Books of 2014: A look-ahead
- Published
Three-times Booker nominee Sarah Waters is among the authors preparing new novels for 2014
The literary landscape will look a little different in 2014.
A new international book prize, The Folio, arrives in March. Then the Man Booker throws open its doors to any author writing in the English language - meaning US writers will be eligible for the first time.
Whether you are a fan of literary competitions or not, the shortlists and winners inevitably become the source of much discussion and debate. So which authors will be talked about over the next twelve months?
"Booker Bridesmaids" dominate - those writers who have been nominated for the prize in the past but have never won. Leading the pack is Sarah Waters, who has been shortlisted three times. Her new book, The Paying Guests, is set in London in 1922.
Or could it be third time lucky for The South African writer Damon Galgut, who has been shortlisted twice before? Arctic Summer is about E M Forster's first trip to India in 1912.
Colm Toibin is back too, with Nora Webster, set ten years after his Costa-winning novel "Brooklyn".
David Mitchell returns with his first novel for four years, The Bone Clocks which is published in September. It is a novel in six parts, set between 1984 and 2043, which centres on one female character, although each section is told from a different point of view.
Martin Amis will return to the subject of the Holocaust, after 1991's controversial Time's Arrow
Emma Donoghue follows up her international bestseller Room, with Frog Music. Again inspired by real events, it's a murder mystery set in nineteenth century San Francisco.
And Martin Amis revisits the Holocaust in his new novel The Zone of Interest, which is set in an unnamed Auschwitz.
Other familiar names returning in 2014 include Sebastian Barry, Ali Smith, Edward St Aubyn, Linda Grant and Philip Hensher
And Kamila Shamsie, Ned Beauman, Adam Foulds, Xiaolu Guo and Helen Oyeyemi, who were all selected by Granta as Britain's Best of Young British Writers in 2013, have new books on the way.
Among the American big hitters to look out for are Jonathan Lethem, with Dissident Gardens and E L Doctorow with Andrew's Brain.
Marilynne Robinson's new book, Lila, is based on the same fictional world as the Pulitzer prize-winning novel Gilead and the Orange prize-winner Home.
And while it may not win literary prizes, fans of Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City series can look forward to The Days of Anna Madrigal, which sees the 92 year old transgender landlady on a journey to the whorehouse she ran away from as a 16 year old boy.
Haruki Murakami is back with Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki And His Years Of Pilgrimage. Published in Japan in April 2013 it sold more than one million copies there in its first six months.
And there is a new novel from the 2012 Nobel prize-winning Chinese literary superstar Mo Yan, called Frog. Set against the government's one-child policy, it is about a midwife in a rural community.
Closer to home, look out for a new novel from Nick Hornby. which follows the fortunes of the co- stars of a 1960s television sitcom.
New biographies of Wilfred Owen and Dylan Thomas are in the works
There are big-hitting commercial bestsellers in waiting with new novels from Barbara Taylor Bradford, Jodi Picoult and Ken Follett; and new thrillers on the way from Stephen King and John Connolly and the King of Scandinavian crime Jo Nesbo.
2014 is a big year for anniversaries. There'll be plenty of non-fiction commemorating the First World War, including a new biography of the poet Wilfred Owen, by Guy Cuthbertson.
In February it is one hundred years since the birth of the cult writer William Burroughs and Barry Miles's new biography has been sanctioned by the Burroughs estate.
October sees the centenary of the birth of the Welsh writer and poet Dylan Thomas. His granddaughter, Hannah Ellis celebrates his life, work and legacy in a new collection.
And more than a decade in the making, there is a major new biography of Beethoven, written by the composer Jan Swafford.
So whatever your taste, plenty of books to look forward to in the coming months.