The strange period between Christmas and New Year inevitably leaves us feeling a little lost and sluggish – so what better way to look forward to 2022 than by getting excited about all the new books coming out next month? Even though they will more than likely end up on the ever growing ‘to be read pile’ if you’re anything like me, there’s no harm in browsing through the screen.
Yara Zgheib’s No Land to Light On
Fiction
Release Date: 4 January 2022
From the author of The Girls at 17 Swann Street comes a highly anticipated new novel. It follows the story of a young Syrian couple who are engrossed by love for their new arrival when a travel ban separates them. Hadi is needed back in Jordan when his father dies. On attempting to return to the US, he finds himself trapped at the border and is detained for questioning, leaving the lovers in a timeless void. If you can handle suspense and heartache then add this one to your list.
Carl Bernstein’s Chasing History: A Kid in the Newsroom
Biography
Release Date: 11 January 2022
Famous for releasing the story of the Watergate break-in resulting in the resignation of United States President Richard Nixon, Bernstein is an award winning American journalist. Chasing History documents Bernstein’s beginnings as a reporter in the 1960s, recording all the scrapes and opportunities which came his way. If you’re interested in the story of a journalist who has made it to the top then this one's for you.
Bernardine Evaristo’s Manifesto: On Never Giving Up
Memoir
Release Date: 18 January 2022
From the author of award winning Girl, Woman, Other comes a gripping account of Evaristo’s life and career. As one of eight siblings, the author details how she helped set up Britain’s first Black women’s theatre company, and her drive to write about subjects that were not covered in the literary world she grew up surrounded by. Evaristo provides her perspective on important topics ranging from race, class and sexuality to ageing. As her first non-fiction debut, this is not one to be missed.
Sequoia Nagamatsu’s How High We Go in the Dark
Science Fiction
Release Date: 18 January 2022
Nagamatsu’s latest novel follows a group of characters who are linked in different ways over hundreds of years after humanity works to rebuild itself following a climate plague. Starting in 2030 an archaeologist arrives in the Arctic Circle to continue the work his daughter started. Researchers uncover long kept secrets including the remains of a girl who was preserved in permafrost. Spanning continents, centuries and different family stories, this novel has it all.
Isabel Allende’s Violeta
Historical Fiction
Release Date: 25 January 2022
Considered one of the first successful women novelists in Latin America, Allende has already impressed with her novel A Long Petal of the Sea. Her latest work Violeta tells the story of Violeta del Valle who lived to see one hundred, and during this time witnessed the biggest upheavals of the twentieth century including the Spanish Flu. Her life story is told in the slightly more unusual form of a letter to a loved one.
Katherine Faulkner’s Greenwich Park
Thriller
Release Date: 25 January 2022
Likened to the renowned Girl on the Train, Faulkner's debut novel covers everything from motherhood to unreliable friendships and the high price attached to keeping secrets. The protagonist Helen’s life begins to change the day she meets Rachel at a prenatal class. From there on a twisted tale unfolds and Rachel threatens to expose a past crime that could destroy them all.
