BOOKS


Roz begins an investiga- tion into her mother’s past. The first novel from the Guardian columnist and author of Love of Country and The Plot.


Javier Cercas Lord of All the Dead MacLehose Press, 19th, £8.99, 9780857058355 The author researches the life of Manuel Mena, an ancestor of his who died in combat at the age of 19 during the battle of the Ebro, the bloodiest episode in Spain’s history.


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young daughter Tru, who grapples with her own questions of identity and sexuality. Named a “Must Read Book of 2019” by Time Magazine.


on the renovation of a commercial build- ing in Alexanderplatz. “Delicately observed and resonant,” said Stinging Fly.


Laetitia Colombani The Braid Picador, 5th, £8.99, 9781509881109


Début A French best- seller, this tells of


three women on three different continents with nothing in common, bound by their rare cour- age—Smita, an untouch- able in India who cleans the village latrines with her hands but wants more for her daughter, Giulia, who works in a wig work- shop in Sicily, and Canadian lawyer Sarah, who has breast cancer.


Nicole Dennis-Benn Patsy Oneworld, 12th, £8.99, 9781786077103 Patsy leaves Jamaica for New York and the possibil- ity of reuniting with her secret lover, Cicely. But she leaves behind her


Popular science Caroline Criado Perez


Invisible Women Vintage, 5th, £8.99, 9781784706289


One to Watch


Winner of the Royal Society science book prize, this astonishing expose of biased data that excludes women in a world designed for men is already a


Sunday Times bestseller in hardback, with 16 weeks in the charts. Vintage has an “unmissable” advertising campaign planned for the paperback. “HELL YES. This is one of those books that has the potential to change things,” said Caitlin Moran. Criado Perez will be available throughout paperback publication, says Vintage.


Ariel Dorfman Darwin’s Ghosts Seven Stories Press, 12th, £12.99, 9781609809874 Dorfman’s first novel in 17 years, this tells of a man who uncovers his ancestors’ involvement in the sordid “human zoos” of 19th-century Europe. “Like early Hemingway, Dorfman’s language is absolutely clear and restrained; like Kafka and Auster, the images are potent yet eerily disem- bodied,” said the Guardian.


Roddy Doyle Charlie Savage Vintage, 12th, £7.99, 9781784709570 Shortlisted for the Wodehouse prize for comic writing, this is a collection of Doyle’s series for the Irish Independent about middle-aged Dubliner Charlie Savage. “A delight from start to finish,” said the Mail on Sunday.


Adrian Duncan Love Notes From a German Building Site Head of Zeus, 5th, £8.99, 9781789546262 A young Irish engineer follows a woman to Berlin and begins work


Dave Eggers The Parade Hamish Hamilton, 5th, £8.99, 9780241986271 A modern fable in which two Western men are tasked with paving a road the length of a country far from home. “Intensely gripping,” found the Standard.


planning an “unmissable” campaign with POS, events and press ads.


Mary Beth Keane Ask Again, Yes Michael Joseph, 5th, £8.99, 9781405943130 The story of friendship and tragedy between two neighbouring families in a suburban New York town. “Exploring mental health, grief, forgiveness and love, this conjures up the work of Celeste Ng and Anne Tyler—and we can’t give higher praise than that. The perfect summer read,” said Stylist.


Joanna Glen The Other Half of Augusta Hope Te Borough Press, 19th, £8.99, 9780008314194


Début Shortlisted for the Costa first


novel prize, this is the story of a girl who has never fit in, and is propelled into the unknown by a tragedy. “An irresistible message of redemption and belong- ing,” said Red.


Anna Hope Expectation Black Swan, 5th, £8.99, 9781784162801 Hannah, Cate and Lissa, friends for years, are flailing in their jobs and marriages, each envious of what the other has. “If you wished Normal People had tackled female friend- ship, try Expectation,” said Grazia. Transworld is


Thomas Keneally The Book of Science and Antiquities Sceptre, 19th, £8.99, 9781529355239 The Booker winner tells of a man who lived 42,000 years ago in New South Wales, and the docu- mentary maker who finds his bones in the present day. “Like Schindler’s Ark, it addresses appalling violence with impressive tact… passionate and heartfelt,” said the Times.


upends the small Virginia community of its owners, Young and Pak Yoo. Great reviews in the US already, says Hodder.


Laila Lalami The Other Americans Bloomsbury Publishing, 5th, £8.99, 9781526606716 When a Moroccan immi- grant in California is killed at night by a speeding car, the repercussions hit a diverse cast of characters, who tell their stories. Lalami’s The Moor’s Account was a Pulitzer finalist and also longlisted for the Booker.


buys Adam, one of the first batch of synthetic humans. Together, they shape his personality. “A novel this smart oughtn’t to be such fun, but it is,” said the Observer.


Angie Kim Miracle Creek Hodder Paperbacks, 19th, £8.99, 9781529335415


Début When an experi- mental medical


treatment device known as the Miracle Submarine explodes, killing two people, the murder trial


Literary


Bernardine Evaristo Girl, Woman, Other Hamish Hamilton, 5th, £8.99, 9780241984994


One to Watch


The joint Booker winner, a polyphonic collection of 12 voices, mostly black British women, from a young Windrush bride to an activist influ-


encer. “Exuberant, bursting at the seams in delightful ways… If you want to understand modern day Britain, this is the writer to read,” said the New Statesman. I’ve loved Evaristo’s novels since I read her reimagin- ing of history Blonde Roots and was shaken to the core; how wonderful that the Booker win is bringing her to a wider audience.


Elizabeth McCracken Bowlaway Vintage, 12th, £8.99, 9780099526940 The enigmatic Bertha, who was discovered unconscious in a New England cemetery with nothing but a bowling ball, a candlepin and 15 pounds of gold on her person, opens a bowling alley which soon becomes the town’s most defining landmark. By the author of The Giant’s House, Marie Claire found it to be a “big, glorious novel in every sense”.


Ian McEwan Machines Like Me Vintage, 5th, £8.99, 9781529111255 In an alternative 1980s London, Charlie, who is in love with Miranda,


Ben Myers The Offing Bloomsbury Publishing, 5th, £8.99, 9781526611307 The Walter Scott Prize- winning author of The Gallows Pole, who is now with Bloomsbury, sets his latest in the aftermath of the Second World War, as a 16-year-old boy walks to the former smuggling village of Robin Hood’s Bay, where he meets an eccentric older woman. “This quiet, lyrical novel confirms a powerful new voice,” said the Times. A BBC Radio 4 “Book at Bedtime”.


Pola Oloixarac & Roy Kesey Dark Constellations Soho Press, 19th, £13.99, 9781641291309 A techno-thriller moving from the Canary Islands in the 19th century, where a plant biologist researches a species alleged to have


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13th December 2019


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