Books to beat the gloom

Today
is "Blue Monday", the "most depressing day of the year", a
perfect storm of mid-winter drudgery, post-Christmas comedown and credit card
overload. Or is it? This entirely spurious "equation" was actually
devised for a travel firm to help sell holidays in the sun, but it's the sort
of ritualized non-story that runs well in certain sections of the media, and as
you read this blog, the web is awash with comment pieces and interviews featuring concerned
psychologists explaining why the third Monday in January is a day for hiding
beneath the duvet. 

At the TLS we are, however, of an altogether more cheerful disposition, which is why our thoughts turn to the uplifting matter of this year's forthcoming fiction titles. (And if you are cowering beneath the duvet, then a good novel can surely only help you.)

Among
the highlights to arrive in Britain over the next month are Dave Eggers's A
Hologram for the King – a tale about America, globalization and the world
economy, set in Saudi Arabia – and Nadeem Aslam's The Blind Man's Garden –
which looks at the effects of war and geopolitical upheaval in contemporary
Afghanistan and Pakistan. Jim Crace's Harvest considers a rather different kind
of political upheaval, moving back three centuries to a Britain torn apart by the new acts of
enclosure.

If
that isn't enough to raise some cheer, then March spells the return of William Gass – now
in his late eighties – with his first novel in almost two decades. Middle C
moves from 1930s Austria to post-war Ohio, and features a piano-playing
fantasist struggling to come to terms with the mysterious disappearance of his
father. Also out in March is Javier Marías's "metaphysical murder mystery" The Infatuations (published
last year in Spain as Los enamoramientos), in which a woman becomes embroiled
in the fall-out of an apparently random killing. Marías is joined by J. M. Coetzee, whose novel The
Childhood of Jesus will already have bookies speculating (regardless of their
having read it) on the possibility of the author winning a record-breaking
third Booker Prize.

In
April, we will be treated to new novels by Kate Atkinson and Rupert Thomson.
Atkinson's Life after Life features a woman who is given the chance to overcome
death – again and again. Thomson's Secrecy follows a man being pursued by his
past in Renaissance Florence, Naples and Sicily. (Renaissance Italy is also the
time and place for Sarah Dunant’s Blood and Beauty, which appears later in the
year.)

In
the same month, Granta’s "Best of Young British Novelists" circus
swings around again, while a young British novelist (and TLS reviewer) who may
or may not be on the Granta list arrives with his debut, Idiopathy: Sam Byers's
novel is billed as a tale of "tangled relationships", "unhinged
narcissism" and "self-help quackery".

As
the days begin to lengthen, we can look forward to new novels, in May, by John Le Carré (A Delicate Truth), Lionel Shriver (Big Brother) and James Salter (All That Is). Summer solstice arrives just
in time for The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman and the final
instalment of Jane Gardam’s “Old Filth” trilogy, Last Friends; in August,
Margaret Atwood unveils the final instalment of her trilogy, MaddAddam. By
September, it will be back to school with Jonathan Coe (Expo 58) and Iain Pears, whose novel, Arcadia, will first appear as an app. 

But those
days of long shadows are far off in the distance, and for now we must now
embrace – or shrink from – the winter gloom. Whether you're feeling morose or
optimistic, we hope you'll enjoy reading more about these novels, all of which
will be reviewed in future editions of the TLS.