The Reading List: 25 Fiction Releases We’re Bookmarking This Autumn
There is something about the autumn and winter months that makes you feel like perusing a good book. The shorter evenings incoming and colder weather approaching all produce the ideal setting for getting lost in an absorbing read. So what publishing trends are emerging in these last few months of 2024, and how will we read our way into 2025?
Return Of The Heavyweights
Beloved author Haruki Murakami releases his latest novel, The City And Its Uncertain Walls, on 19 November. The tale bends the boundaries between worlds and is a paean to literature itself. It will be his first novel in six years. The anticipation is as fever pitch as it gets in the publishing world.
Literature’s wunderkind Sally Rooney is publishing her fourth novel on 24 September. Set to be the must-have book of the autumn, Intermezzo is a story of grieving brothers and the choices they make after the death of their father. On 31 October, there is the latest from Ali Smith, who is embarking on a new literary ‘universe’ following her seasonal quartet. Gliff is a book whose plot is (as is typical of the author) kept under wraps until publication, but we do know that it will be followed by its sequel, Gliph, in 2025.
The Pulitzer-Prize-winning Elizabeth Strout releases Tell Me Everything, her newest Lucy Barton novel, on 19 September and Alan Hollinghurst, one of Britain’s most cherished novelists, returns after a hiatus of seven years with Our Evenings, another nostalgic bildungsroman, published on 3 October.
Family & Inheritance
Generational trauma, family dysfunction and inherited mysteries provide ample fodder for several exciting new reads this season. The Land in Winter, the new novel by celebrated British author Andrew Miller, is released this October and has a razor-sharp focus on the quotidian tragedies of two newlywed couples in the bitter winter of 1962. Meanwhile, Amélie Skoda’s heart-warming debut Bethnal Green, out in January, is a love letter to NHS workers from across the globe, told through the lens of two Malaysian sisters.
January also sees the release of one of 2025’s most exciting literary debuts: Confessions by Catherine Airey, which follows a woman orphaned on the cusp of adulthood who delves into her Irish heritage, and It Comes from the River by Rachel Bower, tackling the knotty bonds of family through the lives of three woman in the north of England.
The Historical Novel
The upmarket historical read is back in vogue, with the return of some of the masters of the form. The author of Girl With A Pearl Earring, Tracey Chevalier, is back with her first book since 2019: The Glassmaker, out in September, which will transport us to Venice during the Renaissance. Jodi Picoult gives us a revisionist take on Shakespeare with By Any Other Name, out now, and February sees the publication of Hungerstone by Kat Dunn, a Sapphic reworking of Carmilla, the book that inspired Dracula. Meanwhile, two queens of historical tomes, Kate Mosse and Susanna Clarke, return with spellbinding reads: The Map of Bones and The Wood at Midwinter.
New Thrillers
The Girl on the Train author Paula Hawkins, publishes her latest twisted tale, The Blue Hour, this October while crime thrillers find a fine footing with Death at the Sign of the Rook by Kate Atkinson, out now, and The Proof of my Innocence by Jonathan Coe, out in November.
The spy thriller is also having a moment. Acclaimed author William Boyd takes a crack at the world of espionage with Gabriel’s Moon, out in September, and former head of MI5 Stella Rimington releases her newest spy novel in January: The Hidden Hand, set in the misty quads of Oxford.
This Sporting Life
“After the thrill of this summer’s Olympics – and the countless women athletes who captured our hearts over the course of the Games – this autumn we’re going to be seeing a lot of fantastic fiction about women in sport: stories about the sacrifices, struggles and triumphs of life as a female athlete,” says Allegra Le Fanu, editorial director at Bloomsbury Publishing. “Rita Bullwinkel’s Headshot is longlisted for this year’s Booker Prize and was on Barack Obama’s 2024 summer reading list. Told over two days of a championship tournament, it takes us into the lives of eight teenage girl boxers as they face off in the ring. It’s beautiful, brutal and bold – and will stay with you a long time.”
Palestinian Voices
The emergence and revisiting of these stories is a belated but vital recognition of Palestinian voices in fiction and beyond. As the world’s eye fixes on the unravelling tragedies in Gaza, poignant and powerful books have been published, such as the wonderful Behind You Is The Sea by Susan Muaddi Darraj, Sinan Antoon’s new translation of The Book Of Disappearance by journalist and novellist Ibtisam Azem and What Does Israel Fear From Palestine? by the revered Raja Shehadeh.
This September sees the publication of Recognising The Stranger: On Palestine & Narrative, the Edward W Said Lecture given at Columbia University by British-Palestinian writer Isabella Hammad, nine days before 7 October, 2023. This urgent and illuminating text now comes with a heartbreaking afterward by the author, reflecting on the current crisis.
Buck The Trends…
But after all that, reading ‘off piste’ as it were can always be a more interesting way to read. “I would encourage people to read outside of the current publishing cycle, as well as keeping up with what’s new,” says writer, Octavia Bright, who co-hosts the podcast Literary Friction. “It’s a much richer way to read. It stops you getting swept up in a trend cycle and, speaking as a writer, it deepens your practise. You realise how much the desire and the struggle to live a full life that’s true to what you want and still fulfil your obligations to other people is universal, no matter what era you’re living in.”
Looking for more reading inspiration? Head to the Service95 Book Club to discover Dua’s Monthly Reads, plus book recommendations from authors and the Service95 team
Marie-Claire Chappet is a London-based arts and culture journalist and contributing editor at Harper’s Bazaar
