Poetry is at the centre of Nicholson Baker’s beguiling new book – its technique, inspiration and relevance. Best known for his novel Vox (Granta. PB. $21.95), released during the Clinton era and famous for its racy phone-sex theme, Baker here gives us something very different – a love letter to poetry, written in the form of novel. In the often-hilarious stream-ofconsciousness narration, little-known poet Paul Chowder recounts his recent break-up with girlfriend Roz, the dire state of his finances and the severe case of writer’s block that has left the introduction to his anthology of poetry unwritten. In counterpoint to the storyline, Chowder shares a wealth of wisdom on poetry and poets, from the importance of the four-beat line and the problem with iambic-pentameter enjambments to the history of rhyme and the central idea of poetry as slow-motion prose.

This was one of those ‘buzz’ books at the Frankfurt Book Fair, and it’s easy to see why. It is achingly moving, exquisitely written and that rare thing – an intelligent novel with broad appeal. Anne Greeves is only 16 when she meets and falls in love with Serey, who is exiled in Canada when the Cambodian borders close under Pol Pot’s regime. When he is able to return to his country he does so, desperate to find his family. After years, Anne follows, desperate to find him. As the title suggests, this book is full of loss, but its beauty counters the heartache it will trigger. It manages to be both a love story and a history of Cambodia – a magnificent achievement.

Lorrie Moore is one of America’s most renowned authors, admired and adored by writers as diverse as Dave Eggers, Nick Hornby and Jonathan Lethem. This, her first novel in a decade, has all the hallmarks of her short stories – wry humour, deep pathos, detailed characterisation and an intricate sense of place – but uses the wider canvas of the novel to paint an arresting portrait of post-9/11 America. College student Tassie Keltjin works part-time as a nanny for a middle-class couple, who hire her at the same time as they adopt a child. Forced to tread the same ethical and emotional tightrope as her employers, she learns about the dangers of engaging too much or too little with life.

We all know what it is to be good, but how many of us really are? Clara Purdy has led a blameless but emotionally unfulfilled life for 43 years, settling into a lonely routine of working, gardening and reading books on spirituality. Then one day she causes a car accident and is forced from her somnolent state of mild despair into taking responsibility for the wellbeing of a family far less privileged than she is. In doing so, she grapples with middleclass guilt and maternal yearnings, and tries to make sense of her speck of the universe. This thought-provoking novel deservedly won the Canadian and Caribbean category in this year’s Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and is as compelling as it is compassionate.

If you’re one of the many who were seduced by Muriel Barbery’s worldwide bestseller The Elegance of the Hedgehog (Gallic Books. PB. $24.95), you’re sure to be equally enamoured with this, her first novel, which has just been released in Australia. Its protagonist is acerbic food critic Pierre Arthens, who, on his deathbed, is tormented by his inability to recall the most delicious food ever to have passed his lips (shades of Proust here, of course). As he looks back over the years in order to pin down the elusive dish, Arthens recounts his life of sensual gluttony in chapters that alternate with accounts of the man by people he has known, most of whom aren’t admirers. A deliciously witty read.

Using the format of an auctioneer’s catalogue, Leanne Shapton’s captivatingly original book charts the relationship, from beginning to end, of the fictional Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris. Shapton catalogues the personal items the couple gave to each other and were given by friends, all of which are now being sold by an imaginary auction house. This seemingly unimportant bric-a-brac – a blancmange mould or pair of John and Ringo Beatles thimbles, for example – is in fact part of the fabric that made up their relationship. Beautifully executed and strangely moving, this book/artwork celebrates the importance of the small things in our lives.

From the opening pages, narrated by messenger god Hermes as he keeps a curious eye on a contemporary English family, it’s evident that this is no ordinary novel. But then, John Banville – who famously writes just 100 perfectly crafted words a day – is no ordinary writer. Both his superb prose style and his magnificent storytelling ability are on show in this bittersweet comic novel. The Infinities follows an English family gathered at the bedside of its comatose patriarch, an esteemed mathematician, womanising husband and distant father. But the coma is not what it seems – and neither are any of these characters. Clever, bawdy and affecting, this is an impressive work of the imagination, woven with classical allusions and poignant insights into the nature of being human.

It’s been a while since private eye Doc Sportello has seen his ex-girlfriend. Then she shows up with a story about a plot to kidnap a billionaire land developer she just happens to be in love with. It’s the tail end of the psychedelic ’60s in LA, and Doc knows that ‘love’ is another of those words going around at the moment, like ‘trip’ or ‘groovy’, except that this one usually leads to trouble. Sure enough, he’s soon drawn into a bizarre tangle of motives and passions whose cast of characters includes surfers, hustlers, dopers, rockers, a murderous loan shark, a tenor sax player working undercover, an ex-con with a swastika tattoo and a fondness for Ethel Merman, and a mysterious entity known as the Golden Fang. Inherent Vice is part noir, part psychedelic romp and 100% Pynchon.

Paul Auster’s 15th novel spans four decades, beginning in 1967 at Columbia University when 20-year-old student and would-be poet Adam Walker is drawn into a relationship with a charismatic older couple. Walker’s naive fascination turns to horror when sex and murder ensue, resulting in a lifetime of guilt, suspicion and thwarted promise. A rite of passage novel that examines the lost potential of youth through older eyes, Invisible takes the reader from New York to Paris, youth to late middle age. Auster plays with storytelling and narrative voices, using Walker’s unpublished writings and the viewpoints of a Columbia peer and Parisian acquaintance to reveal Walker’s search for justice. A multifaceted work of great depth and intensity.

In this comic novel about the male ego, middle age and the peculiar world of music obsessives, Nick Hornby returns to the territory that he made his own in High Fidelity (Popular Penguin. PB. $9.95). More than a decade later, the men are firmly in mid-life crisis territory, and the internet has transformed fandom, enabling a small army of obsessive devotees to seem an oppressive force to faded American cult-rocker Tucker Crowe. When hopeless ‘Crowologist’ Duncan receives an advance copy of Tucker’s first release in years (an early version of his classic album Juliet), he posts a rave interview on his website. When his longsuffering girlfriend publicly refutes him, it’s the end of their relationship – and the start of something between her and the distant, equally hopeless Tucker. Dark, funny and poignant.

This haunting novel has received awestruck rave reviews around the world. ‘A sadder book about fathers and sons would be impossible to imagine’, wrote The New York Times; a sentiment almost exactly echoed by Stephen Romei recently in The Australian Literary Review. David Vann’s father killed himself when he was 13. This interlinked collection of five short stories and a central novella, ‘based on a lot that’s true’, seems an attempt to exorcise or come to terms with that devastating event. Each finely etched story is concerned with one character, Roy Fenn, and his relationship with his deeply flawed, dangerously weak father, a man portrayed with astonishing and heartbreaking empathy. ‘A father, after all, is a lot for a thing to be.’

The eagerly anticipated new novel from the award-winning, octogenarian author of 2002’s The Story of Lucy Gault (Penguin. PB. $24.95) is once again set in rural Ireland. It’s summer in the late 1950s, and a funeral is taking place in the small town of Rathmoye, where it’s said that nothing much ever happens. New vistas open for Ellie, the much younger wife of farmer Dillahan, when a stranger arrives to take photographs in the town. Undercurrents of tragedy, loss, loneliness and guilt weave a backdrop to forbidden love in Love and Summer, though the overall effect is uplifting rather than dark due to the writer’s subtle craft. This lyrical and beautifully written novel by master storyteller William Trevor effortlessly captures the rhythms of small-town life and the nervous exhilaration of falling in love.

If you’re one of those people who have long intended to read Pamuk but have been put off by his reputation for writing inaccessible and – dare we say it – self-indulgent prose, this is the novel to start with. The winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature once again sets the story in his beloved Istanbul, this time in the mid-1970s. But this is not the melancholic city of Istanbul (Faber. PB. $24.95) or the alienating, labyrinthine city of The Black Book (Faber. PB. $24.95). This is the Istanbul of Pamuk’s own early adulthood, filled with the scions of the city’s wealthy elite who are desperately trying to prove themselves modern and Western. All of Pamuk’s familiar themes are here – obsession, collecting, the quest for love and identity – and are instilled in the riveting and moving story of wealthy Kemal’s obsessive love for shopgirl Fusun.

Olive, a retired schoolteacher, struggles to make sense of the changes in her life and the lives of those around her. Winner of the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

The many fans of William Boyd’s previous novel, Restless (Bloomsbury. PB. $24), which won the Costa Novel of the Year in 2006, will be happy indeed with his latest thriller. When a chance encounter leads to murder, Adam Kindred is forced to go on the run from both the law and a contract killer. Leaving his identity and former existence behind him, he begins a strange new life with an unsavoury cast of characters in the underworld. Set in the grimy underbelly of London – and as in all good London novels, the city assumes the role of a character – this intelligent conspiracy thriller by popular Scottish writer William Boyd takes Kindred the everyman from Chelsea to the East End. An increasing sense of unease builds, as ‘even ordinary thunderstorms are capable of mutating into super-cell storms’.

Messing with the classics used to be frowned upon…until the smash-hit success of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (Quirk. PB. $24.95), a ‘mash-up’ version of one of the world’s favourite romances. This sequel of sorts is even more bizarre, with man-eating octopi, two-headed sea serpents and the like turning up on almost every page – interspersed, of course, with Austen’s classic text and the story of the much-beloved Dashwood sisters and their romantic tangles. At the centre is Marianne’s passion for Colonel Willoughby, who, clad in a wetsuit, rescues her from a puddle where an octopus had attached itself to her face, and her pursuit by the tragic, tentacle-faced Colonel Brandon. This hilarious pastiche retains the essential emotions and storyline of Austen’s original, while plunging it into a literally fabulous Otherworld.

Iain Banks has two parallel careers as a novelist. This disquieting book melds his literary and sci-fi personae, perhaps fittingly exploring a version of our world in which multiple parallel realities exist. Most remain unaware of the existence of other worlds, but a select few (‘transitionaries’) move between them, directed by a secret organisation, the Concern, who plot their interventions – and assassinations. Assassin Temudjin Oh is growing concerned about the morality of his actions – and as his doubts grow, so too does his knowledge of the Concern’s sinister true purpose. In Transition, Banks employs his dark humour, roving imagination and powers of characterisation to explore the responsibilities of power and the dubious morality of intervening in other societies.

It’s the week before Christmas, 2007, and in London the lives of an assortment of as yet unconnected people are drawing together. There’s a ruthless hedge-fund manager at the height of his game, an under-employed lawyer, a Muslim student on a deadly mission, a literary hack and the driver of a Circle Line Tube train. Greed, technology, disconnection and the stresses and strains of modern life in the metropolis are brilliantly captured by master storyteller Sebastian Faulks, who draws on the ripe-for-the-picking global financial crisis in this ‘state of the nation’ novel. The effect of reading with hindsight, and knowledge of the coming crash that everyone refuses to acknowledge, makes this satirical and sardonic look at contemporary Britain a compelling read.

Seven-year-old Max likes to make noise, get dirty, ride his bike without a helmet and howl like a wolf. His home life is problematic – his parents are divorced; his father, immature and romantic, lives in the city and his mother has taken up with a younger man who steals quarters from the change bowl in the foyer. Driven by a series of pressures internal and external, Max leaves home, jumps in a boat and sails across the ocean to a strange island where giant beasts reign – the Wild Things from Maurice Sendak’s classic children’s book. This is an all-ages adventure, full of wit and soul, that explores the chaos of youth while Max explores the chaos of the world around him. Read it before you see the muchanticipated film, which was co-written by Eggers and director, Spike Jonze.

The dual reissue of these two titles aims the spotlight on Roberto Bolaño, acclaimed as one of Latin America’s greatest writers. Epic and visceral, 2666 was published following the Chilean author’s death in 2003 at the age of 50, and was posthumously awarded the National Book Critics Circle Award. The wide-ranging, five-part hyperrealist work has links to Bolaño’s earlier novel The Savage Detectives (Picador. PB. $25). The more lyrical and pocket-sized novella Amulet is told in the first-person voice of a Uruguayan poet in Mexico City amidst the political turbulence of 1968.

A former rock star deals with the accidental death of his beautiful wife 20 years earlier in this meditation on the true definition of masculinity.

The dual reissue of these two titles aims the spotlight on Roberto Bolaño, acclaimed as one of Latin America’s greatest writers. Epic and visceral, 2666 was published following the Chilean author’s death in 2003 at the age of 50, and was posthumously awarded the National Book Critics Circle Award. The wide-ranging, five-part hyperrealist work has links to Bolaño’s earlier novel The Savage Detectives (Picador. PB. $25). The more lyrical and pocket-sized novella Amulet is told in the first-person voice of a Uruguayan poet in Mexico City amidst the political turbulence of 1968.

Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: Part Six of Three continues an Englishman’s continuing search through space and time for a decent cup of tea.

This prequel to the best-selling The Shadow of the Wind (Text. PB. $24.95) is a tale of lost souls and haunting shadows set in Barcelona during the turbulent 1920s.

This novel by the winner of the 2008 Man Booker Prize is set in south India in the period between the assassinations of Indira Ghandi and her son Rajiv.

An absorbing story about the harmony and discord of family life, following a year in the life of Thomas Bradshaw after he becomes primary carer to his eight-year-old daughter, Alexa.

Young Irishwoman Eilis Lacey makes a new life for herself in 1950s America, but then a family crisis at home forces her to make a choice between the old world and the new.

This panoramic novel of family secrets is set against a backdrop of a bohemian, artistic late-Victorian world.

In this bittersweet novel, Violet Hetherington takes the rash step of joining a transatlantic cruise ship to New York to visit Edwin, whose friendship she lost many years before.

These short stories are populated by smart, neurotic and somewhat damaged narrators who speak grandly to the longings and insecurities in us all.

These startling, savagely funny stories from the Canadian-born, US-based author were shortlisted for this year’s Frank O’Connor Prize.

A novel about a modernist steel, glass and onyx house built for a Jew and his gentile wife high on a Czechoslovak hill in the 1930s. Shortlisted for this year’s Man Booker Prize.

The bestselling celebration of literature, love and the power of the human spirit. Perfect holiday reading.

Don’t be put off by the title – this charming novel by Australian-based writer and naturalist Nicholas Drayson isn’t a handbook for twitchers. Instead, it’s an affectionately humorous work set in Kenya that offers a rollicking story along with descriptions of Kenya’s 1000 bird species. Avid birder Mr Malik has fallen in love with Rose Mbikwa, the leader of the Tuesday-morning bird walk. But while he is summoning up the courage to ask her to the Hunt Ball, he discovers that he has a rival in the shape of Haryr Khan, his old bête noire from schooldays. Under the auspices of club rules, the two men agree to compete for the right to take Rose to the ball by seeing who can identify the greater number of Kenyan birds over the course of a week. Perfect for fans of Alexander McCall- Smith’s No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series.

The Gothic beauty of Highgate Cemetery in North London has inspired and entranced generations of artists and writers. Audrey Niffenegger, whose debut novel The Time Traveler’s Wife (Vintage. PB. $24.95) was an international bestseller, has used it as the setting of her latest work, which explores the themes of love and loss. In this ghost story for the 21st century, mirror-image twins Julia and Valentina Poole move from the US to the flat they’ve inherited from an estranged aunt, overlooking the cemetery. As they settle into their new surroundings, their aunt’s eccentric neighbours and hidden secrets are gradually revealed to the twins, who are watched over by both the living and the dead.

Doctorow’s new novel follows the fascinating lives of Homer and Langley Collyer, two orphaned brothers who live reclusively in a massive townhouse on Fifth Avenue.

A magical novel in which a young Sardinian woman explores the life of her romantic, beautiful and somewhat crazy grandmother.

An enchanting story about memory, affection and the concept of family from the author of The Diving Pool).

Roth’s 30th novel is about Simon Axler, one of the leading American stage actors of his generation who, now in his 60s, has lost his magic, his talent and his assurance.

This ambitious work picks up the themes of national identity, belonging, family and loyalty that were so masterfully explored in Ali’s debut novel, Brick Lane (Black Swan. PB. $24.95). The story is set in the kitchen of the once-splendid Imperial Hotel, where executive chef Gabriel Lightfoot wrestles (not particularly successfully) with the demands of managing a multinational staff, keeping his employers happy and trying to determine what it is he really wants out of life. When the dead body of a hotel porter is discovered and Gordon becomes involved with Lena, a vulnerable Eastern European girl who is somehow involved in the porter’s death, his life reaches crisis point. Ali deftly portrays a nation that, like the hotel, is losing its sense of self and she does so in often-exquisite prose.

A subversive, thought-provoking and beautifully written novel about what it is to be (or not to be) a perfect mother.

It’s time to celebrate! The incomparable Barbara Kingsolver has released a new novel after a 10-year wait, and it’s just as wonderful as The Poisonwood Bible (Faber. PB. $23.95). Harrison Shepherd is the offspring of an American father and a fun-loving and feckless Mexican mother. After a shambolic education in Mexico City, he is sent to a military school in Virginia, only to be expelled for unbecoming behaviour. Back in Mexico City, he begins working for artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, embarking on a life-long friendship with them and with members of their revolutionary circle, including Leon Trotsky. Traumatised by Trotsky’s assassination, Harrison returns to the States, nurturing a career as a novelist and an introverted personality. And then the House Committee on Un-American Activities rears its ugly head…

Widely acknowledged to be the best book by the Romanian-born winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature.

In 1950s America, a 12-year-old boy makes a tragic mistake and he and his father are pursued across the country by a police constable intent on revenge.

Ever wondered what it would be like to leave the world – cancel your credit cards, close your email account, leave your job and home? After a succession of letdowns and one unimaginable tragedy, that’s just what happens to Jane Howard, narrator of this new novel by the bestselling author of The Pursuit of Happiness (Arrow. PB. $24.95). The location she chooses to start her new life is Calgary, where she becomes drawn into solving a monstrous crime. Jane’s narrative voice is intriguingly matter-of-fact as she maps out the tumultuous twists and turns of her life, and Kennedy plays with the arbitrary nature of fate in our lives and the far-reaching consequences of seemingly innocuous actions. Dramatically plotted, this lengthy novel grows slowly to become a compelling page-turner.

This extraordinary novel set in 1970s and ’80s New York against a time of sweeping political and social change follows the lives of eight disparate people.

A chilling ghost story set in 1940s Warwickshire from the acclaimed author of The Night Watch (Virago. PB. $25) and Tipping the Velvet (Virago. PB. $23).

Hitchcock’s short stories are deeply personal, strikingly feminine, heart-breakingly beautiful, fearless, confronting and frequently hilarious.

Townsend’s much-loved comic character Adrian Mole has entered middle age. Father to the grammatically challenged Glenn, and to William – who takes a ‘Big Boy Arouser’ condom to nursery school as his innocent contribution to a hot-air balloon project – Adrian is a single parent whose current worries include: indestructible head-lice; his raging jealousy when his accomplished half-brother Brett arrives on his doorstep; moral decline in The Archers; his desperate attachment to two therapists; his mild addiction to Starburst (formerly Opal Fruits); and, perhaps most significantly, the dawn of a new millennium. Also look out for the latest instalment in Adrian’s neurotic life: Adrian Mole: The Prostrate Years (Michael Joseph. PB. $32.95).

A new title from the bestselling author of The Last Chinese Chef (HarperCollins. PB. $30), this time set in the remote deserts of northwest China.

The new book in Harris’ stunning trilogy about the Roman Empire is set in 63BC, when republican Cicero is consul but Julius Caesar’s power is growing.

City trader Jimmy and his family are forced to confront financial meltdown in this hilarious and pertinent domestic drama.

The bestselling master of historical fiction weaves a grand, sweeping drama of New York from the city’s founding to the present day.

Tyler’s affecting new novel tells the story of a year in the life of Liam Pennywell, a man in his 61st year who is adrift in his own life.

Ishiguro ponders the struggle to keep alive a sense of life’s romance, exploring ideas of love, music and the passing of time.

The good folk of Lake Wobegon head to Italy, in this hilarious, modern-day Canterbury Tales. Vintage Keillor.

These new editions of three classic novels feature original cover art in watercolour, pencil or ink by Cuban-born, world-renowned fashion designer Ruben Toledo.

Based on real events in the High Beach Private Asylum in 1840, Foulds’ brilliantly imagined novel centres on the first incarceration of nature poet John Clare.

An exhilarating and provocative novel revolving around a school sex scandal. Shortlisted for the 2009 Montana New Zealand Book Award for Fiction.

Chevalier has stated that her aim was to ‘make fossils sexy’ in this tale of female friendship amid the fossil digs of the 19th century in Lyme Regis. Based on a true story.

Ferrara, 1570. Sixteen-year-old Serafina has been sent to the convent of Santa Caterina, but is determined to escape.

These new editions of three classic novels feature original cover art in watercolour, pencil or ink by Cuban-born, world-renowned fashion designer Ruben Toledo.

A brilliant historical adventure spanning the lush poppy fields of the Ganges, the rolling high seas and the exotic backstreets of China.

Hollywood, 1945. Returned serviceman Ben Collier investigates the mysterious death of his filmmaker brother, Daniel.

These wonderfully imagined tales about the afterlife are at once funny, wistful and unsettling.

Shortlisted for this year’s Man Booker Prize, Summertime completes the majestic trilogy of fictionalised memoir begun with Boyhood (Vintage. PB. $24.95) and Youth (Vintage. PB. $24.95).

Nine connected episodes follow an unnamed protagonist from childhood to adulthood in a dystopic world.

The story of Patrick Oxtoby, an outsider longing to fit into a world he doesn’t understand. From the author of Carry Me Down (Text. PB. $23.95).

Alice Munro won this year’s Man Booker International Prize for her lifetime body of work, and her new volume of short stories has been much anticipated. This is especially so in light of the fact that only three years ago the then 75-year-old author intimated her intention to stop writing fiction altogether. Thankfully, she hasn’t, and readers captivated by her flawless and effortless style and superlative gift for storytelling can once again delve into an enthralling collection from one of our greatest short story writers. With novellike depth and range, familiar Munrovian themes of love, loss, death, husbands, wives and children are intricately woven through the 10 unsettling and haunting stories that make up Too Much Happiness.

London, November 1945. A young music student embarks on an affair with a charismatic concert pianist.

An eccentric elderly Jewish émigré and her depressed neighbour forge an unlikely friendship in modern-day London.

This raunchy German novel has renewed the debate over women’s roles and image in society. NB: December release.

In this bittersweet love story, 40-something Laura Lewis abandons a life of stylish independence in Paris to care for her elderly mother in Winchester.

A novel about the devastation of loss and the restorative power of love set against the relocation of the great temple of Abu Simbel in Egypt.

This great English novel tells the story of the manipulative and ambitious reformer Thomas Cromwell, advisor to King Henry VIII. Winner of the 2009 Man Booker Prize.

This novel about wonder, love and art is set in 17thcentury Seville, when the eyes of the Inquisition are everywhere. NB: December release.

These new editions of three classic novels feature original cover art in watercolour, pencil or ink by Cuban-born, world-renowned fashion designer Ruben Toledo.

The new novel by the prolific Canadian writer Margaret Atwood, winner of the 2000 Booker Prize for The Blind Assassin (Virago. PB. $25), is inspired by the precarious state of our world. Atwood imagines a believable future where the planet’s many imbalances have led to the formation of environmentalists, gardenlovers and vegetarians into God’s Gardeners, who appeared in Atwood’s previous novel, Oryx and Crake (Virago. PB. $25). The novel traces the survival of two women who are isolated after a pandemic dubbed the ‘waterless flood’ has wiped out life across the globe. The women contemplate their turbulent former lives and current predicament in a work that is visionary, darkly humorous, seriously thought provoking – and could easily lead to a third instalment.