After a tame 2019 on the fiction front, I have high hopes for 2020. Just looking at the list of upcoming publications fills me with joy! Here are a few of the highlights.

We loved Jenny Offill’s Dept of Speculation from 2014, her new book Weather is set in Trump’s America (13th February). Can’t wait.

The Mirror and the Light is the last instalment in Hilary Mantel’s double Booker Prize winning trilogy about Thomas Cromwell. She won for Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, will she win again? (5th March)

Rebecca Solnit’s Recollections of My Non-Existence is a memoir by the sharp witted intellectual and critic who invented the term ‘Mansplaining’ (5th March).

Julia Samuel’s This Too Shall Pass follows on from her amazing Grief Works which dealt with bereavement. This book is about surviving change and crisis and, I suspect, is as wise and comforting as her first (5th March).

Kate Elizabeth Russell’s praised debut novel My Dark Vanessa puts an original spin on the #MeToo debate (31st March).

Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet, the story of the short life of Shakespeare’s son (I didn’t even know he had one) comes with a lot of pre-publication praise. Not always a good sign but somehow feel optimistic on this one (31st March).

Elena Ferrante probably needs no introduction. The Lying Life of Adults is also set in Naples like her Neapolitan series but takes place in the 1990s in a well-to-do family. Hardcore fans of Ferrante will not want to miss this one (9th June).