The Legend Of Sigurd And Gudrun
JRR Tolkien
What’s it all about? The 12th Tolkien work to be published after his death is a homage to the fantasy author’s greatest love: Norse mythology (er… yay?). The book has seen the light of day thanks to the painstaking editing and ‘assistance’ of his son Christopher, and tells the tale, in two separate poems, of dragons, swordplay and heroic princes.
Time Out reckons: Not the easiest of reads. Even the most dedicated fan might baulk at the size and subject. Certainly, a love of Middle Earth will only take you so far and no matter how you look at it, this is still a 500-page poem, which, at times, seems rather like flogging a dead Norse. But stick with it and you might find reward.
Try if you like: Robert Jordan, George RR Martin, Tad Williams
Inherent Vice
Thomas Pynchon
What’s it all about? Pynchon returns to the drop-in, drop-out world of ’60s LA in this part-noir, part-psychedelic romp following a private eye who learns of a plot to kidnap a billionaire.
Time Out reckons: The granddaddy of weird, scathing, labyrinthine psychedelic satire is back. At a mere 400 pages, this is practically a novella for Pynchon (a relief after the gruelling Against The Day). You just can’t pigeon-hole him – he’d find a twisty way around it – although Inherent Vice does recall the trippy paranoia of The Crying of Lot 49, even if, plot-wise, it sounds more like The Big Lebowski.
Try if you like: Don Delillo, David Foster Wallace, David Mitchell
Pygmy
Chuck Palahniuk
What’s it all about? A teenage exchange student is brought to America to sample family life in the good ol’ US of A. The fact that he does not want to be indoctrinated into American life becomes abundantly clear when he ditches the stars and stripes and concentrates on using a science project to commit terrorist acts.
Time Out reckons: If, like us, you prefer a novel with an edgier vibe then look no further. The man who brought us Fight Club, Rant and Snuff is back with one of his raciest books in a while. Dip your toe gently into the water; just don’t be surprised if somebody tries to bite it off. Yes, it is a comedy, but only if you like your humour as dark as the American underbelly can go.
Try if you like: Irvine Welsh, Bret Easton Ellis, Kurt Vonnegut
Six Suspects
Vikas Swarup
What’s it all about? An elaborate murder mystery that puts India’s caste system under the spotlight. The six suspects, a corrupt bureaucrat, an American tourist, an elderly tribesman, a Bollywood sex symbol, an ambitious policeman and a street thief all have intricately overlaying tales. But ‘whodunit’?
Time Out reckons: Vikas ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ Swarup is hot property right now. The smash success of the movie adaptation of his debut novel Q&A thrust him into the limelight. Movie rights to Six Suspects have already been snapped up but the proof of his talents will be found, or not, in this novel. We don’t think he will need a lifeline.
Try if you like: Aravind Adiga, Kunal Basu, Arundhati Roy
My Father’s Tears
John Updike
What’s it all about? This collection of short stories is the first new work to be released since Updike’s death in January. Each tale in the anthology is a retrospective on childhood and the often painful process of growing up, moving on and looking back at what has been left behind.
Time Out reckons: We expected this to be the first in a Tolkein-esque slew of works cobbled together in Updike’s name and drip fed to the public. We were wrong. One of the all-time greats, this collection of short stories shows off his lyrical talents at their very best.
Try if you like: Philip Roth, Vladimir Nabokov, Joseph Heller
Mystery Man
Colin Batemen
What’s it all about? An enterprising bookshop owner turns super-sleuth when the detective agency next door goes out of business. His aim is to impress a pretty jeweller and perhaps sell a few books in the process, but when he becomes embroiled in a farcical plot that includes modern dance, Nazis and serial killers he gets more than he bargained for.
Time Out reckons: Since his debut novel, Divorcing Jack, was released in the mid-’90s Bateman has been a mildly prolific crime writer. His work has a consistent level of quality and he fits into the mould of farce thriller incredibly well. His sense of humour is as black as a Guinness draught.
Try if you like: Carl Hiassen, Christopher Brookmyre, Christopher Moore
The Lost Symbol
Dan Brown
What’s it all about? Robert Langdon is back in the follow-up to the Da Vinci Code. Once again he will be using the power of the mind to crack codes and uncover long-lost secrets.
Time Out reckons: As the release of one Dan Brown film-adaptation comes to an end, out comes a potential new one. Regardless, this will sell by the lorry load. Currently, publishers are being so secretive that Professor Langdon himself could not wheedle a decent blurb out of them (even the jacket cover is a mystery), but expect the usual blend of history and puzzle solving. A September release is planned – we doubt it will be low-key.
Try if you like: Will Adams, JL Carrell, Sam Bourne
Twenties Girl
Sophie Kinsella
What’s it all about? A thoroughly modern woman is visited by a very dated ghost. Alas neither can agree on issues of fashion, love, dancing or relationships, but if either one wants to get rid of the other, they have to work together.
Time Out reckons: Sophie Kinsella is the British queen of chick-lit at the moment. The woman can do no wrong with her audience (almost exclusively women of a certain age), hanging on her every word like designer handbags. The novels are sparky and page-turning stuff but will offer up about as much nourishment as the obvious film remakes.
Try if you like: Candace Bushnell, Helen Fielding, Lauren Weisberger
Strangers
Anita Brookner
What’s it all about? For a lonely man, every encounter with another person is a grasp at belonging, but when two women suddenly enter his life he must decide which direction the crossroads should take him.
Time Out reckons: If you’re too mature for the likes of Sophie Kinsella, too romantic for the likes of Dan Brown, and just not enough of a geek for Tolkein, then this may be the book for you. Less a quick literary fix than an emotional journey, this is the first novel from the former Booker Prize-winner in almost five years. Much anticipated.
Try if you like: Henry James, Jane Austen, Penelope Lively
The Piano Teacher
Janice YK Lee
What’s it all about? An Englishman falls in love with an Asian woman in wartime Hong Kong. Before their love affair can blossom he is sent to an internment camp and separated from his one desire. Only when he meets an attractive piano teacher is he able to confront the long-buried horrors of his past.
Time Out reckons: Released at the turn of the year, there remains a big buzz about this debut novel from Hong Kong-born author YK Lee. Something of a slow burner, it is still a top seller, and if you’ve not discovered it already, it’s about time you did.
Try if you like: JG Ballard, Maeve Binchy, Kazuo Ishiguro
The Winner Stands Alone
Paulo Coelho
What’s it all about? Igor is a very successful Russian entrepreneur. His wealth affords him anything he wants, apart from his ex-wife. A grotesque cast of characters unravel the morality tale in the ‘beautiful’ world of actors, models and fashionistas at the Cannes Film Festival.
Time Out reckons: The UAE book-reading public seems to love Paulo Coelho almost as much as he loves coming here to sign autographs. He has become quite the celebrity; fitting, then, that his latest meditation is on the consequences of our current obsession with fame at all costs.
Try if you like: Yann Martel, Sue Monk Kidd, Richard Bach
Brooklyn
Colm Toibin
What’s it all about? A quiet young Irish woman is swept away to the bright lights and big city of Brooklyn, New York. Against her true will she begins to settle as an immigrant in the metropolis, but when she is split between a new love and her old life she is forced to make difficult decisions.
Time Out reckons: No one writes about loss like Toibin. His greatest strength is his restraint: his is a voice so unobtrusive that sometimes it feels as if there is no writing going on at all.
Try if you like: Colson Whitehead, Henry James, Frank McCourt
Tunnelling To The Centre Of The Earth
Kevin Wilson
What’s it all about? This is a collection of short stories from a debut author. The fact that so many people are talking about Wilson shows that there is something about him. The subjects of the stories range from high school video game addicts to grandmother rental services. Always original, often hilarious, sometimes haunting.
Time Out reckons: For years, the rumour has been that short story collections, which rarely sell well, are on their last legs. Luckily Wilson didn’t get wind of this. If he had he might never have penned this gorgeous collection. Highly recommended.
Try if you like: Toby Litt, Haruki Murakami, Jay McInerney
The Year Of The Flood
Margaret Atwood
What’s it all about? Atwood’s latest is a dystopian tale of the survivors of an apocalyptic natural disaster as a young trapeze artist and a religious scientist barricaded inside a luxurious spa slowly venture outside and look for other signs of life.
Time Out reckons: Literary zombie novels don’t come along very often. The set-up recalls earlier end-of-the-world effort Oryx and Crake, but Atwood is always at her best when her imagination is given free rein. You’ll have to hang on until early September to get your hands on it – we can’t wait.
Try if you like: Annie Proulx, Joyce Carol Oates, Fay Weldon
60 Years Later: Coming Through The Rye
John David California
What’s it all about? Holden Caulfield, he of JD Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye fame, is now an old man and as angst-ridden as ever, but what has happened in the intervening years?
Time Out reckons: It takes a lot to make a 90-year-old reclusive genius emerge from his New Hampshire hideaway. Needless to say, JD California (the pen name of Swedish publisher Frederik Colting, whose previous works include The Erotic A-Z and The Macho Man’s (Bad) Joke Book) is now knee-deep in litigation. It didn’t take a lot to see through the writer’s pseudonym: a former gravedigger and triathlete, who came across a copy of Catcher in an abandoned cabin in rural Cambodia. Colting’s defence is that this is a parody not a sequel – good luck with that, Frederik. And yet, we’re intrigued…
Try if you like: JD Salinger (or hate him – either way, he won’t thank you)
Life after death
JRR Tolkien is surely the Tupac Shakur of the literary world: The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun is the 12th ‘new’ release since his death 32 years ago, but he is not the only one. An author’s career is rarely stopped by mortality. The results, however, are not always flattering, or indeed wanted by the author.
Vladimir Nabokov’s The Original of Laura is due to be released this November but, like a number of famous authors (Franz Kafka, Emily Dickinson) he ordered its manuscript to be destroyed in his will. Meanwhile David Foster Wallace’s The Pale King has a tentative release for next year, while Jack Kerouac’s ‘long lost first novel’ The Sea is My Brother (no release date) is set to be published by Harper. But will they prove masterpieces or imperfect, unfinished cash-ins?
Recent years have seen some succ-esses. The prolific John Updike’s short story collection My Father’s Tears is a rare triumph, although one hopes the undoubted reams of half-finished Updike works don’t receive similar treatment. Likewise, Kurt Vonnegurt’s Armageddon in Retrospect, published a year after his death in 2008, was a similar success.
Surely the greatest example is that of John Kennedy O’Toole. The struggling author committed suicide 11 years before his most famous work, A Confederacy of Dunces, was finally published after his mother thrust the manuscript in front of an unsuspecting creative writing professor.
Meet the author
Janice YK Lee
The development of The Piano Teacher wasn’t easy, admits mother of four, YK Lee. Born in Hong Kong to Korean parents, she completed a degree in the US at Harvard University before returning to her homeland, with a husband and two kids in tow. A former magazine journalist, she says of writing a novel, ‘Since the fifth grade, I could imagine nothing better.’ But admits that, ‘in the beginning I had zero plot. I had these two characters, and then I put them together and thought: What happens now?’
The story wasn’t always planned with precision, she says. ‘It didn’t come from me doing an outline. It was quite myst- erious, even to me at the beginning. I thought: These people are talking to each other and this is what they’re saying. And then I would hear things in my daily life and I would think: Oh – that’s something that I think Will would say to Trudy. That’s how it started.’
A self-professed slow writer, she says, ‘It took a long, long, long time. When you’re writing a novel – and remember I’m a mother – sometimes it seems utterly foolish. But I really wanted to write about these people… I wanted something more real and honest, because I think a lot of life is like that.’ Interview by Mark Tjhung
Fan fiction
The literary sequel (or parody, if your name happens to be Colting) is not unknown. While fan fiction litters the internet, the object of its affection is rarely literary, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and Twilight aside. Were they to be published, they would undoubtedly fall foul of the particularly litigious Mrs Rowling. But, for a variety of reasons (mostly monetary), authors have found a way.
As early as the ’50s, Arthur Conan Doyle’s son, together with Doyle biographer John Dickson Carr, wrote 12 short stories entitled The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes. Since then, a number of Holmesian tales have materialised, including a short story by British comic and writer Stephen Fry.
Admittedly, some ‘sequels’ are brilliant, such as Seth Graeme-Smith’s recently released Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, a gleefully bloodthirsty and hilarious reworking of Austen in which the Bennett sisters are actually ninja-trained zombie killers. It is certainly more interesting than Emma Tennant’s ham-fisted, Austen-esque cash-ins Pemberley and An Unequal Marriage, or Alexandra Ripley’s wretched 1991 sequel to Gone with the Wind (sanctioned by the Margaret Mitchell estate), Scarlet.
From a literary perspective, the ‘reimagining’ is a common literary theme, from James Joyce’s Ulysses to, more recently, Margaret Atwood’s Penelopiad, a feminist retelling of Homer’s epic poem, and Valerie Martin’s Mary Reilly, which re- imagines Jekyll and Hyde from a maid’s perspective. These are always public domain (copyright free) titles, though – a lesson Mr Colting might have now learned?
Visit www.fanfiction.net to see some of the best (and worst) of this geeky genre
