
These will be 'interesting'!!

Translated Works:

* Roberto Bolaño ~ 2666 (January) - this is on my Wishlist

Other literary highlights:

* Kazuo Ishiguro ~ Nocturnes (May) - I believe this is a collection of short stories - I loved 'Never Let Me Go' but not keen on others that he has written
* Sarah Waters ~ The Little Stranger (June) - looking forward to this

Biographies

* Leona Lewis (October) - how short will this be????

Thanks for posting this - I must go and check out the other titles

Lauzc

The only ones that caught my eye are:

* Kazuo Ishiguro ~ Nocturnes (May)
* Nick Hornby ~ Juliet, Naked (September)

wonderlake · Re: The Hottest Reads of 2009

Karen

* David Peace ~ Occupied City (July)
I can't claim to know David Peace, but his mother and mine are friends and his sister was at school with my sister and so I was given a signed copy of his first novel, many years ago now. I tried very hard to read it many times, but just did not like his style. He must be quite sucessful now though because I keep seeing his name everywhere. Has anyone else read any of his work?

* Philip Reeve ~ Fever Crumb (May)
I will look out for this. I thought his Mortal Engines series was brilliant and certainly not just for children.

* Nick Hornby ~ Juliet, Naked (September)
I will keep an eye out for this too, I have always enjoyed his work.

The Hottest Reads of 2009

Re: The Hottest Reads of 2009

Re: The Hottest Reads of 2009