From a new novel by Julian Barnes to the film of The Girl on the Train, from the most hotly tipped debuts to Henning Mankell’s farewell essays – everything you need to know about the literary year ahead

Non-fiction

Final Solution: The Fate of the Jews 1933-1949 by David Cesarani (Macmillan) The long-anticipated major work of the historian of the Holocaust and Anglo-Jewish life, who died last year (another book, on Disraeli, will also be published this year by Yale). In Final Solution, he argues that the Nazi persecution of the Jews unfolded erratically; it was the pressure of war that led to genocide. He also takes the narrative beyond 1945, particularly to the “displaced persons” camps, where Jews languished behind barbed wire for years after “liberation”.

And Yet: Essays by Christopher Hitchens (Atlantic) A volume of previously uncollected essays by the contrarian and sparkling stylist, a hero of the left who was comfortable wearing both dinner and donkey jacket.

Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs: The Astounding Interconnectedness of the Universe by Lisa Randall (Bodley Head) This study by the American theoretical physicist and renowned cosmologist, puffed by the publishers as “the most thrilling science book you’ll ever read”, argues that dark matter – the mysterious material that is believed to make up much of the universe – helped to interrupt the orbit of a comet on the edge of our solar system and send it on a collision course with Earth. Goodbye dinosaurs

Fiction

The Noise of Time by Julian Barnes (Jonathan Cape) Barnes’s first novel since his Man Booker-winning The Sense of an Ending is based on the life of Dmitri Shostakovich. Opening during Stalin’s purges in the 1930s, it follows the composer’s battles with the authorities and his own conscience.

The Good Liar by Nicholas Searle (Viking) Meet Roy, an elderly conman working one last scam, and Betty, a genteel widow who seems oddly eager to be hoodwinked by him … This fantastically assured debut is written in reverse, wrongfooting the reader as it draws back the layers of time to reveal a secret dating back to the war.

Human Acts by Han Kang (Granta) The author of the well received The Vegetarian explores the tragic aftermath of a student uprising in 1980 South Korea.

Highbridge by Phil Redmond (Century) The debut novel from the creator of Grange Hill, Brookside and Hollyoaks is a crime thriller about two brothers taking the law into their own hands in a bid to avenge their sister’s unsolved murder.

Events and anniversaries

3 War and Peace begins on BBC1, adapted by Andrew Davies. Expect posher soldiers and girls looking for husbands than in his Pride and Prejudice, and the odd battle scene. Lily James and James Norton star.



10 Fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, an account of murders in Kansas that is often called the first non-fiction novel.



11 TS Eliot prize ceremony, with Claudia Rankine in with a chance of collecting £20,000 on top of her £10,000 for winning the 2015 Forward prize.



15 UK release of Lenny Abramson’s film version of Emma Donoghue’s bestselling and Man Booker-shortlisted novel Room, starring Brie Larson. The film and the screenplay both have Golden Globe nominations.



26 Costa book of the year announced and category awards presented.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Man Booker-nominated Jhumpa Lahiri’s new book is out in February. Photograph: Olivia Harris/Reuters

Non-fiction

In Other Words by Jhumpa Lahiri (Bloomsbury) A memoir and love letter to the Italian language, presented in a dual language format, with a translation by Ann Goldstein (who also translates Elena Ferrante’s work).

Quicksand by Henning Mankell (Harvill Secker) A memoir in the form of a series of essays from the creator of Wallander, who died last year. It deals with Mankell’s diagnosis and treatment for cancer, as well as topics ranging from art to “jealousy, ice ages past and present, and the future of our planet”.

West of Eden by Jean Stein (Jonathan Cape) An august literary journalist and author of a well-known book about Andy Warhol’s muse Edie Sedgwick, Stein has compiled an oral history of Hollywood, from her interviews with Lauren Bacall, Joan Didion, Dennis Hopper, Arthur Miller, Stephen Sondheim and others.

Incarnations by Sunil Khilnani (Allen Lane) Published to coincide with the return of his series on Radio 4, Khilnani’s book explores “What is India?” through the lives of 50 people who have shaped the world’s largest democracy, from Buddha, Ashoka and Akbar, ruler of the Mughal empire, to the 20th-century tycoon Dhirubhai Ambani.

Sketchbooks by Grayson Perry (Particular) A collection of 100 drawings charting the evolution of the flamboyant ceramicist’s career. His book about masculinity is due later in the year.

The Morning They Came for Us by Janine di Giovanni (Bloomsbury) Dispatches from Syria courtesy of the Newsweek journalist and war reporter.

Leonard: A Life by William Shatner (Sidgwick & Jackson) Captain Kirk on Spock – a tribute from Shatner to his late Star Trek co-star Leonard Nimoy. The two first met on the set of The Man from UNCLE; the Starship Enterprise first appeared on TV screens in 1966. Shatner’s publisher describes this as “a uniquely heartfelt book” – would the unemotional Spock have approved?

Fiction

Shylock Is My Name by Howard Jacobson (Hogarth Shakespeare) “For an English novelist Shakespeare is where it all begins. For an English novelist who also happens to be Jewish, The Merchant of Venice is where it all snarls up.” In the first of this year’s Shakespeare reboots, the Man Booker prize winner explores Jewishness, fatherhood and modern morality.

Thus Bad Begins by Javier Marías (Hamish Hamilton) The Infatuations was one of the highlights of 2014: in his new book, Spain’s leading novelist studies desire and betrayal through the story of a young man drawn into the orbit of a famous film director and his mysterious wife.

The High Mountains of Portugal by Yann Martel (Canongate) The Life of Pi author investigates love and mortality by threading together three stories across the 20th century: a quest for treasure, a murder mystery and a grieving widower, who makes friends with a chimpanzee.

This Census-Taker by China Miéville (Picador) A novella about a lonely and traumatised young boy and the mysterious stranger who might save him from his isolation.

Under the Udala Trees by Chinelo Okparanta (Granta) Highly acclaimed in the US, the debut novel from the Caine prize-shortlisted author is a lesbian coming-of-age story set against the backdrop of Nigerian religious intolerance and the Biafran civil war.

Jonathan Unleashed by Meg Rosoff (Bloomsbury) Meg Rosoff’s first adult novel centres on the misadventures of Jonathan, a New Yorker for whom both career and relationship success are proving elusive. Luckily, his canine companions have his best interests at heart...

Events and anniversaries

Six part BBC series of John le Carré’s first post-cold war novel, The Night Manager.

28 Centenary of Henry James’s death in 1916, supposedly after saying: “So here it is at last, the distinguished thing.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Seamus Heaney’s posthumously published translation of Virgil’s Aeneid: Book VI is out in March. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian

Non-fiction

The Language Animal: The Full Shape of the Human Linguistic Capacity by Charles Taylor (Harvard) The eminent Canadian philosopher argues that language does not merely describe; it constitutes meaning and fundamentally shapes human experience. The human linguistic capacity is not something we innately possess, as others contend: we learn language from others.

Evicted by Matthew Desmond (Allen Lane) The product of years of careful, first-hand research, this study by the Harvard sociologist considers the impact of housing difficulties and eviction on the lives of the American urban poor, and their role in perpetuating racial and economic inequality. He gives the equivalent quality of attention to a Milwaukee trailer park that Katherine Boo recently gave to a Mumbai slum.

The Life Project: The Extraordinary Story of 70,000 Ordinary Lives by Helen Pearson (Allen Lane) In 1946, scientists started tracking thousands of British children born during one week in March; they have conducted similar cohort research roughly every 12 years since, as part of “the longest running study of human development in the world”. The Life Project is the first full account of this endeavour.

Broken Vows: Tony Blair, the Tragedy of Power by Tom Bower (Faber) The tenacious biographer of Robert Maxwell, Conrad Black and Richard Branson turns his attention to both Blair the prime minister and Blair the international businessman.

A Very Expensive Poison: The Definitive Story of the Murder of Litvinenko and Russia’s Threat to the West by Luke Harding (Guardian Faber) The inside story of the Russian poisoned with polonium in 2006, written by this paper’s former Moscow correspondent.

At the Existentialist Cafe: Freedom, Being and Apricot Cocktails by Sarah Bakewell (Chatto & Windus) The biographer of Montaigne takes on a group study featuring Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Raymond Aron and other thinkers, which tells the story of existentialism from its 1930s origins to its role in postwar liberation movements such as anticolonialism, feminism and gay rights.

No Way But Gentlenesse by Richard Hines (Bloomsbury) The author was the inspiration for Billy Casper, hero of the classic novel A Kestrel for a Knave and the film Kes; Barry Hines was his brother. Here he tells his own story of his kestrel and the crumbling South Yorkshire mining community in which he grew up.

Fiction

Hot Milk by Deborah Levy (Hamish Hamilton) Levy made her comeback in 2012 when Swimming Home was shortlisted for the Man Booker. This new novel, in which a mother and daughter seek salvation in a Spanish village, explores psychosomatic illness, female rage and desire, and the bonds of family.

Anatomy of a Soldier by Harry Parker (Faber) This remarkable debut by a former soldier who served in Iraq and Afghanistan takes us through the horrific bomb injury and slow rehabilitation of a British captain – as narrated by 45 different inanimate objects, from boots to medals, fertiliser bags to medical equipment.

Some Rain Must Fall by Karl Ove Knausgaard (Harvill Secker) In the penultimate volume of his mammoth autobiographical series of novels, Knausgaard loses his father and makes his debut as a writer.

Ten Days by Gillian Slovo (Canongate) A thriller based around the 2011 London riots, billed as “House of Cards meets Homeland”.

Freya by Anthony Quinn (Jonathan Cape) Quinn’s hugely enjoyable 30s-set murder mystery Curtain Call gained him many new fans. Characters from that novel reappear in a tale of young women finding new opportunities after the war.

Poetry

Aeneid: Book VI by Seamus Heaney (Faber) Virgil’s classic was a touchstone to Heaney throughout his life. It is hard to think of a more apt way to mark the end of his own poetic journey than this posthumously published translation, worked on for 30 years, featuring Aeneas’s journey into the underworld.

Events and anniversaries

3 New RSC production of Don Quixote, adapted by James Fenton, commemorates the 400th anniversary of Cervantes’s death in April (a day before Shakespeare’s).

18 High Rise, Ben Wheatley’s adaptation of JG Ballard’s 1975 novel, starring Tom Hiddleston.

28 75th anniversary of the death of Virginia Woolf.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The poet and playwright Kate Tempest’s first novel, The Bricks That Built the Houses, is published in April. Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian

Non-fiction

Fragments by Elena Ferrante (Europa) With Ferrante fever set to rage into the new year, this is a collection of occasional writings, interviews and letters.

And the Weak Suffer What They Must? by Yanis Varoufakis (Bodley Head) The economist, former member of the Greek parliament and self-styled “libertarian Marxist” presents the international case against austerity.

Chronicles: On Our Troubled Times by Thomas Piketty (Viking) A suitable companion for Varoufakis’s book is this set of short pieces from the French economist, author of the astonishingly successful Capital in the Twenty-First Century.

Girl Up by Laura Bates (Simon & Schuster) The Everyday Sexism author on the advice girls get, the pressures surrounding body image, false representations of women in the media and the complexities of sex and relationships.

All at Sea by Decca Aitkenhead (4th Estate) The Guardian journalist tells her heartbreaking story of love and loss after her partner drowned on holiday trying to save one of their sons.

Homintern: How Gay Culture Liberated the Modern World by Gregory Woods (Yale) An inquiry into how homosexuality has shaped western culture, from the author of an influential history of gay literature.

Fiction

The Bricks That Built the Houses by Kate Tempest (Bloomsbury) Poet and rapper Kate Tempest, whose epic poem Brand New Ancients won the Ted Hughes prize for poetry in 2013 and who has also been nominated for the Mercury music prize, now adds novelist to her CV with a tale of young Londoners on the run.

What Belongs to You by Garth Greenwell (Picador) Memory, desire and identity mingle in this debut about an American college professor teaching in Bulgaria, and his erotic obsession with a male prostitute called Mitko.

Not Working by Lisa Owens (Picador) A deadpan comic debut for the procrastination generation: a twentysomething woman throws in her job to discover what she really wants to do with her life, only to find it unravelling in front of her.

The Blade Artist by Irvine Welsh (Jonathan Cape) The return of Trainspotting’s most extreme antihero: Francis Begbie.

Everyone Brave Is Forgiven by Chris Cleave (Sceptre) From the author of Incendiary and The Other Hand, a second world war story that moves between blitz-hit London, where an aristocratic young woman teaches children deemed unsuitable for evacuation, and the bombarded island of Malta.

All That Man Is by David Szalay (Jonathan Cape) The new book by one of Granta’s best young British novelists and the author of London and the South-East weaves together the stories of nine different men, from youth to old age.

The Cauliflower by Nicola Barker (William Heinemann) British fiction’s most uncategorisable talent returns with the tale of “Uncle”, a Hindu guru in 19th-century Calcutta.

The Storyteller: Tales Out of Loneliness by Walter Benjamin (Verso) Fables, aphorisms and riddles appear in the first major collection of short stories from the critic and philosopher.

Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld (Borough) Pride and Prejudice updated to modern Cincinnati by the American Wife author, featuring reality TV star Chip Bingley and haughty neurosurgeon Fitzwilliam Darcy.

Poetry

Gate of Lilacs: A Verse Commentary on Proust by Clive James (Picador) James the critical essayist and James the poet come together in an ambitious attempt to express his “lifelong gratitude to Proust”.

Events and anniversaries

1 50th anniversary of the death of Flann O’Brien (Brian O’Nolan) in 1966. Evelyn Waugh died on the 10th, meaning two of the 20th century’s greatest comic writers were gone in a fortnight.

3 25th anniversary of Graham Greene’s death in 1991.

15 Jon Favreau’s Disney version of Kipling’s The Jungle Book, an action/animation hybrid voiced by actors including Scarlett Johansson and Idris Elba.

21 The bicentenary of Charlotte Brontë’s birth in 1816, with luckless timing that means she is always liable to be overshadowed by the Bard.

23 400th anniversary (possibly) of Shakespeare’s death, and the cue for commemorations including a second set of BBC history plays (Benedict Cumberbatch stars in Richard III).

24 Centenary of the start of the Easter Rising in Dublin, which inspired WB Yeats’s poem “Easter, 1916”.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Mia Wasikowska in Alice in Wonderland (2010). The sequel is due to be released in May. Photograph: Allstar/Disney

Non-fiction

The Wicked Boy: The Mystery of a Victorian Child Murderer by Kate Summerscale (Bloomsbury) The author of the bestselling The Suspicions of Mr Whicher focuses again on a Victorian murder case. This one, dating from 1895, revolves around the suspicious actions of a 13-year-old boy. Was he the villain? The criminal trial gripped the nation.

Politics by Nick Clegg (Bodley Head) Does the former deputy prime minister regret the coalition, given the Liberal Democrats’ brutal defeat in last year’s election? And will he tell all in this study of British politics? The publishers promise that it is a “candid account” that will “lift the lid on Westminster and Whitehall”.

Enough Said: Politics, Media and the Crisis in Public Language by Mark Thompson (Bodley Head) The former director general of the BBC contemplates how to discuss serious issues in an age of information overload.

The Goddess Pose: The Audacious Life of Indra Devi, the Woman Who Helped Bring Yoga to the West by Michelle Goldberg (Corsair) The biography of a woman born in Latvia, who worked in a cabaret in Berlin and travelled around interwar eastern Europe before heading to India and then establishing herself as an influential yoga teacher in the US.

Rio de Janeiro by Luiz Eduardo Soares (Allen Lane) In time for the 2016 Olympics, a portrayal of Brazil’s most famous city by one of its leading politicians and cultural figures.

East West Street: On the Origins of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity by Philippe Sands (Weidenfeld & Nicolson) The barrister and professor of international law has combined a historical detective story – about two Nuremberg prosecutors – with an account of his mother’s family in Lviv and Vienna during the second world war, wrapped up with an investigation into the legal principles that have shaped his career.

A Life Discarded by Alexander Masters (4th Estate) The author of Stuart: A Life Backwards pieces together the story and significance of 148 books of a handwritten diary discarded among broken bricks in a skip in Cambridge.

Fiction

Zero K by Don DeLillo (Picador) “We are born without choosing to be. Should we have to die in the same manner?” DeLillo’s latest tackles fate and mortality head-on as a billionaire with a terminally ill wife tries to cheat death through science.

The Fireman by Joe Hill (Gollancz) Stephen King’s son has built his own career as a horror writer extraordinaire. His new book takes us to a world in which spontaneous combustion threatens the survival of humanity.

The Bones of Grace by Tahmima Anam (Canongate) An epic love story from one of Granta’s best young British novelists.

The Gustav Sonata by Rose Tremain (Chatto & Windus) The lives of two boys, from the 30s to the 60s, and the power of their friendship in a dangerous world.

Serious Sweet by AL Kennedy (Jonathan Cape) The peregrinations of a senior civil servant and a bankrupt accountant, set in London over 24 hours, form the basis of a sharp tale of modern morals and conscience.

Our Young Man by Edmund White (Bloomsbury) Handsome Frenchman Guy travels from France to New York and forges a successful career as a model, not least because he doesn’t appear to age. Set against the backdrop of the disco era and into the era of Aids, the book meditates on the power of physical beauty.

The Pier Falls by Mark Haddon (Jonathan Cape) The first collection of short stories from the author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.

Selection Day by Aravind Adiga (Picador) The third novel from the author of the Man Booker-winning White Tiger centres on a 14-year-old boy in contemporary Mumbai.

Poetry

Too Brave to Dream: Encounters with Modern Art by RS Thomas (Bloodaxe) Newly discovered poems in which Thomas responded to work by artists including Moore, Munch, Dalí and Magritte.

Events and anniversaries

27 Alice Through the Looking Glass, James Bobin’s film sequel to 2010’s Alice in Wonderland, also starring Mia Wasikowska.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Anne Tyler’s Vinegar Girl, to be published in June, is a reworking of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. Photograph: Eamonn McCabe/The Guardian

Non-fiction

The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee (Bodley Head) Mukherjee, best known for his “biography” of cancer, The Emperor of All Maladies, combines a meditation on his family’s history of mental illness with an investigation into the fundamental unit of heredity.

Cast Away: Stories of Survival from the World’s Deadliest Voyage by Charlotte Macdonald-Gibson (Granta) A book of reportage about one of the most pressing questions of the moment: the perilous journeys made by people fleeing conflict and poverty in the Middle East and Africa.

The New Odyssey: The Story of the European Refugee Crisis by Patrick Kingsley (Guardian Faber) Throughout 2015, this paper’s migration correspondent travelled to 17 countries along the migrant trail, meeting hundreds of refugees making epic odysseys across deserts, seas and mountains.

The Euro: How a Common Currency Threatens the Future of Europe by Joseph Stiglitz (Allen Lane) The Nobel prize-winning economist considers why saving Europe may mean abandoning the euro.

The Bedders by Catherine Seymour (Pan) An account of the lives of the working-class women who looked after the students of Cambridge University.

The Games: A Global History of the Olympics by David Goldblatt (Macmillan) A timely exploration from the acclaimed author of another “global history”, of football – The Ball Is Round.

The Swordfish and the Star by Gavin Knight (Chatto & Windus) An inquiry into the precarious life of Cornish fishermen from a writer whose book Hood Rat, about teen criminality on the sink estates of Britain, won huge praise.

Do Statins Work: The Battle for Perfect, Evidence-Based Medicine by Ben Goldacre (4th Estate) The myth-busting doctor and science writer turns his attention to the most commonly prescribed class of drugs in the developed world.

Hands: What We Do With Them – and Why by Darian Leader (Hamish Hamilton) Doodling, fiddling, swiping, typing … they all have meanings: the psychoanalyst investigates a key aspect of human behaviour.

Fiction

Vinegar Girl by Anne Tyler (Hogarth Shakespeare) Tyler has said that her 2015 Man Booker-shortlisted novel, A Spool of Blue Thread, would be her last – but here she offers her contribution to Shakespeare’s anniversary year: a “funny, offbeat” version of The Taming of the Shrew.

The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry (Serpent’s Tail) Perry’s singular debut, After Me Comes the Flood, was longlisted for the Guardian first book award. Her second book takes the reader to Victorian London and Essex, animating a time of intense religious and scientific debate through the relationship between a widow and a vicar.

A Quiet Life by Natasha Walter (Borough) From the author of non-fiction titles The New Feminism and Living Dolls comes a novel inspired by the story of Melinda Marling, the American wife of Cambridge spy Donald Maclean. It’s described by Walter as “a story of cold war espionage, but above all the story of a woman’s survival”.

Barskins by Annie Proulx (4th Estate) A decade in the writing, this epic about taming the wilderness from the author of Brokeback Mountain spans three centuries.

The City of Mirrors by Justin Cronin (Orion) The blockbusting apocalyptic vampire trilogy that began with The Passage concludes.

The Red Virgin and the Vision of Utopia by Mary Talbot and Bryan Talbot (Jonathan Cape) A graphic biography of the French revolutionary feminist Louise Michel, from the duo behind the Costa-winning Dotter of Her Father’s Eyes.

Conrad and Eleanor by Jane Rogers (Atlantic) A marriage under pressure, from the author of Mr Wroe’s Virgins and The Testament of Jessie Lamb.

The Long Cosmos by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter (Cornerstone) A message from beyond the stars is revealed in the grand climax of the SF multiple-worlds series, completed before Pratchett’s death.

Events and anniversaries

8 Baileys women’s prize for fiction is presented.

16 Bicentenary of the likeliest date of Mary Shelley’s dream in 1816 that resulted in her writing Frankenstein, published two years later.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Mark Rylance stars in Steven Spielberg’s film of The BFG. Photograph: Action Press/Rex Shutterstock

Non-fiction

You Hide That You Hate Me and I Hide That I Know by Philip Gourevitch (Allen Lane) A return to Rwanda from the author of the groundbreaking book about the 1994 genocide We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families.

Pinpoint: How GPS Is Changing Our World by Greg Milner (Granta) Milner charts the progress of the Global Positioning System from its origins as bomb guidance technology.

Peacock and Vine by AS Byatt (Chatto & Windus) An illustrated essay on William Morris and the Spanish fashion designer Mariano Fortuny.

Fiction

The Muse by Jessie Burton (Picador) From the author of bestselling debut The Miniaturist comes a story set in 1930s Spain and 1960s London, featuring a mysterious painting that connects a Caribbean immigrant and a bohemian artist.

The Transmigration of Bodies by Yuri Herrara (And Other Stories) An exuberant Mexican noir about the effects of gang violence from the author of Signs Preceding the End of the World.

The Girls by Emma Cline (Chatto & Windus) Billed as one of the most high-profile debuts of the year – Scott Rudin has already acquired the film rights – The Girls focuses on Evie, a bored 14-year-old in the summer of 1969 who becomes drawn to a mysterious commune with similarities to the Manson Family.

Events and anniversaries

1 Centenary of the first day of the battle of the Somme, in which those fighting included Robert Graves, Ford Madox Ford and JRR Tolkien.

22 The BFG, based on Roald Dahl’s novel in his centenary year, is directed by Steven Spielberg with Mark Rylance as the giant and Penelope Wilton as the Queen.

28 150th anniversary of Beatrix Potter’s birth in 1866.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Autumn by Ali Smith will be published in August. Photograph: Christian Sinibaldi/The Guardian

Non-fiction

The Prime Minister of Paradise by John Jeremiah Sullivan (Jonathan Cape) The celebrated essay writer has spent two decades researching this tale of a utopian society in 18th-century America.

I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life by Ed Yong (Bodley Head) The debut from a much talked about Atlantic journalist and science blogger – whose TED talk on parasites has had 1.3m views – tackles the subject of how microbes influence the lives of every animal, from humans to squid to wasps.

Play All: A Binge-Watcher’s Notebook by Clive James (Yale) James made his name as a TV critic and he returns to the medium in a “joyful encounter” with box sets and on‑demand channels, arguing for the virtues of The Sopranos, House of Cards and other prestigious series: they hold the position in our culture that classic literature did in previous times.

The Book Smugglers of Timbuktu by Charlie English (William Collins) A former head of international news at the Guardian tells of the librarians who risked their lives in an operation to smuggle ancient manuscripts out of Timbuktu as it became encircled by violent Islamists. He interweaves this narrative with stories of the Victorian exploration of the city in the southern Sahara, long synonymous in the west with a far-flung, inaccessible place.

Far and Away by Andrew Solomon (Chatto & Windus) Essays from the prizewinning author of Far from the Tree and The Noonday Demon that detail his journalistic exploits in the Soviet Union, Afghanistan, Myanmar, Greenland and elsewhere.

Fiction

Autumn by Ali Smith (Hamish Hamilton) Smith is on a roll at the moment – a new novel follows last year’s Baileys winner How to Be Both and the short story collection Public Library.

Augustown by Kei Miller (Weidenfeld & Nicolson) The new novel from the winner of the 2014 Forward poetry prize, set in Jamaica’s poverty stricken underbelly, links one boy’s story to the birth of the Rastafari movement.

Dirt Road by James Kelman (Canongate) Thanks to a publishing move, Kelman describes his new book as “the first original publication I have had in Scotland in 30 years”; but although his story begins on a Scottish island, it also journeys to the American South. A film version will appear at the same time.

A Horse Walks into a Bar by David Grossman (Jonathan Cape) A veteran standup falls apart in front of an audience in a comedy club in a small Israeli town.

Beast by Paul Kingsnorth (Faber) Following his Booker-longlisted, crowdfunded fiction debut The Wake, in which resistance to the 1066 Norman invasion is reimagined in a “shadow tongue” version of Old English, Kingsnorth charts the solitary quest of a man alone on a Midlands moor.

Events and anniversaries

24 Fifty years since the first performance in Edinburgh of the then unknown Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Renée Zellweger on the set of Bridget Jones’ Baby, released in September. Photograph: Beretta/Sims/Rex/Shutterstock

Non-fiction

Beryl Bainbridge by Brendan King (Bloomsbury) The first biography of the much-loved and prolific Liverpudlian novelist, author of An Awfully Big Adventure and Master Georgie, among many other books, who died in 2010.

Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari (Harvill Secker) Where is mankind heading in the age of biotechnology and information technology? The follow-up to the bestselling history of humanity, Sapiens.

The Pigeon Tunnel: Stories from My Life by John le Carré (Viking) This memoir and first non-fiction work from Le Carré promises to explore the world of his “secret sharers”, the men and women who inspired some of his most enthralling novels. Gaps in his story are still there to be filled, despite the existence of his autobiographical novel A Perfect Spy and Adam Sisman’s recent biography.

Bolshoi Confidential: Secrets of the Russian Ballet by Simon Morrison (4th Estate) The story of the Bolshoi, from the tsars to Putin – one of glamour, beauty, prestige and “the cruelty of life in the spotlight”.

Islam by Tariq Ramadan (Pelican) An introduction to the religion from the controversial Swiss philosopher and writer.

Who Rules the World? by Noam Chomsky (Hamish Hamilton) A major new book from the radical intellectual superstar who has claimed that the US is the greatest threat to world peace.

Fiction

The Lesser Bohemians by Eimear McBride (Faber) The much-anticipated follow-up to McBride’s extraordinary debut, A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing, is set among the bedsits of 90s north London and features a young woman who – like the author – has come from Ireland to study acting.

Nicotine by Nell Zink (4th Estate) The new novel from America’s latest literary sensation, longlisted for the Guardian first book award with Mislaid & The Wallcreeper, features smokers’ rights activists, real estate troubles and a very strange love triangle.

Orphans of the Carnival by Carol Birch (Canongate) The follow-up to Jamrach’s Menagerie is another historical epic, based on the real-life character of an orphan with a dazzling singing voice.

Here I Am by Jonathan Safran Foer (Hamish Hamilton) Safran Foer’s first novel in 11 years is the story of one Jewish family falling apart, set against the backdrop of war in Israel.

The Wonder by Emma Donoghue (Picador) In what she describes as “my return to my home turf of Ireland”, Donoghue’s 1850s-set novel revolves around Anna, a girl who has apparently stopped eating, and the nurse charged with deciding whether or not she is a fraud.

Events and anniversaries

2 350th anniversary of the start of the Great Fire of London, as described in Pepys’s diary.

13 Centenary of Roald Dahl’s birth in Cardiff.

16 Bridget Jones’s Baby reunites Renée Zellweger and Colin Firth, but the third film is apparently not based on Helen Fielding’s third novel, Mad About the Boy. Next month is the 20th anniversary of the publication of the original Bridget Jones’s Diary.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Rory Stewart’s account of his hike on the Scottish border is due out in October. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian

Non-fiction

The Marches by Rory Stewart (Jonathan Cape) The Tory MP, adventurer and author of The Places In Between, an admired account of his solo walk across Afghanistan, embarks on another hike, this time “a borderland journey between England and Scotland”.

Love of Country by Madeleine Bunting (Granta) Travelling further north, Bunting has written a survey of the Hebrides, on Europe’s boundary, and makes the argument that the islands’ history of migration and exile has been central to British identity.

Angela Carter: The Authorised Biography by Edmund Gordon (Chatto & Windus) The novelist, short-story writer and journalist died aged 51 in 1992, but remains as celebrated as ever.

Europe Isn’t Working by Larry Elliott and Dan Atkinson (Yale) Another study of why the euro has failed, and the implications of its problems, as the in/out referendum approaches.

Total Intoxication by Norman Ohler (Allen Lane) Published to a fanfare in Germany as Der totale Rausch, Ohler’s book examines how drugs were at the heart of the Nazi project – influencing everything from the endurance levels of troops to chaotic decision-making by Hitler, Goering and other leaders.

Bookworm by Lucy Mangan (Square Peg) The Guardian columnist has composed an enthusiastic love letter to childhood reading, and the classic books that have shaped many young lives, as well as providing a resource and guide on how to build a children’s library.

Fiction

Blood Riders by Gary Oldman and Douglas Urbanski (Sphere) Nearly a quarter of a century after he played Dracula, Oldman teams up with producer Urbanski on the first of a series of vampire novels set in the wild west, in which the hero Magnus is in flight from a curse.

Poetry

Float by Anne Carson (Jonathan Cape) The physical presentation of Carson’s work can be almost as imaginative as her poetry. Her new collection comes in a box of 12 booklets to be read in any order to conjure “a mix of voices and times in exploring what makes people, memories, and stories so maddeningly attractive”.

Events and anniversaries

The 50th anniversary of Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea, a postcolonial classic that transports Jane Eyre to a Caribbean island.

7 The Girl on the Train, based on Paula Hawkins’s bestselling psychological thriller and starring Emily Blunt, is released in the same month as films of Dan Brown’s Inferno and Lee Child’s Never Go Back.

11 Man Booker prize presented.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The artist Marina Abramovic’s memoir is due out in November. Photograph: Remi Chauvin/Mona

Non-fiction

A Day in the Death of America by Gary Younge (Guardian Faber) A powerful insight into American gun crime: the Guardian journalist picked a day at random and spent 18 months exploring the lives and deaths of all the youngsters who were shot dead during those 24 hours.

A memoir from Marina Abramović (Fig Tree), one of the world’s most successful performance artists.

The Worlds of Joseph Conrad by Maya Jasanoff (William Collins) The well-respected Harvard historian has researched a new history of the world at the beginning of the 20th century as viewed through the lens of Conrad’s life and fiction.

Venice: An Interior by Javier Marías (Hamish Hamilton) The celebrated Spanish novelist takes a trip to the floating city.

Fiction

The Power by Naomi Alderman (Viking) A gender-swap satire from the author of The Liars’ Gospel, which imagines a society in which girls are physically stronger than boys.

The Dark Flood Rises by Margaret Drabble (Canongate) Set in a care home, Drabble’s dark comedy centres around a woman who’s been obsessed since childhood with the perfect death – and at the age of 60, after an unremarkable life, is even more determined to achieve it.

Events and anniversaries

11 Ang Lee’s film of Ben Fountain’s award-winning Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, starring Joe Alwyn.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A statue of James Joyce in Dublin. It is 100 years since the publication of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Photograph: Alamy

Events and anniversaries

14 Centenary of the birth of Shirley Jackson, the US horror/fantasy writer much admired by Neil Gaiman and Stephen King.

17 Centenary of the birth of Penelope Fitzgerald.

29 Centenary of the publication of James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man in book form in New York, at the instigation of Ezra Pound.