2012 fiction

 JANUARY

The Art of Fielding, by Chad Harbach, Fourth Estate, RRP£16.99, 450 pages

To say that this debut novel, published last year in the US and this month in the UK, comes with critical acclaim would be an understatement.

The hype had as much to do with how it came to be published (10 years in the making, endless rejections) as with its brilliant portrayal of a bunch of characters united by baseball.

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FEBRUARY

What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank, by Nathan Englander, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, RRP£12.99, 256 pages

Englander’s latest short story collection marks him out as one of the finest American writers of his generation.

The title story, inspired by Raymond Carver’s famous collection of stories What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, features two couples arguing over the Holocaust.

Other stories include tales of sexual longing, geriatric vigilantes and mothers who go to extreme lengths for their kids.

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The Revelations, by Alex Preston, Faber, RRP£12.99, 352 pages

We all seek meaning in life but how much are we willing to give up in return?

This is one of the questions faced by the protagonists in Preston’s second novel, who find themselves signing up to a religious movement, The Course, which has ideals that conceal dark desires and terrible secrets that will turn their lives upside down.

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MARCH

Capital, by John Lanchester, Faber, RRP£17.99, 592 pages

After his book Whoops!, a factual account of the origins of the financial crisis, Lanchester has returned to fiction with a “post-crash state-of-the-nation novel” about millionaire bankers, top-end interior decorators, Senegalese footballers and Zimbabwean traffic wardens whose lives collide on a street in south London.

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APRIL

The Chemistry of Tears, by Peter Carey, Faber, RRP£17.99, 288 pages

Readers used to have to wait years for a new Carey novel.

Now, hot in the wake of Parrot and Olivier in America (2010), the Australian novelist’s latest offering is a mix of ancient automata, grieving mistresses and lovers who are unable to meet – all explored with Carey’s usual brio.

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MAY

Bring Up the Bodies, by Hilary Mantel, Fourth Estate, RRP£18.99, 600 pages

Mantel’s Man Booker prize-winning Wolf Hall is a hard act to follow but she has since written a sequel that is likely to attract even greater attention.

Continuing with the story of Henry VIII’s notorious advisor, Thomas Cromwell, she now focuses on one of England’s most infamous historical episodes: the fall of Anne Boleyn.

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JUNE

The Dream of the Celt, by Mario Vargas Llosa, translated by Edith Grossman, Faber, RRP£18.99, 400 pages

In his latest novel, the 2010 Nobel Laureate explores the life of Irish revolutionary Sir Roger Casement, who was executed for treason in 1916 for his role in the Easter Rising.

Vargas Llosa follows Casement from Liverpool and Dublin to the Congo and Peru – and finally London, where his life ended in Pentonville jail.