The books we're excited for in 2024

A new year is upon us, and with it twelve months of new reading experiences, some of them long-awaited, some of them completely out of the blue. With an ear to the book-whispers and an eye on publishing catalogues, here's what the team is most excited about in 2024:

Noor

My Friends by Hisham Matar - Out already in January. Basically, after reading his The Return, a really heart-wrenching, thoughtful and caring non-fiction book about his father’s enforced disappearance, and Matar’s own return to Libya many years after, I will probably read most books by this writer. My Friends is about three friends who live in exile from Libya, variously in London and Edinburgh, and the ways that they build their lives around this far distant place they know as home. As times change, Libya changes, and they grow, these friends must learn how to love, how to live, and how to commit to a future of their choosing.

Namesake: Reflections on a Woman Warrior by N. S Nuseibeh (out February) - A beautiful, honest and enthralling collection of essays based around the author and her connection to her ancestor, Nusayba bint Ka’ab al Khazrajia, thought to be the only woman to have fought alongside the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). These essays are full of mouth watering descriptions of food, reflections on Palestine and what it means to be Palestinian, the experience of being a secular Palestinian Muslim woman in today’s western world, and to live apart from one’s homeland, and about carrying the burden of representation in addition to all of life’s other worries. I read an early draft - so excited to read the final version!

Court of Wanderers by Rin Chupeco - Out April! Okay look, I just need to know that our favourite Castlevania-inspired polyamorous vampires and vampire hunter stay together and have a very happy ending. If you haven’t read it yet, read the first book Silver Under Nightfall for a very fun, very fantasy-vampires-and-action-and-romance rollercoaster of a ride before this second book comes out.

Jess

All the books I'm going to mention, bar one, are by authors whose writing I've never read - my year is starting with a thirst for new voices. The exception to that rule is Ædnan by Linnea Axelsson (out in Jan), an epic novel in verse that traces several generations of a Sami family, their relationship to each other, experience of displacement and oppression under the Swedish state, and reclaiming of identity. I read this in the original Swedish a few years back and was intensely moved by the way it ties intimate images into vast historical chains. Saskia Vogel is a brilliant translator and writer, so I can't wait to check out what she's created with it, and to recommend it to English-speaking readers. You can read a blog she wrote about the translation process here.

As to the unknown voices, much-loved publishers are a good starting point. I'm always on the look-out for new Hajar Press titles and The Rupture Files by Nathan Alexander Moore (April) sounds like the best kind of earthquake: a collection of stories about Black queer characters navigating apocalypses. Similarly, Fitzcarraldo's essay prize usually results in really intriguing stuff and 2021's winner - The Observable Universe by Heather McCalden - is published in March. This interrogation of 'virality', in terms of the internet and HIV, based on the author's family history, sounds necessary and unique. Lastly, some hype based on another translator. Scribe is publishing The Extinction of Irena Rey by Jennifer Croft in March, a novel about translators isolated in a Polish forest after the author whose work they're translating goes missing. Promisingly trippy from the translator of Olga Tokarczuk and many more.

Hannah

I don't read poetry - I've enjoyed a lot of poetry when it's read aloud or performed but it's never been 'for me'. I think Poyums by Len Pennie (out February) might help to change that. I've been following Pennie's 'Scots word of the day series' for ages and already know I'm a fan. (We're also doing an event!)

'There There' has been sat on my shelf for a wee while and now I'm glad I've waited to read this celebrated novel on indigenous lives in contemporary America, as I can follow it up with the new release 'Wandering Stars' by Tommy Orange (out March).

'Who's Afraid of Gender?' by Judith Butler (out March) will be highly anticipated by many. I've never actually read any of Butler's books (shock, horror) but if there's anyone to delve into the philosophy of gender with I'd say they're a pretty well established guide!

Jim

The Book of Elsewhere by China Mieville and Keanu Reeves - This thrilling collusion of two (fairly different) pop culture icons is sure to create something brain-tickling and memorable.

Christina

Helen Oyeyemi's new book Parasol Against the Axe (out in February!) sounds like exactly what I love about her writing - expansive, lush, kaleidoscopically imaginative, and totally unique.

Sarah Chamberlain's The Slowest Burn (out in September) is a will-they-won't-they romance about a chaotic chef, and his cookbook ghostwriter who is picking up the pieces of her life after a recent trauma. I NEED TO READ THIS BOOK RIGHT NOW PLEASE

JJ

I'm looking forward to John Pring's The Department (out in August), an expose of how the DWP caused the deaths of 100s of disabled people due to its bureaucracy and callous policies. I think everyone has been touched by the Tories austerity cuts, but disabled people have been at the sharp end of this violence and it's time this evidence was gathered and exposed.

I am also excited for Titilayo Farukuoye's upcoming poetry collection with Stewed Rhubarb Press, there's no title yet but Titilayo is a force of a poet, a great representation for Scotland, Austria and Nigeria and has shown they are able to tie nature, politics and the search for self together in memorable moving words.

Mairi

I want to start by echoing Noor - there are few books that have captured me so heart and soul as Nuzha Nuseibeh’s Namesake, which is such a rich and captivating feminist intervention into the way we speak and write of Palestine in the UK especially. The collection of essays is literary (so many breadcrumbs to brilliant writers), it’s historical, it’s got a philosophical bent that reminded me so much of Amia Srinivasan and Cathy Park Hong. I loved it, read it!

Harry Josephine Giles is one of my favourite writers and I can’t *wait* for the release of Them! I’ve only had glimpses into this new collection at readings she has done in recent months, but if they are anything to go by poetry lovers and queer readers are in for a TREAT.

Leah Cowan blew me away with Border Nation a couple years ago and I’m really excited to read her next, Why Would Feminists Trust the Police? : A tangled history of resistance and complicity which is out in the summer! Her expansive, joined up thinking on issues such as borders, abolition, prison and state violence is due a proper tome.

Also on the non-fiction front from feminists I admire, the brilliant Paula Akpan's debut is finally out this September and When We Ruled looks like a brilliant new piece of history. Plus there’s a new book coming from Grace Blakeley in spring that I cant wait to get my hands on - Vulture Capitalism : Corporate Crimes, Backdoor Bailouts and the Death of Freedom could not be more timely!

Last but far from least the gorgeous Kate Young - of Little Library Cookbook fame - has written a novel! And it’s queer! And it is romance! And it’s bound to be as clever and vivacious and enchanting as she is - treat yourselves, read Experienced when it comes out in May!