Thursday, January 29, 2009

What will we be reading in 2009?
Top editors are predicting a resurgence in escapism and cultural tourism, but what do you want to read in 2009?

Alison Flood looks into the crystal ball on her excellent Guardian blog.

If you want to know what you'll be reading later this year, then you could do worse than taking a look at literary agent Andrew Lownie's website, where he's asked 10 top editors for their thoughts on which books will prosper in 2009.

There's a prediction from Weidenfeld & Nicolson's eminent publishing director Alan Samson that "we may be in for another allegorical animal saga of some sort" - he's spotted that "during the darker days of the 70s, Jonathan Livingston Seagull was the bestselling book in America for two consecutive years while over here we were reading Watership Down". Not sure I'm too excited about a Richard Bach-esque fable, but at least it'd be a change from the rash of pet memoirs which have become the latest trend.

Mike Jones at Simon & Schuster feels that as we "perhaps won't be doing as much exotic travelling as we used to ... books which bring alive the beauty and diversity of the British countryside, its landscape and its history may do well"; if only there was more to come from Roger Deakin.

For Flood's full posting link here to her blog.

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