The Waterstones 11 - Their Pick of the Best Debut Novels of 2012

[poppyshake]

Just been to Waterstones and seen their new list of debut novels for 2012. Their 2011 list included The Tigers Wife, Pigeon English, 22 Brittania Road & When God was a Rabbit.

 

If you follow this link here .. you can actually read or download a sample chapter from each of the books. I've had a look at some of them and they went straight on the wishlist

 

The 11 are:

 

The Art of Fielding - Chad Harbach: In The Art of Fielding, we see young men who know that their four years on the baseball diamond at Westish College are all that remain of their sporting careers. Only their preternaturally gifted fielder, Henry Skrimshander, seems to have the chance to keep his dream -- and theirs, vicariously -- alive, until a routine throw goes disastrously off course, and the fates of five people are upended. After his throw threatens to ruin his roommate Owen's future, Henry's fight against self-doubt threatens to ruin his; while Mike Schwartz, the team captain and Henry's best friend, realizes he has guided Henry's career at the expense of his own. Keeping a keen eye on them all, college president Guert Affenlight, a longtime bachelor, falls unexpectedly and dangerously in love, much to the surprise of his daughter, Pella, who has returned to Westish after escaping an ill-fated marriage, determined to start a new life. Written with boundless intelligence and filled with the tenderness of youth, The Art of Fielding is an expansive, warm-hearted novel about ambition and its limits, about family and friendship and love, and about commitment -- to oneself and to others.

 

Shelter - Frances Greenslade: Maggie's father is 'Mr Safety'. He knows the woods of Duchess Creek in Northern Canada like the back of his hand, and he has taught his daughter how to survive, how to find and make a shelter in all weathers, in any conditions. Along with her sister, Jenny, and their mother Irene, they are safe from the outside world. But when an accident at work goes fatally wrong, Irene struggles to look after her daughters alone. Wild, imaginative and unpredictable, she billets the two girls with a family, promising to return once the summer is over and she has earned more money. But the summer turns to winter, which rolls round again and again. When the letters stop, the two sisters realise that they can rely on no one but themselves - but what kind of shelter can two young girls make for themselves?

 

Care of Wooden Floor - Will Wiles: A bold and brilliant debut from a darkly funny new voice. Oskar is a minimalist composer best known for a piece called Variations on Tram Timetables. He is married to a Californian art dealer named Laura and he lives with two cats, named after Russian composers, in an Eastern European city. But this book isn't really about Oskar. Oskar is in Los Angeles, having his marriage dismantled by lawyers. He has entrusted an old university friend with the task of looking after his cats, and taking care of his perfect, beautiful apartment. Despite the fact that Oskar has left dozens of surreally detailed notes covering every aspect of looking after the flat, things do not go well. Care of Wooden Floors is about how a tiny oversight can trip off a disastrous and farcical (fatal, even) chain of consequences. It's about a friendship between two men who don't know each other very well. It's about alienation and being alone in a foreign city. It's about the quest for perfection and the struggle against entropy. And it is, a little, about how to take care of wooden floors.

 

The Snow Child - Eowyn Ivey: A bewitching tale of heartbreak and hope set in 1920s Alaska. Jack and Mabel have staked everything on making a fresh start for themselves in a homestead 'at the world's edge' in the raw Alaskan wilderness. But as the days grow shorter, Jack is losing his battle to clear the land, and Mabel can no longer contain her grief for the baby she lost many years before. The evening the first snow falls, their mood unaccountably changes. In a moment of tenderness, the pair are surprised to find themselves building a snowman - or rather a snow girl - together. The next morning, all trace of her has disappeared, and Jack can't quite shake the notion that he glimpsed a small figure - a child? - running through the spruce trees in the dawn light. And how to explain the little but very human tracks Mabel finds at the edge of their property? Written with the clarity and vividness of the Russian fairytale from which it takes its inspiration, The Snow Child is an instant classic - the story of a couple who take a child into their hearts, all the while knowing they can never truly call her their own.

 

Absolution - Patrick Flanery: "In her garden, ensconced in the lush vegetation of the Western Cape, Clare Wald, world-renowned author, mother, critic, takes up her pen and confronts her life. Sam Leroux has returned to South Africa to embark upon a project that will establish his reputation - he is to write Clare's biography. But how honest is she prepared to be? Was she complicit in crimes lurking in South Africa's past; is she an accomplice or a victim? Are her crimes against her family real or imagined? As Sam and Clare turn over the events of her life, she begins to seek reconciliation, absolution. But in the stories she weaves and the truth just below the surface of her shimmering prose, lie Sam's own ghosts. Absolution shines light on contemporary South Africa and the long dark shadow of Apartheid, the elusive nature of truth and self-perception and the mysterious alchemy of the creative process. It is a debut of extraordinary strength and power."

 

The Land of Decoration - Grace McCleen: Judith and her father don't have much - their house is full of dusty relics, reminders of the mother she's never known. But Judith sees the world with the clear Eyes of Faith, and where others might see rubbish, Judith sees possibility. Bullied at school, she finds solace in making a model of the Promised Land - little people made from pipe cleaners, a sliver of moon, luminous stars and a mirror sea - a world of wonder that Judith calls The Land of Decoration. Perhaps, she thinks, if she makes it snow indoors (using shaving foam and cotton wool and cellophane) there will be no school on Monday...Sure enough, when Judith opens her curtains the next day, the world beyond her window has turned white. She has performed her first miracle. And that's when her troubles begin. With its intensely taut storytelling and gorgeous prose, "The Land of Decoration" is a heartbreaking story of good and evil, belief and doubt. Its author, Grace McCleen, is a blazing new talent in contemporary literature.

 

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry - Rachel Joyce: When Harold Fry nips out one morning to post a letter, leaving his wife hoovering upstairs, he has no idea that he is about to walk from one end of the country to the other. He has no hiking boots or map, let alone a compass, waterproof or mobile phone. All he knows is that he must keep walking to save someone else's life.

 

The Lifeboat - Charlotte Rogan: I was to stand trial for my life. I was twenty-two years old. I had been married for ten weeks and a widow for six. In the summer of 1914, the Empress Alexandra, a magnificent ocean liner, suffers a mysterious explosion on its voyage from London to New York City. On board are Henry Winter, a rich banker, and his young new wife, Grace. Somehow, Henry manages to secure a place in a lifeboat for Grace. But the survivors quickly realize it is over capacity and could sink at any moment. For any to live, some must die. As the castaways battle the elements, and each other, Grace watches and waits. She is a woman who has learned the value of patience - her journey to a life of glittering privilege has been far from straightforward. Now, she knows, it is in jeopardy, and her very survival is at stake. Over the course of three perilous weeks, the passengers on the lifeboat plot, scheme, gossip and console one another while sitting inches apart. Their deepest beliefs about goodness, humanity and God are tested to the limit as they begin to discover what they will do in order to survive. The Lifeboat is a page-turning story of moral dilemmas, and also the moving and haunting story of Grace, a woman as unforgettable and complicated as the story she recounts.

 

Signs of Life - Anna Raverat: It started quietly and without her looking for it, but the aftershock was profound. Ten years ago, Rachel had an affair. It spiralled out of control and left her and her life in pieces. Now, writing at her window, she tries to put those pieces back together. She has her memories, recollections of dreams, and her old yellow notebook. More than anything, she wants to be honest. She knows that her memory is patchy and her notebook incomplete. But there is something else. Something terrible happened to her lover. Her account is hypnotic, delicate, disquieting and bold. But is she telling us the truth?

 

The Age of Miracles - Karen Thompson Walker: 'It is never what you worry over that comes to pass in the end. The real catastrophies are always different - unimagined, unprepared for, unknown...' What if our 24-hour day grew longer, first in minutes, then in hours, until day becomes night and night becomes day? What effect would this slowing have on the world? On the birds in the sky, the whales in the sea, the astronauts in space, and on an eleven-year-old girl, grappling with emotional changes in her own life..? One morning, Julia and her parents wake up in their suburban home in California to discover, along with the rest of the world, that the rotation of the earth is noticeably slowing. The enormity of this is almost beyond comprehension. And yet, even if the world is, in fact, coming to an end, as some assert, day-to-day life must go on. Julia, facing the loneliness and despair of an awkward adolescence, witnesses the impact of this phenomenon on the world, on the community, on her family and on herself.

 

The Panopticon - Jenni Fagan: Pa`nop´ti`con ( noun). A prison so constructed that the inspector can see each of the prisoners at all times, without being seen. Anais Hendricks, 15, is in the back of a police car, headed for The Panopticon, a home for chronic young offenders.She can't remember the events that led her here, but across town a policewoman lies in a coma and there is blood on Anais's school uniform. Smart, funny and fierce, Anais is a counter-culture outlaw, a bohemian philosopher in sailor shorts and a pillbox hat. She is also a child who has been let down, or worse, by just about every adult she has ever met. The residents of the Panopticon form intense bonds, heightened by their place on the periphery, and Anais finds herself part of an ad-hoc family there. Much more suspicious are the social workers, especially Helen, who is about to leave her job for an elephant sanctuary in India but is determined to force Anais to confront the circumstances of her birth before she goes. Looking up at the watchtower that looms over the residents, Anais knows her fate: she is part of an experiment, she always was, it's a given, a liberty - a fact. And the experiment is closing in. In language dazzling, energetic and pure, The Panopticon introduces us to a heartbreaking young heroine and an incredibly assured and outstanding new voice in fiction.

[Nollaig]

The Snow Child! Amazon recommended that to me last week, good to see Waterstones back it! Def gonna check out that rest of that list now.

[chaliepud]

Thanks Poppyshake, I was in Waterstones today and didn't see this! (I didn't buy anything, honest!) I like the look of a few of these, but The Lifeboat stands out the most, it's not released till the 29th March though so I'll just put in on the wishlist for now.

 

Thanks again!

[poppyshake]

The Snow Child! Amazon recommended that to me last week, good to see Waterstones back it! Def gonna check out that rest of that list now.

I read a bit of The Snow Child and liked the way it was going so put it on my wishlist. I'm going to go back and read my way through all of them .. or at least see which ones grab me

[poppyshake]

Thanks Poppyshake, I was in Waterstones today and didn't see this! (I didn't buy anything, honest!) I like the look of a few of these, but The Lifeboat stands out the most, it's not released till the 29th March though so I'll just put in on the wishlist for now. Thanks again!

You're welcome chalie Yes The Lifeboat sounds amazing .. I put it on my wishlist too along with The Panopticon, The Land of Decoration & The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry but I haven't finished reading up on them yet.

[Ruth]

Thanks for the list I'm definitely going to get The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry...looks exactly the sort of book I love.

[chaliepud]

I have added the The Lifeboat, Shelter, Absolution, the Land of decoration, Signs of Life, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry and The Age of Miracles to my wish list!!! They look great but I'll wait to see some reviews on here and Amazon first for most of them I think

[Hayley]

Ooooh some of these look really good! I really like the look of 'The Land of Decoration'

 

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry looks good too but it doesn't have much information so I think I'd have to wait to see some more reviews.

 

Thanks for the list Poppyshake!

[Talisman]

I have added several of these to my wish list also - sadly I will not though be buying them from Waterstones, as I prefer my books on Kindle.

[poppyshake]

Ooooh some of these look really good! I really like the look of 'The Land of Decoration'

 

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry looks good too but it doesn't have much information so I think I'd have to wait to see some more reviews.

 

Thanks for the list Poppyshake!

If you go to the link you can read or download the first chapter of all of them Hayley. I read about a page or two (from some not all) but that was enough to decide me.

[Kidsmum]

Thanks for the list Poppy I like the sound of The Age of Miracles & Panopticon.

[lauraloves]

The Land of Decoration - Grace McCleen, The Lifeboat - Charlotte Rogan and The Age of Miracles have gone on my wishlist