Ten Books to Look Forward to in 2010. . .

Blogging might be a bit light over the next two weeks as we head off the holidays (and lots and lots of reading!) but I thought I'd leave you (tease you) with just a taste of some of the books I'm most excited to be selling and talking about in 2010. I've read some of these already and others are in a pile of manuscripts at the foot of my sofa, but the literary year is already shaping up to be a great one.

Beatrice & Virgil by Yann Martel

A thoughtful and provocative novel examining ways of portraying the Holocaust in literature. I liked this better than Life of Pi.

Curiosity by Joan Thomas

Any book set in Lyme Regis already has my attention.

Doing Dangerously Well by Carole Enahoro

Part of our annual New Face of Fiction program, this is a debut satirical novel about disaster capitalism and how a national tragedy in Nigeria opens the door for greed and corruption. It's also a slightly dystopian look at what happens in a world where water becomes a precious and expensive commodity.

The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ by Philip Pullman

Pullman takes on the "myth" of Christ in a fictional account of his life. This is going to be a very interesting and no doubt controversial read.

The Patience Stone by Atiq Rahimi, trans. by Polly Mclean.

Winner of the 2008 Prix Goncourt, this is a powerful little novel about an Afghan woman who unleashes all her frustrations and resentments on her husband while he is lying in a coma. Unforgettable and a terrific book club choice.

The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir, trans. by Constance Borde and Sheila Malavony-Chevallier.

Finally an unabridged edition in English! The exisiting edition was translated by a zoologist in the 1950s. He cut out a huge chunk of de Beauvoir's writings including a section that examined the importance of seventy historical women. I think this is one of the most important books we'll be publishing in 2010; I can't wait to rediscover it.

Solar by Ian McEwan

Academic satire in the vein of David Lodge but much darker. Entertaining and very, very funny.

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell

One of my favourite authors - Both Cloud Atlas and Black Swan Green are easily in my top ten best reads of the decade. I'm itching to get started on this manuscript but want to wait until I have a good chunk of uninterrupted time.

The Unspoken Truth by Angelica Garnett

This is a lovely and painful collection of short stories by the niece of Virginia Woolf (still living in her nineties) about artists, artistic jealousy and the loneliness growing up among bohemians. For Bloomsbury fans definitely, but also for readers who enjoyed A.S. Byatt's The Children's Book.

Wolf Among Wolves by Hans Fallada, trans. by Philip Owens.

Melville House continues to bring back into print the work of this important German writer. After reading Every Man Dies Alone and The Drinker, I want to read every book by Fallada. This "new" one is set in Weimar Germany.

Happy Holidays to everyone - I hope you all give and receive the perfect book.