The Most Anticipated Books of 2024
It’s that time of year again which I approach with equal parts excitement and dread – when I sit down under the weight of a too-close deadline to a blank page plus an overwhelming number of forthcoming titles kindly furnished by our friends in publishing, and try to find a way to cram a year’s worth of output into a jaunty piece of – let’s call it – creative nonfiction (overreach? more likely creative summary?) that doesn’t feel too much like a list and which (gasp) can never possibly contain all that should be highlighted and which (worse!) is always in danger of repeating itself and others (constituting a very specific form of unconscious plagiarism/cliche) … the dread is overtaking me … I’d better get started …
… but Alison, frankly, you are taking so long performing your dilemma that new books keep getting announced all the time, helping to blow out your word limit (sorry, Dear Ed.). One of the late-breaking titles is unique in that it is going to be, hands-down, the biggest Australian book of the year. So, it has to be the first I mention, and it’s a proper Big Australian Novel to boot at 500+ pages in a handsome hardcover: it’s called Juice (October). At this stage, I don’t know too much about it, but that seems irrelevant because, truly, all you need to know is that it’s by TIM WINTON, who is writing his first work of fiction since The Shepherd’s Hut (2018).
In 2019, I was part of the judging panel that awarded The Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction to Alice Robinson for her knockout novel, The Glad Shout. I remember clearly the feeling of reading that book and its imagination of the near future, deeper into our climate emergency. Alice wrote about family so well too, and the difficult decisions that need to be made in the worst kinds of situations. If you haven’t read that book, please do – and then you can join me in my excitement at the news that Alice has a new novel due in July called If You Go. Speaking of recipients of The Readings Prize, the inaugural winner of the prize in 2014 was Ceridwen Dovey with Only the Animals. Dovey returns to the short form with a collection dialing in from outer space called Only the Astronauts (May). Jessie Tu’s outstanding A Lonely Girl is a Dangerous Thing was a breakout debut during the depths of COVID in mid-2020 and was shortlisted for The Readings Prize of that year. Dare I say it inspired a genre all its own, becoming a comparison title of any publisher’s dreams. I can’t wait to see what she does in her second outing, The Honeyeater (July).
Two previous winners of the Australian/Vogel’s Award have second novels due this year: Murray Middleton (2015’s winner) has No Church in the Wild (April), which is being called a ‘state of the nation’ novel, and is set in Melbourne’s inner west; Kate Kruimink (2020’s winner) has Heartsease (June), a story of sisters reconnecting after the death of their mother, and described as ‘riotous in its gallows humour’. Another prize winner is Shankari Chandran, who won 2023’s Miles Franklin Literary Award with Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens. Impossibly, Chandran already has another book ready to go this year (also due in May) called Safe Haven: she has been busy! Evie Wyld has also won the Miles Franklin (in 2014, for All the Birds, Singing), among many other prizes for her writing, and she has a new work due in August called The Echoes, a ghost and grief story. As I find myself saying each year, the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award (VPLA) for an Unpublished Manuscript is fertile ground for new talent, and a shortlisted title from 2023 is out in May: Bright Objects by Ruby Todd, an intriguing literary thriller involving small towns and comets.
We know Bri Lee for her nonfiction writing, the ground-clearing memoir Eggshell Skull, which she followed with Who Gets to Be Smart. This year Lee tries her hand at fiction in The Work (April), a pacy piece of writing that again looks to power and privilege, this time with the art world from Sydney to New York as its backdrop. We know Nina Kenwood (Readings alum and Friend for Life) for her brilliant YA novels, the Text Prize winning It Sounded Better in My Head and her follow up second novel Unnecessary Drama. This year, it’s no surprise to me at all that Nina is moving to writing for an adult audience, with a grown-up rom-com out in October called Here’s to Happiness. I know already without reading a word that this will be smart and funny, just like its wonderful author.
Winnie Dunn is part of Western Sydney’s Sweatshop movement, which we’ve been following for some years now for its project of fostering and amplifying diverse voices. Dunn’s debut novel is called Dirt Poor Islanders (April), a coming-of-age story told from a fresh Tongan-Australian perspective. Lech Blaine has written nonfiction, including a memoir (Car Crash) and two Quarterly Essays, but this year we’ll be able to read his debut fiction title, Australian Gospel (November). Jonathan Seidler also published a memoir (It’s a Shame About Ray) and has debut fiction this year too, the story of a disintegrating marriage and selling stuff on Marketplace called All the Beautiful Things You Love (May). Jordan Prosser is a prize-winning screen and short-story writer, and July will bring us his first novel, Big Time, which is described as an ‘anti-fascist ode to the power of pop music and a satire about art in the face of entropy’ featuring a band called The Acceptables: I’m on board with all of this! Katerina Gibson’s debut short-story collection Women I Know (2022) was widely acclaimed, and the author was named one of the Sydney Morning Herald’s Best Young Australian Novelists in 2023. This September, she’ll reveal her debut novel, Revelations. I completely fell for Madeleine Ryan’s 2020 debut A Room Called Earth, so am keen to read her next book, The Knowing (September). Siang Lu’s debut was the sharp satire of Hollywood, The Whitewash, and his second book (May) is called Ghost Cities, being recommended for readers of Haruki Murakami and Italo Calvino (which is blurb code for a book with big ideas and imagination). You might remember David Dyer’s The Midnight Watch, a surprising and wonderful 2016 Australian debut based on the story of the ship SS Californian, whose crew saw the Titanic’s rockets signalling for help but failed to act. Dyer has a second novel in November called This Kingdom of Dust, this time set in the 1960s around the voyage of Apollo 11, and its plot sounds nothing short of existential.
Lots of us booksellers have already read and loved Miranda Darling’s incredible gem of a novel, Thunderhead, and will be out in force handselling it in April: great for fans of bleakly funny and smart character studies. I admired Melanie Cheng’s thoughtful story collection, Australia Day, and her first novel, Room for a Stranger, and look forward to her second full-length novel which is called The Burrow (September), and it seems that a rabbit is indeed involved in the storyline. Lots of us will be curious to read Diana (Love + Virtue, Seeing Other People) Reid’s third book, Signs of Damage, which will be coming in large quantities to bookshops everywhere in October. Since completing his loose trilogy of novels set in the 1800s (Preservation, The Burning Island, The Settlement), Jock Serong has been writing another historical novel, though this time it’s set in living memory in 1990s Fitzroy: Cherrywood (September).
I’m nowhere near the end of the forthcoming Australian fiction list, but I’ve got to break from the discursive to mention that there are books on the way from Michelle de Kretser, Sally Hepworth, Hayley Scrivenor, Aoife Clifford, Matthew Reilly, Brian Castro, Liane Moriarty, J.P. Pomare, Michael Robotham, Steven Carroll, Graeme Simsion and Anne Buist, Garry Disher, Ouyang Yu, Anita Heiss, Rodney Hall, and the late Shirley Barrett. And while we’re devolving into dreaded list format, here’s a further totally incomplete rundown of some of the international fiction writers with new books on the way this year: Keanu Reeves (yes, you read correctly, writing with China Miéville … whoever is not at least a little intrigued by this prospect needs to check their pulse), Miranda July, Sally Rooney, Andrew O’Hagan, Tommy Orange, Richard Osman, Elif Shafak, Colm Tóibín, Willy Vlautin, Virginie Despentes, Ali Smith, Richard Powers, Hari Kunzru, Rachel Kushner, Percival Everett, Amor Towles, Roddy Doyle, Kate Atkinson, Michel Houellebecq, Emily Henry, Garth Greenwell, Kevin Barry, Rachel Cusk, Rumaan Alam, Chigozie Obioma, Rachel Khong, Karl Ove Knausgård, Benjamin Myers, Kevin Kwan, and Haruki Murakami, the only author whose name is written twice here (dear Reader, have you been following closely? The usual quiz to test your retention of this information can be found at the conclusion of this article).†
Last year, for the first time in a very long while, September did not bring us a new cookbook from the Yotam Ottolenghi stable, but happily we can go back to celebrating Ottolenghi Day on 3 September 2024, when Ottolenghi Comfort drops, in a collaboration between Yotam, Helen Goh, Verena Lochmuller and Tara Wigley. Save the date! I’m also looking forward to (another Readings fave and vegetarian champion) Anna Jones’s new book, Easy Wins (April): it looks really brilliant. Australian cookery publishing has some big names on the horizon too, with books from local heroes Tony Tan (October), Julia Busuttil Nishimura (October) and Shannon Martinez (November), while Mornington Peninsula-based cook Guy Mirabella is very welcome back in our stores with his first book in many years, Pranzo, sharing memories of his childhood and plenty of Italian recipes (October). The legendary cook and activist Hana Assafiri of Moroccan Soup Bar fame, has written her memoir, Hana: The Audacity to be Free (May). I love reading chef Annie Smithers’ writing about food, and she has a new book in her trademark style called Kitchen Sentimental (September). Some first-time author–chefs with cult local followings will be bringing us cookbooks too, including Andreas Papadakis of Tipo 00 (August), Gareth Whitton of Tarts Anon (August), Jung Eun Chae of Chae (August), Anthony Yotis and Laura di Florio Yotis of The Fishmonger’s Son (August), Dave Verheul of Embla fame (On Sundays, April), and Ellie Bouhadana, chef at Hope Street Radio, whose book is called Ellie’s Table (May).
Black Inc. have been curating some wonderful series in recent years and there are some timely additions to each of them this year. The Growing Up in Australia series will soon include volumes on Torres Strait Islander and Indian experiences (May and July respectively); Tony Birch writes on Kim Scott (May) and Tara June Winch writes on Alexis Wright (October) for the Writers on Writers series (and I might have just written a tongue-twister there); and in the Shortest History series, there will be new volumes on economics, Japan, Italy, France, music, and also one on Australia by Mark McKenna (November). On the topic of series, the excellent UQP First Nations classics series will continue in 2024 with a further eight titles added, including works of poetry, fiction and nonfiction. Ellen van Neerven’s Personal Score just won the 2024 VPLA for Nonfiction, and later this year Ellen joins poet and academic Jeanine Leane to edit Shapeshifting (October), a new anthology of First Nations creative nonfiction. Veronica Gorrie won widespread acclaim for her memoir of being an Aboriginal woman in the police force, Black and Blue, including multiple prizes at the 2022 VPLAs; this year she edits a brutally honest collection of writing about police brutality which demands institutional reform, When Cops are Criminals (July).
We know that our beloved Helen Garner is writing a new book – as yet untitled but due in December – inspired by time following her grandson’s under-16s 2023 footy season. You may already know that I’m very un-Melbournian in my lack of passion for AFL, but this is the kind of sports writing I can definitely get excited about! Bruce Pascoe will have two books out this year: the first, in April, is Black Duck: A Year at Yumburra, (written with Lyn Harwood) about recent years on their farm, taking in experiences from the Black Summer fires and the history wars ignited by Dark Emu; the second is an historical novel called Imperial Harvest (June). Public intellectual Robert Manne will publish an as-yet untitled political memoir in December. I was really interested to learn that University of Melbourne-based academic Nikos Papastergiadis had a close friendship with the late John Berger, and he has written a book about this friendship and much more besides called A Migrant’s Eye, to be published in the second half of the year. Bina: First Nations Languages Old and New (July) is written by three linguists based at the University of Queensland and promises to be an accessible introduction that really should find a place in every Australian household. Actor, comedian, and campaigner Magda Szubanski needs no introduction, and I was reflecting on the fact that her memoir, Reckoning, was a huge book in the year I took on this role as Readings’ head book buyer (in 2015, I can’t believe it!). She has a second autobiography due in October. Dominic Gordon’s Excitable Boy: Essays on Risk (April) is an ‘immersive experience’ memoir of growing up working class in inner Melbourne and is described as ‘bursting with insight, audacious ideas and dark humour’. Nova Weetman is an acclaimed children’s author, and this year her memoir is for adults (Love, Death & Other Scenes, also April), an intensely personal exploration of grief after an enormous loss. Detachable Penis: A Queer Legal Saga (May) is Sam Elkin’s memoir of transition and working in Victoria’s queer law service. Indigenous journalist and academic Amy McQuire publishes a book of essays in July called Black Witness: The Power of Indigenous Media, a timely call to the media to fulfil its potential to hold the powerful to account. The book I’m reading as I write this is a devastatingly good debut memoir by Ariane Beeston about her experience of postpartum psychosis, Because I Am Not Myself, You See (May).
I’ve left myself almost no room to tell you about the March books, which is completely fine because our reviewers do such an amazing job introducing you to the key titles of the month. I will point out our Fiction Book of the Month, Thanks for Having Me by Emma Darragh, is the first fiction title to be published under Nakkiah Lui’s Joan imprint. I loved this book about mothers and daughters so much, and think it’s one of the strongest and most interesting debuts I’ve read in a while. Reading it felt like a breath of fresh air, or – much more aptly – a refreshing Wollongong sea breeze, and I recommend it most highly. Our Crime Book of the Month is Dervla McTiernan’s stand-alone crime blockbuster, What Happened to Nina?, and for Nonfiction we’ve chosen a brilliant debut from a local Melbourne writer David Goodwin, Servo: Tales from the Graveyard Shift. Also of note this month is the highly anticipated new work from Nam Le, 36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem, as well as new books from Liam Pieper, Gail Jones, Myfanwy Jones, Armistead Maupin, and Catherine Chidgey, plus the first novel by Olga Tokarczuk’s translator Jennifer Croft which is called The Extinction of Irena Rey and is a story about translators, and Clear by Carys Davies (which is perfect for anyone who has been looking for something to read after exhausting Claire Keegan’s oeuvre or who loved Audrey Magee’s The Colony). We’ve also slipped in a couple of reviews of titles released at the very start of the year including Georgia Blain’s We All Lived in Bondi Then, Kiley Reid’s Come and Get It, and Bonny Cassidy’s Monument.
And finally, dear Reader, as a bonus hot tip for those who have made it through to the end, please look out for Samantha Harvey’s Orbital, released in the UK late last year and now available locally. This is quite honestly one of the best things I’ve read – perhaps ever – and is so, so good and special that I don’t even really want to talk about it, which is just as well, because now I’m officially out of space.
† Thank you for checking but there is no quiz. See you in the shop!
