07.07.17 www.thebookseller.com


NEW TITLES: FICTION OCTOBER


embalmer Ambroise and Manelle, a home-help for the elderly, together for an unusual road trip. BookScan


LITERARY SHORT STORIES


JEFFREY EUGENIDES FRESH COMPLAINT FOURTH ESTATE, 5TH, £16.99, HB, 9780007447886 Every so often when


writing my Editor’s Choice copy, I am tempted to do away with any attempt at description and just state the obvious: you must read this because it’s absolutely brilliant. If you have read Jeffrey Eugenides before, then it won’t be any surprise to learn that his first collection of short stories is every bit as good as one might hope. If not, there’s plenty of time to read his 1993 début novel The Virgin Suicides, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Middlesex (2003) and his most recent novel, The Marriage Plot. But whatever you do, read this one. BookScan 


NICOLOA LAGIOIA FEROCITY EUROPA EDITIONS, 12TH, £12.99, PBO WITH FLAPS, 9781609453824 This novel beat Elena


Ferrante’s The Story of the Lost Child to the Strega Prize, Italy’s most prestigious literary award, in 2015. Set in Southern Italy in the 1980s, it is ostensibly about the tragic death of a young woman, and how her family may be implicated. But it is also about the moral and political corruption in Italian society on every level. An Italian review put it very well: “Lagioia brilliantly demonstrates the folly of his characters: rather than describing them from the outside, he constructs his narrative by oscillating unceasingly between past and future, premonition and regret.” The opening chapter is one of the most powerful I have read in a while.


TOP SELLERS LITERARY


ALAN HOLLINGHURST THE SPARSHOLT AFFAIR PICADOR, 5TH, £20, HB, 9781447208211 The sixth novel from


the Man Booker Prize winner and his first since 2011’s The Stranger’s Child. The Sparsholt Affair begins at Oxford University in 1940 where, observed by undergraduate Freddie Green, privileged Evert Dax develops a painful obsession with David Sparsholt: a strapping, handsome first-year from a humbler background, who has a fiancée. What happens next sets in motion the mystery at the heart of the novel, which then moves through time from sexually liberated London in the 1960s to the present day. As in The Stranger’s Child, Hollinghurst explores how attitudes to all sorts of things, not least sexuality, shift over time. BookScan 


imprisoned killer claims Harry framed him years ago, and he seems to have new evidence to prove it. BookScan


DAN BROWN ORIGIN BANTAM PRESS, 3RD, £20, HB, 9780593078754 The fifth thriller to feature Dr Robert Langdon (Angels and Demons, The Da Vinci Code, The Lost Symbol, Inferno) will perhaps blend science, religion, history and art with a smattering of hidden codes, and power straight in at number one. BookScan


MICHAEL CONNELLY TWO KINDS OF TRUTH ORION, 31ST, £19.99, HB, 9781409145554 Harry Bosch, formerly of the LAPD, is now a private investigator. A long-


BERNARD CORNWELL FOOLS AND MORTALS HARPERCOLLINS, 19TH, £20, HB, 9780007504114 A new direction for Cornwell—who tends to set his historical novels rather further back in the mists of time—this takes place in Elizabethan England. The narrative follows young Richard Shakespeare, an actor struggling to make his way in a company dominated by his


estranged brother William, and their rivalry propels a story of conflict and betrayal. BookScan


JEAN-PAUL DIDIERLAURENT THE REST OF THEIR LIVES MANTLE, 19TH, £12.99, HB, 9781509840342 Follow-up to The Reader on the 6.27 brings


LITERARY


JOHN GRISHAM UNTITLED HODDER & STOUGHTON, 19TH, £20, HB, 9781473616967 His latest legal thriller. BookScan


P D JAMES SLEEP NO MORE FABER & FABER, 5TH, £10, HB, 9780571339877 There are six murderous tales to savour in this companion volume to The Mistletoe Murder and Other Stories. Each has the dark motive of revenge at its heart. Surely the perfect gift for connoisseurs of crime fiction. BookScan


CAROLE MATTHEWS CHRISTMAS CAKES AND MISTLETOE NIGHTS SPHERE, 19TH, £12.99, HB, 9780751560275 Follow-up to The Cake Shop in the Garden continues the adventures of cake-maker Fay, now living with the love of her life on a cosy canal boat. But making delicious cakes on the water isn’t always plain sailing. BookScan


ANDY MCNAB LINE OF FIRE BANTAM PRESS, 19TH, £18.99, HB, 9780593078945


Nick Stone is back for his 19th adventure, which involves uncovering the motives of some dodgy politicians. BookScan


JAMES PATTERSON THE FAMILY LAWYER ARROW, 19TH, £7.99, PBO, 9781787460263 Contains three stories. The title story concerns a father whose young daughter is accused of bullying another girl into committing suicide. Also from Patterson this month, in the £2.49 BookShots format, is Absolute Zero. BookScan


KATIE PRICE PLAYING WITH FIRE CENTURY, 19TH, £16.99, HB, 9781780893495 A refreshed cover look is promised for Price’s first novel in three years. Century will support with


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a “massive” publicity campaign plus, I’m told, the author “will perform one of her legendary stunts” on publication. BookScan


DANIELLE STEEL FAIRYTALE MACMILLAN, 19TH, £18.99, HB, 9781509800551 Six months after the death of his wife, wealthy Napa Valley vintner Christophe is easy prey for the mysterious, charming French countess who visits the valley. Only his daughter Camille can see through the beautiful woman’s allure. BookScan


PENNY VINCENZI A QUESTION OF TRUST HEADLINE REVIEW, 5TH, £20, HB, 9780755377626 Set in London in the 1950s. A married man having an extra-marital affair is faced with a dilemma that threatens his reputation, his marriage and his love for his child. BookScan


LINWOOD BARCLAY BAD LUCK ORION, 13TH, £8.99, PBO, 9780752883151 Third in the Zack Walter crime series from the beginning of Barclay’s career, published in the UK for the first time. BookScan


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GABE HABASH STEPHEN FLORIDA THE BOROUGH PRESS,


5TH, £14.99, HB, 9780008265090 Follows the eponymous American college wrestler in his senior season, when his devotion to every practice and every match has a destabilising effect on his sanity. “A story of loneliness, obsession and the drive to leave a mark,” says Bloomsbury. Hanya Yanagihara and Garth Greenwell provide effusive endorsements.


DANIEL HANDLER ALL THE DIRTY PARTS BLOOMSBURY USA, 19TH, £14.99, HB, 9781632868046 The story of a sex-mad American high-school boy and “an unblinking take on teenage desire in a culture of unrelenting explicitness and shunted communication where sex feels like love,


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