The most anticipated books of 2022

This story is the one I find the hardest but also the most enjoyable to write every year. It’s difficult because there are so many great books that it’s inevitable some will be left out or missed,but it’s rewarding for that reason:there are so many great books. Booksellers,publishers and writers have weathered a second chaotic year and managed to deliver plenty of challenging,innovative and exciting reads to help the rest of us weather whatever comes our way next.

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Australian fiction

No matter what happens in 2022,we’ll at least haveGeraldine Brooks′ new novel,Horse (June,Hachette),to soothe our souls. Her first novel since 2015’sThe Secret Chord is a multi-stranded narrative exploring the legacy of enslavement and racism in the United States.Alexis Wright’sCarpentaria andThe Swan Book should be required reading,so we’re eagerly awaiting the Stella Prize and Miles Franklin Award winner’s novelPraiseworthy (October,Giramondo),her first in nearly eight years. Another strong voice in speculative fiction,Claire G. Coleman’s third novelEnclave (July,Hachette) takes us into a future disturbingly similar to our colonial past.

Bored with cricket? Perhaps a competitive walking match might hold your attention with Australia’s first international sporting hero of “pedestrianism” the inspiration forRobert Drewe’sNimblefoot (June,Penguin Random House). He’s scored two from two when it comes to Miles Franklin nominations.Robbie Arnott delves into father and son relationships,brotherhood and the environment in his third novelLimberlost (October,Text).Philip Salom, another familiar face on the Miles Franklin lists,will publishSweeney and the Bicycles(November,Transit Lounge).Steven Carrollcompletes his brilliant Eliot Quartet withGoodnight,Vivienne,Goodnight(March,4th Estate) andFiona McGregor starts a duet about the life of Sydney petty criminal Iris Webber inIris (October,Picador).

Also expect novels fromCraig Sherborne (The Grass Hotel,February,Text), Dominique Wilson (Orphan Rock,March,Transit Lounge),Michelle Cahill(Daisy and Woolf,April,Hachette),Steve Toltz (Here Goes Nothing,May,PRH),Tom Keneally (Dancing the Liberty Dance,August,PRH),Jock Serong (The Settlement,September,Text),Inga Simpson (Willowman,November,Hachette),Gail Jones (TBC,November,Text) and Gregory Day (The Bell in the World,December,Transit Lounge).

We’re sure to hear plenty about Jessica Au’s poignantCold Enough for Snow,which won the inaugural The Novel Prize from more than 1500 entries and will be published globally by three publishers in February including in Australia by Giramondo. Look out for two other rising stars of Australian literary fiction:Robert Lukins, who follows his critically acclaimed debutThe Everlasting Saturday withLoveland (Allen&Unwin,March) andJay Carmichael, who returns afterIronbark withMarlo,1953(August,Scribe).

Expect bestsellers inThe Lost Flowers of Alice Hart author Holly Ringland’sThe Seven Skins of Esther Wilding (June,4th Estate) andThe Dictionary of Lost Wordsauthor Pip Williams′The Bookbinder of Jericho(November,Affirm). Also joining the second novel club isHilde Hinton(The Loudness of Unsaid Things,April,Hachette),Victoria Hannan (Marshmallow,September,Hachette) andTom Lee (Object Coach,November,Upswell).

Mandy Beaumont follows her acclaimed short story collectionWild,Fearless Chests withThe Furies (February,Hachette) described as “Charlotte Wood meets Maid in a brutal Outback town”,whileYumna Kassab follows her short story collectionThe House of Yusif withAustraliana (March,Ultimo),set in a single town and structured like1001 Nights.

Heading in the opposite direction with short story collections areStone Sky Gold Mountain novelistMirandi Riwoe (The Burnished Sun,April,UQP) andMammoth authorChris Flynn (Here Be Leviathans,second half,UQP).

International fiction

The reading year gets off to a strong start withHanya Yanagihara’s highly anticipated first novel since 2015’sA Little Life tore apart critics and book clubbers alike.To Paradise (January,Picador) promises to be equally epic (and divisive) spanning three different versions of America in 1893,1993 and 2093. Booker Prize-winnerMarlon James returns withMoon Witch,Spider King (March,PRH),the second in his Dark Star trilogy billed as the AfricanGame of Thrones. More than a decade after we fell in love withA Visit From the Goon Squad, the novel’s characters reappear inJennifer Egan’s sibling novelThe Candy House (April,Hachette). If you’ve finally rinsed off the mud and grime ofShuggie Bain,Douglas Stuart’s second novelYoung Mungo (April,Picador) promises another vivid portrait of working-class life,focusing on the love story between two men.

Other highlights includeIsabel Allende (Violeta,January,Bloomsbury),Monica Ali (Love Marriage,February,Hachette),Anne Tyler (French Braid,March,PRH),Julian Barnes (Elizabeth Finch,April,PRH),Emily St John Mandel(Sea of Tranquility,April,Picador),Lisa Taddeo (Ghost Lover,June,Bloomsbury), Ottessa Moshfegh (Lapvona,July,PRH),Zadie Smith (The Fraud,September,PRH) andJonathan Safran Foer (Escape From Children’s Hospital,October,PRH).

New voices already attracting interest include “once in a generation” debutantLeila Mottley (Nightcrawling,May,Bloomsbury),Xochitl Gonzalez (Olga Dies Dreaming,January,Hachette),Daphne Palasi Andreades (Brown Girls,January,4th Estate),Jessamine Chan(The School for Good Mothers,January,Simon and Schuster) andJean Chen Ho (Fiona and Jane,January,PRH).

Debut Australian fiction

The past few years have shown the appetite for new writers telling new stories in new ways. Publishers have cottoned on,with plenty of strong debut offerings on their forward lists. PoetOmar Sakr makes his move into fiction withSon of Sin (February,Affirm) about Jamal Smith,a young queer Muslim trying to escape his past.Ashley Goldberg’sAbomination (May,PRH),is a story of two best friends whose school,the ultra-Orthodox Jewish Yahel Academy,is rocked by scandal.Emily Brugman’sThe Islands (February,A&U) is the story of the Saari family,Finnish migrants who set up camp on an island off the coast of Western Australia in the mid-1950s.

Rhett Davis,winner of the 2020 Victorian Premier’s Award for an Unpublished Manuscript,will make a bold genre-crossing,style-slipping debut with Hovering (February,Hachette),in which a neighbourhood wakes up to find the streets have rearranged themselves. Similarly ambitious isPirooz Jafari’sForty Nights (July,Ultimo),which spans continents and centuries to examine the consequences of dislocation.

Jessica Stanley’sA Great Hope (February,Picador) unfolds in the aftermath of the death of the fictional political titan John Clare;George Haddad will look at migrant identity,sexuality and consent in the western Sydney-basedLosing Face (May,UQP) andBrooke Dunnell’s Fogarty Literary Award-winningThe Glass House(November,Fremantle Press) is about a woman who takes a break from her troubled marriage to help her father.

Other debutants includeAl Campbell (The Keepers,February,UQP),Lizzie Pook(Moonlight and the Pearler’s Daughter,February,PRH),Sandy Gordon (Leaving Owl Creek,February,Finlay Lloyd),Isobel Beech (Sunbathing,May,A&U),Brendan Colley(The Signal Line,May,Transit Lounge),Adriane Howell (Hydra,August,Transit Lounge) and Alan Fyfe (T,September,Transit Lounge).Sam Wallman will also publish his debut graphic novel about unionism,Our Members Be Unlimited (May,Scribe).

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Literature

Twelve books that made their mark in 2021

For a laugh,try Justin Smith’sCooper Not Out (January,PRH),Megan Albany’sThe Very Last List of Vivian Walker (February,Hachette),Kimberley Allsopp’sLove and Other Puzzles (February,HarperCollins),James Weir’sThe Hemsworth Effect (June,S&S) andClare Fletcher’s Five Bush Weddings (September,PRH).

On the short story front,keep your eye out forEnnis Cehic’sSadvertising (March,PRH),Else Fitzgerald’sEverything Feels Like the End of the World (April,A&U),Maria Samuela’sBeats of the Pa’u(March,Victoria University Press) and Kat Gibson’sWomen I Know (May,Scribner).

Thrills and chills

Australia’s golden age of crime writing continues in 2022.Dervla McTiernan,who reeled us in with Detective Cormac Reilly in her 2018 debut The Ruin,has a standaloneThe Murder Rule (May,HarperCollins),The Chain authorAdrian McKinty has a high-concept thrillerThe Island (June,Hachette),Michael Robotham has the third in his Cyrus Haven series, Lying Beside You (July,Hachette),bestsellerJ.P. Pomare releasesThe Wrong Woman (August,Hachette) andThe Bluffs author Kyle Perry is back with his third novel withThe Wild (August,PRH).

CommentatorJane Caro makes her adult fiction debut with domestic thrillerThe Mother (March,A&U),whileMichael Trant’s first novelWild Dogs (February,PRH) is described as “Lee Child meetsNo Country for Old Men”. Other writers getting their hands bloody for the first time includeNina D. Campbell with feminist revenge thriller Daughters of Eve (March,A&U),Rae Cairns withThe Good Mother (April,HarperCollins) andShelley Burr withWake(June,Hachette). The crop of literary prizes is harvested with Banjo Prize-winnerDinuka McKenzie’sThe Torrent (February,HarperCollins),Kill Your Darlings Unpublished Manuscript Award-winnerHayley Scrivenor’sDirt Town (June,Macmillan) and Penguin Literary Prize-winner James McKenzie Watson’sDenizen (July,PRH).

Michael Levitt puts the art world in the frame in his debutThe Gallerist (February,Fremantle Press),Lyn McFarlane’sThe Scarlett Cross (April,Pantera Press) is about a nurse who gets embroiled in a murder mystery and inAngela Meyer’sMoon Sugar(October,Transit Lounge),a woman hires a “sugar baby” who goes missing on a European holiday.

Other local writers with releases includeBen Sanders′Exit.45 (January,A&U),Maryrose Cuskelly’sThe Cane (February,A&U),Saga Land co-authorKari Gislason’sThe Sorrow Stone (March,UQP),Kelli Hawkins′All She Wants (March,HarperCollins),Aoife Clifford’sWhen We Fall (March,Ultimo) and Dave Warner (After the Flood, August,Fremantle Press). Internationally,expect novels from all the regulars,with the prize for most unlikely foray into chills and thrills going to Dolly Parton,who will co-author with James Patterson a thriller about a young singer-songwriter on the run (Run Rose Run, March,PRH).

Big issues

Strap yourself in for some serious national self-reflection with election-year reads includingAaron Patrick’s account of current and former prime ministers (Revenge,June,HarperCollins),Ed Coper on disinformation (Facts and Other Lies,February,A&U),Jo Dyer on the need to rethink our political system (Burning Down the House,February,Monash University Press),Allan Behm on Australia’s diplomatic relationships (No Enemies,No Friends,March,Upswell), Tom Greenwell and Chris Bonnor on education (Waiting for Gonski:How Australian Failed its Schools,March,UNSW Press), Julianne Schultz on our national identity (The Idea of Australia,March,A&U),Samantha Maiden on the Canberra bubble (Open Secrets,TBC,HarperCollins),Matthew Ricketson andPatrick Mullins on the public broadcaster (Who Needs the ABC?, April Scribe),Osman Faruqi on the history of Australian racism (The Racist Country,August,PRH) and Chris Wallace on prime ministers and their biographers (The Silken Cord,August,NewSouth).

Speaking of prime ministers,Kevin Rudd will look at the US-China relationship in The Avoidable War (March,Hachette). Another former politician,Joe Hockey,is sure to ruffle feathers with his bookDiplomatic (March,HarperCollins). Keeping on theme,diplomatHenry Kissinger analyses how five leaders he has known shaped their countries and the world inLeadership(May,PRH).

As well as politicians,we’ve heard a lot from DrNorman Swan this year,who will publish So You Want To Live Younger Longer? (July,Hachette). Inspired by two years of COVID-19 chaos,formerSunrise hostMelissa Doyle brings together the stories of those who have weathered hardship in Fifteen Seconds of Brave (November,PRH).

The pandemic put pressure on the home front,and inThe Most Important Job in the World (April,Pan Macmillan),Gina Rushton looks at making the decision to become a mother.Sonia Orchard explores the “science of womanhood” inThe Female of the Species (September,Affirm),Tabitha Carvanlooks at the role of joy in women’s lives inThis Is Not a Book About Benedict Cumberbatch (March,HarperCollins) and artistEloise Grills will publishBig Beautiful Female Theory (July,Affirm).

Other highlights includePhillipa McGuinness′ exploration of skin (Skin Deep,March,PRH),Sophie Smith’s take on the world’s most famous cycling race (Inside Le Tour,June,Ultimo),Tim Low on introduced species (Imported Trouble,July,Scribner),Elise Bohan on transhumanism (Future Superhuman,May,NewSouth),Danielle Clode’s look at our favourite furry creature (Koala:A Life in Trees,August,Black Inc.) andAndrew Quilty on Afghanistan (Fall of Kabul,August,MUP)

Memoir,personal essays

Double Booker Prize-winnerMargaret Atwood collects more than 50 pieces on all kinds of topics in Burning Questions (March,PRH). Atwood isn’t the only literary royalty with non-fiction out:Haruki Murakami releases Novelist as a Vocation (August,PRH) andElena Ferrante publishesIn the Margins:On the Pleasures of Reading and Writing(March,A&U).Actual royalty also delivers,withPrince Harry’sbound-to-be-controversial memoir (TBC,second half,PRH). We’ll have a memoir from another icon,Paul Newman,after new transcripts were uncovered after his death (TBC,PRH).

MusicianNick Cave will reflect on his son Arthur’s death in Faith,Hope and Carnage (October,Text),co-written with journalist Sean O’Hagan and drawn from more than 40 hours of conversation between the pair.

Other Australians with memoirs en route are comedianHannah Gadsby (Ten Steps to Nanette,April,A&U),Magda Szubanski (second half,Text),broadcasterTom Tilley (Speaking in Tongues,September,ABC Books) andJason Om (All Mixed Up,April,ABC Books),AC/DC frontmanBrian Johnson (The Lives of Brian,April,PRH),producerAnita Jacoby (Secrets Beyond the Screen,May,Ventura),Black Comedy star Aaron Fa’Aoso (So Far,So Good,September,Pantera Press),activistBrittany Higgins (October,PRH),chefMatt Preston (Big Mouth, November,PRH) and authorAnita Heiss (Am I Black Enough For You?,April,PRH).Kylie Moore-Gilbert,the Melbourne academic who spent two years in jail in Iran after being sentenced on espionage charges,has an as-yet-untitled memoir (April,Ultimo).

Celebrated pianist Simon Tedeschi’s first bookFugitive(May,Upswell) “straddles the borders of poetry and prose,fiction and fact,trauma and testimony”. Sportspeople with stories to spin include rugby league and union star Mat Rogers (A Father’s Son,August,S&S) and AFL star Eddie Betts (My Journey,August).

Other local highlights include veteran biographerBrenda Niall’s tackling her life story inMy Accidental Career(March,Text),Wendy McCarthy’s timelyDon’t Be Too Polite,Girls (March,A&U),Ceridwen Dovey andEliza Bell’s collaborative creationMothertongues (April,PRH),Patti Miller on friendship inTrue Friends (April,UQP),Bastian Fox Phelan’s exploration of gender,facial hair and polycystic ovarian syndromeHow to Be Between (May,Giramondo),Sian Prior on living without children inChildless (April,Text),Carmel Bird’sTelltale:Reading,Writing,Remembering(July,Transit Lounge),Lee Kofman’sThe Writer Laid Bare (March,Ventura), Jessie Cole’s memoir of the bodyDesire (August,Text) andChloe Hooper’s guide to how to talk to children about loss,Bedtime Story (September,Scribner).

Essay collections to look out for includeWe’ve Got This(ed by Eliza Hull,March,Black Inc) by parents who identify as deaf,disabled or chronically ill,Eda Gunaydin on race,genre and migration inRoot and Branch (May,NewSouth),Growing Up in Country Australia(ed by Rick Morton,April,Black Inc),Pantera Press’ collection of writers longlisted for the Liminal Fiction Prize (Archive,August) andKim Mahood’s reflections onWandering with Intent(October,Scribe).

Biography,history

Paddy Manning,who has penned biographies of Malcolm Turnbull and Nathan Tinkler,takes on media heir Lachlan Murdoch in his unauthorised biography Sly Fox(November,Black Inc). JournalistTroy Bramston’s biography of Australia’s 23rd prime minister,Bob Hawke:Demons and Destiny (March,PRH),includes the last interviews he gave and draws on a trove of personal papers and interviews with family and friends. We’re also looking forward to Miles Franklin-winning novelist Anna Funder’s take on the overlooked life of George Orwell’s first wife,Eileen,inWifedom (September,PRH),billed as a “blazing feminist masterpiece”.

Australian history highlights includeDavid Marr turning his pen to our colonial past in A Family Business (November,Black Inc),Kate Grenville’s non-fiction accompaniment to her bestselling novel A Room Made of Leaves,Elizabeth Macarthur’s Letters (April,Text),Don Watson’sThe Passion of Private White (October,Scribner) looks at the 50-year-old relationship between the anthropologist and veteran Neville White and Aboriginal clans of remote northern Australia,andAnna Clark’s Making Australian History (February,PRH).

Mike Carlton heads to the Mediterranean with The Scrap Iron Flotilla (August,PRH),whilePeter FitzSimons steps off the battlefront to examine the history of an icon inThe Opera House (April,Hachette). Also on the history front, Meg Foster looks at Aboriginal,African-American,Chinese and female bushrangers (Boundary Crossers,November,NewSouth),Duane Hamacher explores the knowledge of the stars held by First Peoples inThe First Astronomers (March,A&U), David Duffy draws on new research forNabbing Ned Kelly (March,A&U),Alastair Paton looks at our natural history inOf Marsupials and Men (June,Black Inc), Leah Lui-Chivizhe exploresMasked Histories:Turtle Shell Masks and Torres Straight Islander People(July,MUP) and Elizabeth Tynanuncovers the story of the first British atomic test site in South Australia inThe Secret of Emu Field (May,NewSouth).

If you’ve made it this far in the list,you’re probably interested in Australian letters,so look out forNathan Hobby’s biography of novelist,journalist and activist Katharine Susannah Prichard,The Red Witch(May,MUP),Ann-Marie Priest’s biography of poet Gwen Harwood,My Tongue is My Own (May,La Trobe University Press) andMeanjin’s second editorJim Davidson’s examination of the contribution of two literary journals and their editorsEmperors in Liliput:Clem Christesen of Meanjin and Stephen Murray-Smith of Overland(October,MUP).

Musician Keith Urban is the subject ofJeff Apter’s latest (March,A&U). Abroad,Washington Post reportersRobert Samuels andTolouse Olorunnipa offer the first account of George Floyd’s life and legacy in His Name is George Floyd (May,PRH),Tina Brown looks at the royal family over the past two decades inThe Palace Papers (PRH,March) while James Patterson looks atDiana,William and Harry(August,Hachette) and we’re excited forKatherine Rundell’sSuper-infinite:The Transformations of John Donne(April,A&U).

Poetry

Poetry publishing is strong — more than 50 volumes were entered in this year’s Prime Ministers Literary Awards. A highlight will beLes Murray’s final posthumous collection of poems,Continous Creation,to be published by Black Inc in March.

Giramondo’s offerings includeAdam Aitken’sRevenants (February), Tracy Ryan’sRose Interior(April) and Lisa Gorton’sMirabilia(August). QUP’s list includesSarah Holland-Batt’sThe Jaguar (May), Rae White’sExactly As I Am (second half) andJanaka Malwatta’sBlackbirds Don’t Mate with Starlings(second half).

John Kinsella andCharmaine Papertalk-Green will publishArt (June,Magabala Books),with Kinsella also releasing the first,The Ascension of Sheep,Collected Poems Volume One (1980-2005),of three collected poetry volumes with UWA Publishing in February. Upswell’s exciting list includesMarjon Mossammaparast’sAnd to Ecstasy(March),Scott-Patrick Mitchell’sClean (March) and Marion May Campbell’sLanguish (April).Bron Bateman’sBlue WrenandAndrew Sutherland’sParadise (Point of Transmission) are out in August from Fremantle Press.

Internationally,Vietnamese-American writerOcean Vuong’s collectionTime is a Mother (April,PRH) is bound to attract a broad readership. The author’s 2020 debut novelOn Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous was an indie hit.

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