Posted by Lily Woods on January 1st, 2022

With a new year comes the exciting promise of a plethora of new books, and here at Hatchards we have been busy choosing some of our most hotly-anticipated publications coming in 2022. Here is but a selection of some of the most spectacular books en route to us in the next twelve months...

Our Favourite Upcoming Fiction in 2022

Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart. Published April 14th.

Off of the back of the phenomenal success of Shuggie Bain, 2019 Booker Prize winner Douglas Stuart returns with a novel that delves into working-class life in Glasgow, and the hazardous first love of two young men: Mungo and James. A gripping tale that reveals the bounds of masculinity, the fraught nature of familial relationships, and the violence that continues to plague the LGBTQIA+ community.

To Paradise by Hanya Yanagihara. Published January 11th.

From the writer who brought us A Little Life comes yet another literary marvel, where we witness the lives of those living in three very different Americas: 1893, 1993 and 2093. And yet while living in times markedly different from one another, Yanagihara manages to unite not only the characters but the Americas in which they live, forged on the basis of the shared qualities that make us who we are: fear, love, and compassion.

Our Favourite Upcoming Non-Fiction in 2022

In Search of Mary Seacole by Helen Rappaport. Published February 17th.

In the first comprehensive biography of an extraordinary woman, Helen Rappaport sheds light on the full and remarkable life of Mary Seacole. From her birth in Jamaica and adolescent life in Panama, to her work as a nurse during the Crimean War and her supposed ‘rivalry’ with Florence Nightingale, Rappaport works to unravel the truth from myth in this superb ode to an icon of the 19th century.

Burning Questions by Margaret Atwood. Published March 1st.

In over fifty illuminating and oftentimes humorous essays, Margaret Atwood turns her pen to a number of burning questions – from why people across cultures choose to tell stories to the relationship between zombies and authoritarianism.

Roald Dahl: Teller of the Unexpected by Matthew Dennison. Published on August 4th.

While we have heard of Roald Dahl’s life from his own perspective, through titles such as Going Solo and Boy, we have yet to have had a definitive portrait of one of the world’s greatest storytellers from an outsider’s view. In 2022, Matthew Dennison is finally providing us with that long-awaited biography, Roald Dahl: Teller of the Unexpected. One turn of phrase that many critics say about Roald Dahl is that he is a master of the ‘twist in the tale’; it will be interesting to see the ‘twist in the tale’ of Dahl’s own life.

Our Favourite Upcoming Children's Books in 2022

The Mapmakers by Tamzin Merchant. Published February 17th.

Tamzin Merchant’s first book, The Hatmakers, was one of my favourite books of 2021. It was beautiful, exciting, funny and, most importantly, had a heroine, Cordelia, I really cared about. In 2022 Cordelia’s story continues in The Mapmakers. She possesses a very mysterious map but, in the extract I’ve read so far, it seems to lead to more questions than answers: firstly it can only be read by starlight, then, where is the circus? Is the Rose and Sea an inn, a tavern, a coffee house or something else entirely? And what does 'look to the stars', scrawled in her father’s handwriting on the back of the map, mean? I’m impatient to find out