Happy New Year, everyone. It is never too early to start mapping out your reading for a new year. Luckily, The Guardian has compiled a list of titles to look out for. Here are some highlights:

  • Haruki Murakami, whose Kafka on the Shore I found to be weirdly cool, is back with a new novel - After Dark.
  • A new book by Ian McEwan - On Chesil Beach.
  • A new one from a guy named Norman Mailer - The Castle in the Forest.
  • Micahel Chabon’s upcoming counterfactual history, The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, imagines that Alaska rather than Israel has become the Jewish state in the 1940s. This is, of course, a total ripoff of the Mel Brooks gag, “Jews on Ice.”
  • Khaled Hosseini follows up The Kite Runner with A Thousand Splendid Suns. Look for it on airplanes everywhere in May.
  • Marina Lewycka will follow up A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian with Two Caravans, which will also portray Ukranians finding their way in Britain.
  • Philip Roth will publish his last Nathan Zuckerman novel, Exit Ghost, which will be set during the Kerry/Bush elections. Good times for us all.

There are many more interesting titles in the article. Check it out. I have got to make a dent in the “to read” pile before I even consider reading any of these.

Also: While this post was still in draft, The Guardian felt the need to run a second article with titles to look out for in 2007.