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While the publishing industry is facing future challenges in the loss of protection against cheap imports and the Government has withdrawn its funding for a Book Council, what we will see on bookshop shelves in 2016 is the result of good pickings in 2015.
‘The Australian publishing scene is in robust good health. I’m amazed by the quality of books,’ said Australian Book Review editor Peter Rose.
Whether you are looking for the next work from an author you love or prepared to be dazzled by a newcomer, be prepared to carve out plenty of reading time in your 2016 diary.
Big names
Literature lovers can look forward to star attractions: Annie Proulx, Don DeLillo, Elizabeth Strout, Haruki Murakami, Jennifer Egan, Jonathan Safran Foer, Lionel Shriver and Yann Martel all have new books coming.
Hopes are also high for new titles from Cormac McCarthy and Hilary Mantel.
Mantel’s finale to her Thomas Cromwell trilogy is keeping fans on tenterhooks. There is the enticing possibility of a hat-trick if the third book follows its predecessors as a Booker winner. But even without awards The Mirror and the Light, which will chart the downfall of the Tudor power player, is a must-read for Rose. ‘I reviewed both Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies and I thought they were masterpieces’.
The excitement aroundMcCarthy’s The Passenger is the result of a long wait. The reclusive author has been in hiatus for ten years, but his new book was tipped for a 2016 release after its existence was announced at a public reading last year.‘I love him,’ says Margaret Brookes, owner of Mary Martin Bookshop Melbourne. ‘He can write in one sentence what other authors take a whole chapter to do.’
Other worlds
Fantasy fans are in the lurch with further delays announced by George RR Martin on the sixth Game of Thrones book, but one popular sci-fi series will definitely end this year.
‘I’m going crazy waiting for Justin Cronin’s The City of Mirrors,’ says Emerging Writers’ Festival director Michaela McGuire. ‘I smashed through the first two books in the trilogy, and they’ve been two of the most fun, engrossing reads I’ve encountered in a long time.’
Genre fans can also look ahead to new books from Brandon Sanderson, China Miéville and Lian Hearn.
Australian voices
As they brace against a repeal of parallel import laws that could spell the end of copyright protection for local authors, Australian publishers show continued faith in home-grown talent.
Readers can expect new fiction from Arnold Zable, Emily Maguire, Kirsten Tranter, Peter Corris and Toni Jordan, but it is the second books by two relative newcomers that are the most highly anticipated.
‘I’m eager to read Fiona McFarlane’s short story collection The High Places,’ says Books+Publishing editor-in-chief Andrea Hanke. ‘Her debut novel The Night Guest was amazing.’
The other rising star is bestselling Burial Rites author Hannah Kent.
‘I can’t reveal too much, but I’ve heard what it’s about and it sounds really fascinating,’ says Jo Case, program director of the Melbourne Writers Festival. ‘Irish setting, historical fiction, but quite different from Burial Rites.’
Kent is a favourite of independent booksellers, who voted for her Indie Award win in 2014.
‘She’s amazing. To be that young and have that much success has set the precedent for publishers taking chances on new authors,’ says Brookes.
Fresh talent
Australian publishers are punting on new writers.
Kate Mildenhall’s Skylarking was signed up by Black Inc. publisher Aviva Tuffield before it was even finished. ‘It was a gift of a story, and it had an urgency for me to get it out,’ says Mildenhall. Inspired by the true tale of a young woman’s accidental shooting of her best friend near a remote Australian lighthouse in 1887, this debut is Tuffield’s biggest pick since Emily Bitto’s Stella Prize winning The Strays.
Two soon-to-be published authors getting global attention are David Dyer and Jane Harper. Dyer sparked a bidding war for his Titantic novel The Midnight Watch, while movie rights for Harper’s rural crime The Dry were bought up by Reese Witherspoon’s production company.
Other new titles to watch are Josephine Rowe’s first novel A Loving, Faithful Animal, Michelle Michau-Crawford’s short story collection Leaving Elvis and Sarah Kanake’s Sing Fox to Me – all Australian set books from up-and-coming writers.
True stories
Provocateurs stand tall among Australian non-fiction titles in 2016.
Maxine Beneba Clarke uncovers the realities of growing up black in Australia with her memoir The Hate Race. ‘Her writing is thought-provoking and confronting in a good way,’ says Jo Case.
Helen Garner’s collection of essays Everywhere I Look will provide insights into her life and craft, including previously unpublished diary extracts. An upcoming biography of Garner by Bernadette Brennan will be a good companion. Peter Rose expects it to be ‘not just a straight biography but very much concentrating on the work itself’, illuminating one of this country’s most interesting and controversial writers.
Fight Like a Girl, a non-fiction debut on feminism by journalist Clementine Ford, will be another eye-opener. ‘I think it will be huge,’ says Case.
Key non-fiction titles also include the literary biographies of Randolph Stow and Alan Moorehead, while true crime buffs can look forward to A Murder without Motive by Martin McKenzie-Murray, chief correspondent of The Saturday Paper.
‘His writing is some of the best journalism going around,’ says Michaela McGuire, a journalist as well as director of the EWF. ‘I can’t wait to see what he does across a long work of non-fiction.’
Literary magazines
There has been a re-emergence of the magazine of late. Peter Rose, who has been at the helm of Australian Book Review since 2001, has witnessed the change firsthand. ‘Five years ago there was real apprehension about the future of magazines. Now with the new magazines on the market, the new forms they’re taking, the innovativeness, the energy… It’s just fantastic.’
The recent launch of international anthology Freeman’s has set the bar high, exemplifying the trend of high quality, carefully curated magazines. Closer to home, Meanjin and The Lifted Brow relaunched last year with gusto, while fiction fans can find short story magazine The Canary Press in newsagencies and bookshops around the country. Publishing new writers next to literary names, the Canary has its eye on enticing a wide range of readers. ‘People hand over money for the price of a magazine and we don’t want to bore them in some new and sophisticated way, we want to put on a show,’ says editor Robert Skinner.
Magazines are a good launch pad for new storytellers. The Lifted Brow is taking a leap with one of its own, expanding into book publishing this year with a debut novel from Briohny Doyle. Savvy readers should watch the magazine space, as Rose notes, ‘Australian journals are really showing that a vibrant magazine culture underpins our broader literary scene.’
