Illustration: Simon Pemberton/The Guardian
Midlife meditations from Barbara Kingsolver; musical portraits by Jonathan Coe and Yiyun Li; plus memoirs from Dustin Hoffman and Judi Dench – all among the coming season’s highlights
Fiction
The Disappearers by Marlon James
Hamish Hamilton, 3 September
After a detour into mythic fantasy, the author of the Booker-winning A Brief History of Seven Killings returns to Jamaica. This account of a brutal homophobic attack on a group of gay actors in 1980s Kingston has already been longlisted for this year’s prize.
The Bridge by Colm Tóibín
Picador, 3 September
Twenty years on, this short novel is a sequel to Tóibín’s exquisite story A Long Winter, set around a family tragedy in the isolated Pyrenees. Now the building of a bridge brings modernity, possibility and threat to a father and son, in a spare chronicle of longing and grief.
The Golden Hours by Louisa Young
The Golden Hours by Louisa Young
Mantle, 3 September
Young continues her aunt Elizabeth Jane Howard’s much-loved Cazalet Chronicles, bringing her story of a sprawling upper-middle-class English family into the swinging 60s.
Switzy by Emma Cline
Chatto & Windus, 10 September
With dementia making him increasingly confused, David is on his way to a clinic in Zurich to end his life while he still has the capacity to make a choice. Longlisted for the Booker prize, this is a bravura portrait of a failing mind, told from the inside.
The Rouse by China Miéville
Picador, 17 September
A leading light of the New Weird, Miéville has been working on this stonking 1,000-page supernatural fantasy for two decades. Political intrigue, continent-hopping global conspiracy and uncanny mysteries unfold.
The Housekeeper by Rose Tremain
The Housekeeper by Rose Tremain
Chatto & Windus, 17 September
An origin story for Daphne du Maurier’s enduring bestseller Rebecca is told from the perspective of the novelist’s secret lover Danni, housekeeper in a Cornish mansion, who is outraged to find herself recast on the page as the malevolent Mrs Danvers.
Stations by Louise Kennedy
Bloomsbury, 24 September
The author of bestselling 2022 debut novel Trespasses, a Troubles-set love story recently adapted into a C4 drama starring Gillian Anderson, returns with a tale of friendship and loss. Róisín and Red meet in small-town Ireland in the 1980s and reconnect in a London squat, before Red is caught up in a cycle of poverty and addiction.
Doom Painting by AK Blakemore
Granta, 24 September
One of our most exciting historical novelists takes on the peasants’ revolt, in a blow-by-blow account of unlikely leader Wat Tyler and the 16 days in 1381 that turned England upside down. With cinematic action and a relish for medieval vocabulary, it’s a punky successor to Hilary Mantel.
(Left to right) Barbara Kingsolver, Marlon James, Bonnie Garmus, Jonathan Coe, Yiyun Li and Emma Cline. Composite: Getty/Christopher L Proctor/Ricky Sai and Simon Pembertonz
American Hagwon by Min Jin Lee_
4th Estate, 29 September_
The hagwon or cram school is a symbol of Korea’s stress on education. This new saga from the Pachinko author follows a middle-class family, their life in ruins after the 1997 Asian financial crisis, who move to Sydney and then California in search of a better future for their children.
Partita by Barbara Kingsolver
Partita by Barbara Kingsolver
Faber, 6 October
After the Pulitzer-winning Demon Copperhead, a retelling of David Copperfield set in Appalachia, Kingsolver returns with a quieter tale of midlife longing and regret. A gifted pianist, Livia used music to escape the sadness of her family life in rural Tennessee, but having married and resettled in her home town, an unexpected call from a former lover drags her back into the past.
Life Out of Order by Audrey Niffenegger
Jonathan Cape, 13 October
Set a quarter of a century on, this long-awaited sequel focuses on the daughter of the couple in The Time Traveler’s Wife. Alba has inherited her father’s extraordinary condition, jumping unpredictably across the decades, from a United States in turmoil to a dystopian future London. She’s torn between two lovers – one anchored in the present, and one a time traveller like herself.
Peck & Peck by Bonnie Garmus
Manilla, 13 October
In the follow-up to global bestseller Lessons in Chemistry, it’s 1982 New York and young Batter Gray lands a job at the eponymous poetry periodical, run by feuding twin brothers. Expect charm, quirk and literary rabbit holes.
In One Brief Moment All Eternity by Elif Shafak
In One Brief Moment All Eternity by Elif Shafak
Viking, 15 October
From the Booker and Women’s prize-shortlisted author, a study of French writer Gustave Flaubert refracted through the lives of the women around him, including his most iconic creation: Madame Bovary.
Music Against the Night by Yiyun Li_
4th Estate, 22 October_
Set at the end of the 18th century, against a background of global tumult, the Pulitzer winner’s historical epic is inspired by the lives of two musicians: Adelaide Percheron, born in French India, and the Irish John Field, the inventor of the nocturne, who will be brought together by love and talent.
Lessons in Harmony by Jonathan Coe
Viking, 12 November
Music is in the air this autumn: Coe’s latest follows the friendship between French dandy Maurice Ravel and English traditionalist Ralph Vaughan Williams, exploring creativity and national identity against the encroaching shadow of the first world war.
Crime and thrillers
Sherlock Holmes, Miss Marple and George Smiley return
CrimeColumnBooks
Autumn is back-to-school season for series authors, with William Boyd on the third of his cold war espionage novels starring travel writer Gabriel Dax. In Cold Sunset (Viking, 3 September) our reluctant spy is on his way to Russia, to tussle with the KGB. Richard Osman serves up number two in his We Solve Murders franchise: We Chase Shadows (Viking, 10 September) sees Steve, Amy and Rosie – retired cop, private security officer and bestselling crime author respectively – investigate after a body is found in the Italian hills. Five years on, Janice Hallett publishes a sequel to her hit am-dram debut The Appeal, as the Fairway Players’ new production of Agatha Christie leads to murder in The Silent Appeal (Viper, 3 September). The vigorous afterlife of the queen of crime continues elsewhere, with the first official new outing for Miss Marple, Murder at the Grand Alpine Hotel by Lucy Foley (HarperCollins, 22 September). A varied cast list, death on the mountaintop and plenty of suspects are guaranteed.
Ian Rankin, known for his grumpy Edinburgh detective John Rebus, takes a new direction in The Heights (Orion, 8 October), a standalone thriller set in a luxurious central London high-rise. And there’s a return to the world of John le Carré’s Circus in the latest from his son Nick Harkaway: in The Taper Man (Viking, 5 November), George Smiley finds himself navigating the unlikely terrain of 1960s LA in search of a communist sleeper agent.
Finally, a festive treat: 10 new adventures for the world’s most famous detective in short story anthology Sherlock (Simon & Schuster, 5 November), with contributors including Sarah Perry, Joe Hill, Abir Mukherjee and Kate Mosse.
Nonfiction
Swan Song: Diana, My Sister by Charles Spencer
Penguin Michael Joseph, 22 September
Thirty years after Princess Diana was killed in a car crash, her brother – whose euology at her funeral echoed around the world – tells the story of their upbringing and recounts the devastating week of her death.
The Castle by Jon Ronson
Viking, 20 August
A concerning late-night call from his teenage son marks the start of a strange journey into modern masculinity for the journalist and author of The Psychopath Test and So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed.
The Future Starts With Us by Gordon Brown
Simon & Schuster, 1 September
The former PM tries to join the dots between two seemingly disparate political phenomena: the erosion of the international rules-based order, exacerbated by war and climate breakdown, and the fragmentation of the tight-knit communities that keep us connected at a local level.
The Great Dictator- A Life of Barbara Cartland by Matthew Sweet
The Great Dictator: A Life of Barbara Cartland by Matthew Sweet
Hodder & Stoughton, 10 September
The queen of romance novels wrote a scarcely believable 723 of them during her career – with a little help from an amanuensis or two. Historian Sweet tells the extraordinary story of a woman born into an upper‑middle-class family fallen on hard times, who navigated scandal and opprobrium to become one of the bestselling writers of the 20th century.
Queens and Kings: An Unusually Personal History by Lucy Worsley
Hodder & Stoughton, 3 September
The historian and chief curator of royal palaces brings a personal touch to some of British history’s pivotal moments, focusing on the places in which they unfolded, and in which Worsley herself has worked: Hampton Court, Kensington Palace and the Tower of London.
All the Wrong Moves by Anthony Scaramucci
Bodley Head, 17 September
Not many political figures are able to give Liz Truss a run for her money in the shortest-ever-tenure stakes, but Scaramucci, Trump’s press secretary for just 10 days, is one of them. Since then he’s reinvented himself as one of the administration’s sharpest critics. His first book is an attempt to chart how the US went from stable postwar consensus to today’s “shitshow politics”.
End Times Fascism by Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor
End Times Fascism by Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor
Allen Lane, 15 September
Thinkers and activists Klein and Taylor have identified a distinctive strand of rightwing nihilism: the kind that seeks to reshape the world in its image, even as it devours the natural resources on which our survival depends (certain tech barons and authoritarian leaders may feel particularly seen). Here they offer both a diagnosis and a plan for resistance.
Profits, Prophets, Coaches and Kings: (When) Do Leaders Make a Difference? by Jared Diamond
Mariner, 22 September
The author of Guns, Germs and Steel, known for his analyses of the grand, impersonal forces that shape human destiny, returns with a timely book on the role of prominent individuals. What difference does a sports coach, a CEO or an erratic president really make to the fortunes of teams, companies and global civilisation?
An Unexpected Life: A Memoir by Gloria Steinem
Ebury, 22 September
A totemic figure in American feminism, Steinem sought to carry the momentum of the civil rights era into what became known as the women’s liberation movement. Here she writes about her childhood and political awakening, and reflects from the present moment on nearly 60 years of activism.
(Left to right) Joe Biden, Colin Kaepernick, Naomi Klein, Malcolm Gladwell and Judi Dench. Composite: Getty and Simon Pemberton
Hawking: His Life and Work by Graham Farmelo
John Murray, 24 September
In the first authorised biography of Stephen Hawking, Farmelo paints an intimate portrait of the acclaimed physicist based on unique access to his diaries and letters, as well as interviews with family and close associates.
The American Way of Killing: The Invention of an Epidemic by Malcolm Gladwell
Abacus_,_ 29 September
The author of The Tipping Point asks why the United States has ended up being so much more violent than comparable countries around the world. From a Chicago ER to a 17th-century court case, he explores stories that may hold the key to what he describes as “the most pressing of all American social problems”.
Blockers- Rebels in the Deep State by Michael Lewis
Blockers: Rebels in the Deep State by Michael Lewis
Allen Lane, 6 October
Lewis’s pacy, high-stakes nonfiction has been drawing readers since 1989’s Liar’s Poker, an account of his time on Wall Street in the 1980s. Here he deploys his powers of narration to tell the story of how the US Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) sought to dismantle the state – though his real subject is the principled civil servants who stood in the way of Elon Musk’s campaign of vandalism.
Requiem for Gaza by Joe Sacco and Chris Hedges
Jonathan Cape, 8 October
The master of graphic reportage and author of Palestine teams up with veteran war correspondent Hedges to document the devastating Israeli war on Gaza and its human impact. Interviewing 29 displaced Palestinian families, Sacco and Hedges tell stories of death, destruction and resilience.
The Perilous Fight by Colin Kaepernick
Grand Central Publishing, 8 October
The NFL quarterback made history in 2016 when he knelt for the US national anthem, rather than standing. Since that time, “taking the knee” has become an emblem of the fight for racial justice, in the US and beyond. In his memoir, Kaepernick traces the relationships and experiences that culminated in a pivotal sporting and political moment.
Promise Me, America by Joe Biden
Promise Me, America by Joe Biden
John Murray, 17 November
A year on from 107 Days, in which former vice-president Kamala Harris detailed her boss’s failure to get out of the way, Joe Biden tells his side of the story in a book which promises to reveal “the deeply agonising calculation behind his decision … to step aside from the presidential race”.
**Pay Attention by Laura Kuenssberg
**Corsair, 5 November
The former BBC political editor’s first book reflects on 20 years of upheaval in British politics, and what the broadcaster perceives as being at the root of it all: a failure by the political class to really listen to what people have actually been saying.
Holding Lightning: The Life, Loves and Art of Whitney Houston by Emily Lordi
White Rabbit, 1 October
English professor Lordi treats the career of one of pop’s greatest stars with the seriousness it deserves, but with emotional intelligence too, tracing the arc of Houston’s life from global success to personal tragedy.
Memoir
From Hollywood hijinks to political scandal – life stories to look out for
MemoirsColumnBooks
It’s another bumper autumn for Hollywood stars with plenty of tales to tell – though this year skews male. Michael Douglas’s One Helluva Ride (Headline, 6 October) includes details of “affairs with some of the most celebrated actresses in Hollywood” and the “serious drug addiction that threatened to destroy his first marriage and career”. If you’re still in the mood for testosterone-laced hijinks after that, there’s Sylvester Stallone’s The Steps (Seven Dials, 29 September), which charts the Rocky star’s 1970s journey from homelessness to the Oscars. For a more multilayered take on acting and fame, try Fictional Selves by Kyle MacLachlan (Century, 29 September), whose talent in picking idiosyncratic roles such as such as Agent Cooper in Twin Peaks has earned him a cult following. And then there’s screen icon Dustin Hoffman, whose first memoir Look at Me (Gallery, 10 November), published as he prepares to enter his 10th decade, covers the pressures of being dubbed the “voice of a generation” after The Graduate, and his many acting roles since that extraordinary breakthrough. It would make a neat pairing with Watergate reporter Bob Woodward’s memoir Secrets (Simon & Schuster, 24 November): that era-defining scoop was dramatised in All the President’s Men, with Hoffman playing Woodward’s partner, Carl Bernstein.
On the other side of the Atlantic, Judi Dench reminisces about a 70-year career in Is It Too Late to Make a Run for It? (Michael Joseph, 22 October). In Vigilauntie (W&N, 3 September) actor and co-creator of the groundbreaking sketch show Goodness Gracious Me, Meera Syal, writes about family, frustration and making it as an Asian woman on TV, while another veteran of the small screen, Russell T Davies, charts a writing career that has spanned Coronation Street and Doctor Who in The Queerest of Folk (Bantam, 8 October). Everyone’s favourite communist standup Alexei Sayle gets political in How I’ve Tried to Change the World (W&N, 3 September), a memoir of protest through the decades, while actual politician and scourge of the BNP in her Barking constituency, Margaret Hodge, shares the lessons of a life on the frontlines in Battle Axe (William Collins, 10 September).
