Guest Post from Ella Davidson

Most Anticipated Books of 2012

Guest Post: This post was written by couponing website Coupons resident writer, Ella Davidson. Coupons is a site dedicated to sharing couponing information and making a positive charitable impact on the world.

The coming year looks to be an incredible time for all sorts of readers. Take a look at some of these upcoming releases, plan your reading schedule accordingly, and get a leg up on the popular literary world!

• The Dream of the Celt (English translation) by Mario Vargas Llosa: Available in Spanish since November of 2010, this historical novel chronicles the life of Irish humanitarian and patriot Sir Roger Casement. The English translation, scheduled to appear this year, promises to be an important and popular title: it is already a bestseller in Spain, and the author was the 2010 Nobel laureate in literature. The book is constructed with journalistic as well as traditionally narrative elements and utilizes a unique structure of alternating chapters focusing on different points in the subject’s life. It has been compared to Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad because of its setting and themes; Conrad himself even makes an appearance in the novel.
• Elizabeth the Queen by Sally Bedell Smith: This revelatory biography of Queen Elizabeth II was published on January 10. It represents the culmination of extensive research by the author, utilizing interviews and heretofore-unrevealed documents to construct a detailed portrait that encompasses both the public and private lives of one of the most famous women in the world. American historian Smith has written on other high-profile political figures in the past, including Princess Diana, John and Jacqueline Kennedy, and Bill and Hillary Clinton, and she has been a contributing editor at Vanity Fair since 1996.
• The Flame Alphabet by Ben Marcus: Due for release by Knopf in January 2012, this novel tells the story of a world where the sound of children’s speech has become lethal to adults. It follows the experience of a couple as they grapple with the practical and moral problem of their own daughter’s toxicity, raising a slew of literary questions in the process. According to Tom McCarthy, “The Flame Alphabet drags the contemporary novel—kicking, screaming, and foaming at the mouth—back towards the track it should be following. Ben Marcus makes language as toxic as it is seductive— a virus that comes from much closer to home than we suspected” (http://benmarcus.com/books/the-flame-alphabet-2/). The author’s stories and essays have appeared in Harper’s, The New Yorker, The New York Times, and Time, and he is currently an associate professor in the School of Arts at Columbia.
• Home by Toni Morrison: This latest work by the legendary Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist tells the story of returning Korean War veteran Frank Money and his struggle to return to life in his racist home nation. It is due for release in May of 2012. Morrison has already provided a taste of the forthcoming novel for anticipatory fans by publicly reading excerpts; her last book, A Mercy, was published in 2008. Now 80, Morrison taught creative writing at Princeton until her retirement in 2006.
• The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter: The author of the popular Discworld fantasy series and the award-winning British science fiction writer collaborate on this new sci-fi series, due out in spring of 2012. The books will follow up on ideas first conceived by Pratchett in the 80s, based on quantum theory and a chain of parallel worlds. The Discworld series is known for its comedic tone, and this forthcoming series will certainly display some of Pratchett’s trademark sense of humor. But the involvement of Baxter—an established crafter of hard sci-fi worlds and author of Flood, Ark, and the Time’s Tapestry and Destiny’s Children series—will likely satisfy fans of more serious speculative fiction.
• The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson: A political thriller that follows the story of a professional kidnapper in North Korea, this title released on January 10 as well. Reviewers are already praising its wild pacing and its careful, masterful rendering of the hidden world of North Korea. Author Adam Johnson conducted extensive research in the process of writing this book; he is currently an associate professor in creative writing at Stanford University.

2012 is full of highly anticipated releases; sit back and enjoy flipping the pages!