Dare I say it: here we go again? With another Covid-dominated year on the horizon, it is easy to feel not a little despondent: I don’t mind admitting, dear reader, that I’m very, very tired, and after a particularly difficult but still pretty fun Christmas trading period following our 2021 lockdown (like retailers across the land, I could recount a gripping, personal account of the infamous supply chain issues, but I’ll save that for my memoir…), I am sure I’m not alone in wondering whether I’ve got enough gas in the tank to get excited about 2022. But that’s where this annual exercise of looking forward comes in, because there is no antidote to a difficult present quite like letting the mind wander into the future. And, of course, books are always front of mind, and this year’s offerings are absolutely guaranteed to distract from whatever challenges your present mighthold. So – here I DO go again, at my customary breakneck speed, with the annual (totally incomplete) run-down of the big titles to keep an eye out for this year (dear editor, I said I’d make it shorter this year! I was wrong).

Chloe Hooper needs no introduction to this readership, so you’ll be sharing my excitement at the news that she has a new work of nonfiction on the horizon called Bedtime Story (May). This is a deeply personal work that explores the question of mortality from Hooper’s unique perspective, and is one of the books I’m most looking forward to reading this year. Also right up there in the personal anticipation stakes is our colleague Sean O’Beirne’s contribution to Black Inc.’s Writers on Writers series,and I can’t think of a more qualified person to produce a thoughtful essay about Helen Garner. On Helen Garner is out in April. Also coming this year, in October, is the second book from Nina Kenwood. Our former Marketing Manager and Readings Friend for Life’s new novel is called Unnecessary Drama. Yay, Nina!

The Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction introduces many emerging voices to the Readings community, and this year there are again a number of prize shortlistees with books on the way. Luke Carman was shortlisted for the inaugural award in 2014 (for An Elegant Young Man) and he has a new short-story collection, An Ordinary Ecstasy (July). Eliza Henry-Jones (shortlisted in 2015 for In the Quiet) publishes her third book for adults, Salt and Ski, in August. Sean Rabin (shortlisted in 2016for Wood Green) has The Good Captain out in April, the same month 2017 finalist From the Wreck’s author Jane Rawson releases A History of Dreams. Robbie Arnott was shortlisted in 2018 for Flames, and won 2021’s reinvigorated Age Book of the Year award with his novel The Rain Heron. This year he publishes his third, Limberlost (October). Shaun Prescott was shortlisted in that same round for his debut novel The Town; his second novel is Bon and Lesley (September), which continues his interest in the surreal and the regional. Angela Meyer, shortlisted in 2019 for her audacious speculative novel, A Superior Spectre, publishes her second novel, Moon Sugar, in October. Yumna Kassab (shortlisted in 2020 for The House of Youssef) will publish her follow-up work, Australiana (March).

A new work from the multi-award-winning Alexis Wright is a literary event, and Praiseworthy (October) will be the author’s first work of fiction in nearly 10 years. Incidentally, it was exciting to see that the ABC TV series Books That Made Us, which aired just before Christmas last year, ignited huge new interest in the author’s epic novel, Carpentaria (2006), rushing it into reprint. There are also new books due from other well-loved authors, like Steven Carroll (March), Toni Jordan (April), Steve Toltz (May), Dervla McTiernan (May), Geraldine Brooks (June), Robert Drewe, (June), Tom Keneally (August), Jock Serong (September), Gail Jones (November), Philip Salom (November), and Jane Harper and Chris Womersley (sometime in the second half of the year). And in breaking news, I’ve literally just heard that Sophie Cunningham has a new work of fiction on the way: This Devastating Fever is expected in September. More details to come.

One of the biggest selling Australian books since the pandemic began is Pip Williams’ The Dictionary of Lost Words. It was our second bestselling book in 2020, and found still more readers in 2021 as our fourth bestselling book. Williams’ follow-up is called The Bookbinder of Jericho (November) and is set in the same world as TDOLW. In fact, there are lots more second and third novels on the way from emerging local voices. Claire G. Coleman is best known for her two excellent novels, Terra Nullius and The Old Lie, and in 2021 she turned her hand to nonfiction with the impressive polemic Lies, Damned Lies; this year she returns to the novel with Enclave (July). Victoria Hannan’s debut Kokomo (2020) was a staff favourite, and it’s exciting to hear that Hannan’s follow-up novel, Marshmallow, is due in September. Holly Ringland’s The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart was a sensation, and her second novel is called The Seven Sins of Esther Wilding (June). Hilde Hinton’s The Loudness of Unsaid Things won her many fans, and they’ll be keen for A Solitary Walk on the Moon, out in April. Nigel Featherstone, author of the gorgeous historical novel of war, Bodies of Men, publishes My Heart Is a Little Wild Thing in May. Robert Lukin’s follow-up to his acclaimed The Everlasting Sunday is Loveland (March), a story in which an Australian character moves to Nebraska to claim an inheritance. In August, we’ll see Jay Carmichael’s second novel, Marlo, which follows the fortunes of a young gay man in the 1950s who moves to the city, hoping to find freedom during conservative times. Mirandi Riwoe’s Stone Sky Gold Mountain won a number of prizes including the ARA Historical Novel Prize, and her next book is a short- story collection, The Burnished Sun (April). Kári Gíslason (co-author with Richard Fidler of Saga Land, and author of The Ash Burner and The Promise of Iceland) reworks the story of one of Iceland’s most famous women of history in The Sorrow Stone (March). UQP’s collection of First Nations short stories, Flock, was a big success last year; this year, look out for This All Come Back Now (edited by Mykaela Saunders), a collection of First Nations speculative fiction.

There are some brilliant Australian debuts to look forward to, and March is a key month, with the publication of: the first novel from poet Omar Sakr, whose Son of Sin is gathering big endorsements from writers like Alexis Wright, Christos Tsiolkas and Hannah Kent; Rhett Davis’ impressive novel, Hovering, which was the winner of the 2020 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript; Jessica Stanley’s novel of political intrigue, A Great Hope; and Ennis Ćehić’s satirical short-story collection, Sadvertising, which surely has one of the most evocative titles of the year. In May, we’ll see Ashley Goldberg’s first novel, Abomination, which explores the fallout of a scandal at an ultra-Orthodox Jewish school. This work was shortlisted for the 2020 Kill Your Darlings Unpublished Manuscript Award, and another unpublished manuscript winner (at the Tasmanian Premier’s Literary Awards in 2019), is Brendan Colley. His debut novel Signal Line appears in May, featuring the intriguing hook of a ghost train rattling down the old tram tracks of Hobart. Siang Lu’s The Whitewash, a timely novel which turns its gaze on Hollywood’s whitewashing problem, will be published in the second half of the year. Pirooz Jafari’s Forty Nights (August) comes highly recommended too, a story of characters seeking refuge, and the search for home. George Haddad’s debut novel Losing Face (May) is set in Western Sydney’s Lebanese-Australian community, and explores trauma and family secrets. Genevieve Novak’s No Hard Feelings (April) is being described as ‘Fleabag meets Sorrow and Bliss’.

Hannah Gadsby’s Ten Steps to Nanette has been whispered on the publishing winds for several years now, but I’m assured that it’s out this May, and it’s going to be absolutely huge. Nick Cave spoke to Sean O’Hagan for over forty hours, and this interview material forms the basis for Faith, Hope and Carnage (October). Anna Funder, winner of the 2012 Miles Franklin Award for All That I Am, will publish Wifedom in September, a work of nonfiction about the life of Eileen Orwell, wife of a certain George. Don Watson has a new book out in October: The Passion of Private White is described by Watson’s publisher as ‘a miniature epic of human adaptation, suffering and resilience, and an astonishing window into both our recent and deep history’. You might recall Sian Prior’s lovely memoir from 2014 called Shy; Prior has written another deeply personal piece of writing in Childless: A Memoir of Freedom and Longing (April), putting into words the experience of a life lived without children of one’s own. Kim Mahood’s essay collection Wandering with Intent is due in October, while Clive Hamilton is writing a memoir (Provocateur, September). Rick Morton has edited the next in Black Inc.’s Growing Up series, Growing Up in Country Australia (April). Sam Twyford-Moore has written a history of Australians in Hollywood, First We Take Los Angeles (September). I can’t think of a famous personwhose memoir I’d like to read more than Shaun Micallef’s: Tripping Over Myself is due in October. Troy Bramston has written a biography of Bob Hawke (March); Paddy Manning is writing the biography of Lachlan Murdoch (November). Collected writings of Charmian Clift and Jeff Sparrow are due this year too (April and August respectively), and new books are on the way from Ross Garnaut (September) and David Marr (November). Kevin Rudd writes on the tensions between China and the United States in The Avoidable War (April). There was a time when we used to joke about the idea of prepping, but Tom Doig reminds us that We Are All Preppers Now (September). Trusted voice of medical reason, Norman Swan has a new book out in July, and it’s called So You Want to Live Younger Longer? (tell us how, Norman!). In cookbooks (also referred to in-house by one of our dear colleagues as ‘books about dinner’), we can expect new books from Poh Ling Yeow, Hetty McKinnon, Silvia Colloca, Karen Martini, Emiko Davies, the first book from Nagi Maehashi of Recipe Tin Eats fame, and the new book from the wonderful Julia Busuttil Nishimura.

Of course there is an abundance of international works to look forward to as well, including lots of first-time authors whose names may be unfamiliar to you (for example, Leila Mottley, who wrote her debut, Night Crawling, aged just 17, and it is appearing on almost all the ‘highly anticipated’ lists globally). And then there are all the familiar names who have new work on the way including (don’t you love this kind of information dump…) Douglas Stuart (who I think will be very cool bearing the pressure of a second novel to his Booker Prize-winning debut, Shuggie Bain), Kamila Shamsie, Ali Smith, Ocean Vuong, Lloyd Jones, Jennifer Egan (with a novel adjacent if not a sequel to A Visit from the Goon Squad!), Elif Batuman, Esi Edugyan, Miriam Toews, Candice Carty-Williams, Sheila Heti, Patrick Gale, Vigdis Hjorth, Julie Otsuka (whose work I’d never read until now; The Swimmers – out in March – is excellent), Jonathan Safran Foer, Irvine Welsh, Maggie Shipstead, Akwaeke Emezi, George Monbiot, Karen Joy Fowler, John Darnielle, Annie Proulx, John Irving, Sayaka Murata, Andrew Sean Greer, Jhumpa Lahiri, Geoff Dyer, Zadie Smith, Margaret Atwood (with a collection of nonfiction), Elena Ferrante (also with nonfiction), Ottessa Moshfegh, Lisa Taddeo, Anne Tyler, Julie Myerson, Amit Chaudhuri, Haruki Murakami, Marlon James, Julian Barnes, Emily St John Mandel, plus an unexpected collaboration between Dolly Parton and James Patterson – a thriller about a singer-songwriter on the run! – and not to mention one of the most anticipated titles of the year, To Paradise by Hanya Yanagihara. But guess what, dear reader? You don’t have to wait around for To Paradise because it’s already in stores. It’s our Fiction Book of the Month for February, and our reviewer has been left awestruck by Yanagihara’s feat of writing skill: the first bona fide ‘not to be missed’ book of the year.

And this outstanding book, for those paying very close attention, provides me with the perfect segue into a rundown of releases of the month of February (no, I’m most certainly not finished yet!). Tessa Hadley has happily found a loyal following here in Australia, particularly after the publication of her seventh novel, Late in the Day, and her eighth novel, Free Love, is out this month. Monica Ali is probably best known for her Booker Prize-shortlisted Brick Lane, and you’ll find her new book, Love Marriage, on shelves this month. Our reviewers also recommend books from international authors Charmaine Wilkerson, Weike Wang and Imogen Crimp. Watch out too for the new books from Isabel Allende and Sarah Hall (with the local release of Burntcoat, a novel which was rated by many as one of the best books of 2021). This month also sees the republication of Toni Morrison’s only short story, Recitatif, in a lovely hardback edition with an introduction by Zadie Smith.

There are many Australian novels to investigate, perhaps most notably Jessica Au’s Cold Enough for Snow. This book is the inaugural winner of The Novel Prize, an incredibly prestigious biennial prize established in a collaboration between three of the coolest publishers in the world – Fitzcarraldo Editions from the UK, New Directions from the USA, and Australia’s own Giramondo. We’re told it was the unanimous choice of winner, found in over 1500 entries: a very fine achievement! We also review debut novels from Megan Albany (The Very Last List of Vivian Walker), Al Campbell (The Keeper), Emily Brugman (The Islands), Indyana Schneider (28 Questions), and Mandy Beaumont (The Furies), and the new books from Shankari Chandran (Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens) and Katherine Collette (The Competition). Our in-house crime champion, Fiona Hardy, has chosen a new piece of Australian rural noir to unsettle your next trip to the regions: The Cane by Maryrose Cuskelly.

In nonfiction this month, look no further than our Book of the Month, Anna Clark’s acclaimed Making Australian History, a vital work of Australian historiography that illuminates the work and vocation of historians, and the vexed question of national storytelling. This engaging work is essential reading for our times. Clark co-authored the influential account of the political and ideological uses of Australian history in The History Wars (2003, with a second edition in 2004) with the great historian Stuart Macintyre, who was a mentor to several generations (I’m one of the lucky many who remember Professor Macintyre’s inspiring classes very fondly); this month, the second volume of Macintyre’s history of Australian communism, The Party, is published posthumously, and its first volume, The Reds, is reissued.

Our reviewers also recommend Natalie Kon-yu’s The Cost of Labour, which pulls back the curtain on the birthing industrial complex, the selected essays of Mary Gaitskill, Oppositions, and Bill Hayes’ history of exercise, Sweat. Also out this month is Mabu Mabu, a cookbook from First Nations chef, restaurateur and champion of Australian native ingredients, Nornie Bero; the final work from Jan Morris, Allegorizings; Clare Mac Cumhaill and Rachael Wiseman’s Metaphysical Animals which brings the contributions to philosophy of four outstanding women to the fore; Phillip Deery’s history of ASIO during the Cold War, Spies and Sparrows; and Carl Erik Fisher’s narrative history of addiction, The Urge. Paul Callaghan and Uncle Paul Gordon invite readers to The Dreaming Path, and share knowledge about Aboriginal spirituality.

And finally, dear reader, my sincere thanks for sticking with me until the bitter end so I can remind you of what you already know: it’s the time of year for reflection and resolution. Even curmudgeonly I cannot resist the urge to get on the ‘new year, new you’ bandwagon this year (see my earlier comments about bone-deep fatigue). So we’ve put together a list of some of our bestselling titles in personal development (imagined in the broadest possible way), and we’re offering them in-store (except at Readings State Library) as a 3-for-2 throughout the month of February.

Happy new year!

Alison Huber is the head book buyer at Readings.