With a new year comes new reading goals, and it can always be a little daunting to figure out what should be the first book you pick up. What new writers will you discover this year?
Whether you’d like to learn something new from non-fiction, or discover a new voice to get lost in, all these exciting new writers deserve a place on your 2024 TBR pile.
With the start of a new year you can’t help but think to the future, and if you’re feeling anxious, powerless or confused about what that future means for our planet, we’ve got just the book for you. Data scientist Hannah Ritchie argues in this radically hopeful book that our environmental problems are big, but they are solvable. Not the End of the World
Wild Houses
Bored of 1970s suburban life, Maralyn has an idea: sell the house, build a boat, leave England forever. But then shortly after she and her husband Maurice set sail, their beloved boat is struck by a whale and the pair are cast adrift in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Filled with danger, spirit and tenderness, this book from Sophie Elmhirst is one about human connection and the human condition; about how we survive — not just at sea, but in life.
Charlotte Shevchenko Knight debuts with a searingly powerful first collection, giving the current war in Ukraine some much-needed human focus, while examining its brutal aggression within a wider and more accurate historical context. Both a howl of anguish and an eloquent counter-song against totalitarianism, this is a book about invasion, war, destruction and death, but also the bonds of humanity, family and a history of oppression.
Jaded by Ela Lee (February)
Jade had the life she’d always wanted — until she wakes up the morning after a work event, naked and alone, with no idea how she got home. Caught between her parents who can’t understand, her boyfriend who feels betrayed, and her job that expects silence, the world Jade has constructed starts to crumble. For fans of The List , Queenie and I May Destroy You , this razor-sharp novel from Ela Lee will capture your heart, make you laugh and sob, and will leave you asking yourself: what would you have done in Jade’s situation?
Expectations and realities don’t exactly align in this exquisitely written uncoming of age story from Miranda Pountney, set against the backgroup of New York City. When Dylan walks out of her career and finds herself in an all-consuming love affair with a married man, she is forced to question what is fixed and what is variable, and if a person can be both. Read what Tessa Hadley calls ‘unsettling and original’.
They already share a surname, but will they share a future? It almost seems like fate when Layla and Andy first meet and discover they have the same surname, but a devastating discovery only a few weeks before their wedding puts everything into question. You won't be able to stop yourself from falling for this novel that Marian Keyes calls a 'warm, sweet love story'.
You wait ages for the One, then 203 come along at once. . . One night Lauren finds a strange man in her flat who claims to be her husband. All the evidence – from photos to electricity bills – suggests he’s right. Lauren’s attic, she slowly realises, is creating an endless supply of husbands for her. You won’t be able to stop yourself from reading this refreshing, original debut from Holly Gramazio in one sitting.
Unlocking the doors to the psych ward, NHS psychiatrist Dr Benji Waterhouse provides a fly-on-the-padded-wall account of medicine’s most mysterious and controversial specialty in this humane, hilarious and heart-breaking memoir. This will be the perfect read for fans of This is Going to Hurt , Unnatural Causes and The Prison Doctor .
Elegant, audacious and blisteringly funny, this imaginative new vision for Shakespeare’s Henriad is a compelling portrait of privilege, inheritance, defiance and love from a major new literary talent. But don’t just take our word for it — Brandon Taylor insists that Henry Henr y ‘needs to be read right now by as many people as possible’.
In Sobremesa , discover a real taste of Mexico with a modern twist. Chef and recipe developer Susana Villasuso distills the top recipes inspired by her family, and the best-known dishes made in kitchens up and down Mexico. These are flavourful, comforting and shareable meals that you’ll keep coming back to for simple weeknight dinners, delicious weekend feasts and everything in between.
Great Britain? is a much-needed antidote to the pervading sense that Britain is going backwards rather than forwards. Torsten Bell reveals his bold vision for a Britain that shares in both its burdens and prosperity, building an investment nation of good work, resilient communities, and secure homes. In this treasure trove of analysis, Torsten expertly and passionately points us towards a future worth fighting for.
