After another gruelling 12 months, we suggest replacing the idea of “new year, new you” with something more manageable in 2022. “New year, new book pile” sounds like it’ll do quite nicely. Here are the 15 novels and non-fiction titles we are most excited about in the coming six months, from the long overdue return of literary heavyweights to absorbing new views of natural history and life lessons from marathon runners.

Few books from the past decade command as devoted a following as doorstopper novel A Little Life, which became both a critical darling and a huge bestseller in 2015. Seven years later, the American novelist returns with To Paradise, a story that travels across three centuries and three visions of the American dream, including one set in 2093. Presuming that last part isn’t just a series of blank pages, there is much to be excited about.

Out in January

Irish fiction has been in rude health over recent years, and not just because of a certain Ms Sally Rooney. A favourite of influential literary magazine The Stinging Fly, Ms Wendy Erskine is a short-story writer approaching the peak of her powers, whose rhythmic prose, sharp ear for dialogue and gift for black humour mean Dance Move will be one of the unmissable short-story collections of 2022.

Out in February

Prepare yourself. We’re about to enter the era of the Trump novel. As fiction begins the task of picking over the strangest American presidency in history, Indian writer Mr Amitava Kumar takes an appropriately fact-bending approach in what’s being described as a “non-fictional novel” about a professor contemplating the psychological impact of fake news and a pandemic while on a prestigious artists’ retreat.

Out in January

After winning the Booker Prize in 2015 for A Brief History Of Seven Killings, his multi-layered fictionalisation of the attempted assassination of Mr Bob Marley, Jamaican writer Mr Marlon James surprised readers with a fantasy novel, 2019’s Black Leopard, Red Wolf, which created a universe by merging elements of African history and mythology. It was a bestseller, which means the second in the trilogy – Moon Witch, Spider King – will be warmly welcomed by fans of monsters, quests and first-rate writing.

Out in February

One of the most groundbreaking literary experiments of recent years was Scottish author Ms Ali Smith’s seasonal quartet of novels – Autumn, Winter, Spring and _Summer _– which were all written and published between 2015 and 2020, telling a state-of-the-nation story of Britain that covered #MeToo, Brexit and the pandemic almost in real time. Little is known yet about Companion Piece, Smith’s forthcoming accompaniment to those novels, except that it will celebrate companionship in all its forms. Expect something vital, surprising and truly original.

Out in April

The Scottish author’s devastating debut, Shuggie Bain, was the worthy recipient of the 2020 Booker Prize, so expectations are high for Young Mungo, which, like its predecessor, is set in working-class Glasgow and tells a lyrical tale of danger and forbidden love. It follows Mungo and James, a pair of star-crossed lovers from either side of the sectarian divide, whose passion for each other puts them in perilous danger with their families and local gangs.

Out in April

Vietnamese-American poet Mr Ocean Vuong won the TS Eliot Prize at a canter in 2017 with his delicate but powerful collection, Night Sky With Exit Wounds, which dealt with sex, identity and young manhood. Since then, he has written a widely celebrated novel, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, which won him new fans around the world. His latest poetry collection, Time Is A Mother, is an intimate reflection on grief.

Out in April

Most fiction writers can only dream of publishing a novel that captures the zeitgeist as perfectly as Pulitzer Prize-winner A Visit From The Goon Squad did in 2011. Absolute lunacy, then, that the same writer, American Ms Jennifer Egan, appears to have repeated the trick a full decade later. The Candy House picks up the thread of some of Goon Squad’s characters, but transports them to a near-distant future in which social media companies have allowed people to upload their memories to a collective open-access portal. What sounds like an episode of Black Mirror is really a rich exploration of what the human longing for connection might mean in the post-Facebook age. This novel is not to be missed.

Out in April

For fans of Sapiens and other books in the beguiling human history category comes Otherlands, described by American environmentalist Mr Bill McKibben as “as close to time travel as you’re likely to get”. Essentially, this is a piece of nature writing that covers millions of years, from the very start of evolution, while capturing the almost unthinkable ways geography has shifted and changed over time. Epic in scope and executed with charming enthusiasm, Otherlands looks set to be a big talking point for fans of non-fiction in 2022.

Out in February

This memoir from 1981 tells the true story of Mr Tété-Michel Kpomassie, a teenager in Togo who saw pictures of Inuit people in a book and set off for Greenland with no money in his pocket. When he eventually arrives, Kpomassie immerses himself in the culture of the world’s largest island, ice-fishing, sledge-riding and drinking copious amounts of hard spirits. A pioneering and unforgettable piece of travel writing, it more than merits this new Modern Classics edition.

Out in February

Nostalgia for the 1990s is at all-time high, perhaps because the world hasn’t seemed a particularly prosperous or light-hearted place since that decade. Here, New York Times-bestselling author Mr Chuck Klosterman offers a fresh perspective on the slacker generation that weighs big pop culture moments against political corruption, technological revolution and much more besides that is still shaping the world today.

Out in February

One of the defining voices of the Harlem Renaissance, a blossoming of black intellectuals and artists in New York in the 1920s and 1930s, Ms Zora Neale Hurston was a novelist, anthropologist and satirist. Spanning 35 years of her work, this essay collection captures all the perceptiveness and intensity that made Ms Toni Morrison call her “one of the greatest writers of all time”.

Out in January

Anyone with a graphic design degree will tell you there’s nowhere in London quite like The Barbican, a complex of about 2,000 flats and houses with incredible brutalist architecture that has earned it Grade II status and a place in many a trendy tourist’s heart. Our pick of the coffee-table books out early next year is this beautiful mix of illustration and photography, which captures the story of the place. Particularly handy if you can’t afford to live there.

Out in February

The present and future of masculinity have been hotly debated for some years now, which perhaps explains why this history of the topic became a bestseller in France before finding a publisher in the UK. Social historian Mr Ivan Jablonka travels from Mesopotamia to Confucianism to the revolutions of the 18th century to offer a fresh slant on gender and to define what it means to be a good man, father and friend today.

Out in February

Since Prince Harry’s defection from The Firm, stories lifting the lid on the royal family have been devoured more feverishly than even during the 1990s. Expect Ms Tina Brown, the former editor of Tatler magazine and Vanity Fair who wrote a definitive biography of Princess Diana, to add a defining and potentially explosive addition to that canon with The Palace Papers, which attempts to tell the inside story of the Windsors from 1997 onwards.

Out in April