My Anticipated Books of 2020

I have been through all of the 2020 publishers catalogues that could lay my hands on and have extracted all the books that I really like the look of. Most are non-fiction, as you have probably come to expect by now, but there are a smattering of fiction and sci-fi in there.

 

Allen Lane

The Future of Food: How Digital Technology Will Change the Way We Feed the Planet by Caleb Harper

Rivers of Power: How a Natural Force Raised Kingdoms, Destroyed Civilizations, and Shapes Our World by Laurence C. Smith

Losing Eden: Why Our Minds Need the Wild by Lucy Jones

The Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings by Neil Price

English Pastoral An Inheritance by James Rebanks

The Sirens of Mars: Searching for Life on Another World  by Sarah Stewart Johnson

 

Arrow

Threads by William Henry Searle

 

Bloomsbury

Secondhand: Travels in the New Global Garage Sale by Adam Minter

Dark, Salt, Clear: Life in a Cornish Fishing Village by Lamorna Ash

Nothing Ordinary: A Still Life by Josie George

Fewer, Better Things: The Hidden Wisdom of Objects by Glenn Adamson

Last Train to Hilversum: A journey in search of the magic of radio by Charlie Connelly

The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company by William Dalrymple

A Savage Dreamland: Journeys in Burma by David Eimer

Tangier: From the Romans to The Rolling Stones by Richard Hamilton

Wanderland by Jini Reddy

On the Trail of Wolves by Philippa Forrester

His Imperial Majesty: A Natural History of the Purple Emperor Butterfly by Matthew Oates

Tracking The Highland Tiger: In Search of Scottish Wildcats by Marianne Taylor

Turned On: Science, Sex and Robots by Kate Devlin

 

Canongate

Rootbound: Rewilding a Life by Alice Vincent

Department of Mind-Blowing Theories by Tom Gauld

Island Dreams: The Mapping of an Obsession by Gavin Francis

 

Elliott & Thompson

Cabinet of Calm: Soothing Words for Troubled Times by Paul Anthony Jones

We’re Living Through The Breakdown: And Here’s What We Can Do About It by Tatton Spiller

It’s the End of the World: But What Are We Really Afraid Of? by Adam Roberts

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About the Universe by Andrew Newsam

Under the Stars: A Journey into Light by Matt Gaw

Cauld Blasts and Clishmaclavers: A Treasury of 1,000 Scottish Words by Robin A. Crawford

 

Faber & Faber

The Accidental Countryside by Stephen Moss

Thinking Again by Jan Morris

The Magicians by Marcus Chown

The Remarkable Life of Numbers by Derrick Niederman

 

Gollancz

Bone Silence by Alastair Reynolds

 

Hamish Hamilton

Bad Island by Stanley Donwood

 

Harvill Secker

Italian Life by Tim Parks

 

Head of Zeus

We, Robots by Simon Ings (ed.)

Trains, Planes, Ships and Automobiles: The Golden Age 1919–1939 by James Hamilton-Paterson

Money for Nothing: The South Sea Bubble and the Invention of Modern Capitalism by Thomas Levenson

Democracy on Leave: How Dark Money, Lobbying and Data Are Destroying Politics by Peter Geoghegan

The Colour of Sky After Rain: China in My Time by Tessa Keswick

The Book Of Kells by Victoria Whitworth

 

Headline

A Good Neighbourhood by Therese Anne Fowler

 

John Murray

The Stonemason: A History of Building Britain by Andrew Ziminski

Rag and Bone: A Family History of What We’ve Thrown Away by Lisa Woollett

The Last Whalers: The Life of an Endangered Tribe in a Land Left Behind by Doug Bock Clark

 

Jonathan Cape

Greenery by Tim Dee

The Martian’s Regress by J. O. Morgan

Tongues of Fire by Seán Hewitt

Last Harvest: The Fight to Save the World’s Most Endangered Foods by Dan Saladino

 

Little Toller

Diary of a Young Naturalist by Dara McAnulty

 

Michael Joseph

A History of Britain In 12 Maps by Philip Parker

Wild Silence by Raynor Winn

 

OneWorld

The Wild Laughter by Caoilinn Hughes

How to Predict Everything: The Formula Transforming What We Know About Life and the Universe by William Poundstone

Salmon: A Fish, the Earth, and the History of a Common Fate by Mark Kurlansky

 

Particular

Lev’s Violin: An Italian Adventure  by Helena Attlee

 

Penguin

Agency by William Gibson

Kraftwerk: Future Music from Germany by Uwe Schütte

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Licence to be Bad: How Economics Corrupted Us by Jonathan Aldred

 

Picador

The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel

The Economists’ Hour: How the False Prophets of Free Markets Fractured Our Society by Binyamin Appelbaum

A Place For Everything: The Story of Alphabetical Order by Judith Flanders

Wayfinding: The Art and Science of How We Find and Lose Our Way by Michael Bond

 

Profile

Something Doesn’t Add Up: Surviving Statistics in a Post-Truth World by Paul Goodwin

More: The 10,000 Year Rise of the World Economy by Philip Coggan

The Rules of Contagion: Why Things Spread – and Why They Stop by Adam Kucharski

Preserved Railways: Journeys Along the Resurrected Lines by Andrew Martin

Rummage: A History of the Things We Have Reused, Recycled and Refused to Let Go by Emily Cockayne

I Saw the Dog: How Language Works by Alexandra Aikhenvald

X+Y: A Mathematician’s Manifesto for Rethinking Gender by Eugenia Cheng

 

Pushkin Press

Those Who Forget by Geraldine Schwarz

 

Rider

Wintering: How I Learned To Flourish When Life Became Frozen by Katherine May

 

Sandstone Press

Marram: Memories of Sea and Spider Silk by Leonie Charlton

Along the Amber Route: St Petersburg to Venice by C.J. Schuller

 

Tinder Press

American Dirt by Jeanie Cummins

 

Tor

Invisible Sun by Charles Stross

 

Transworld

Taking on Gravity: A Guide to Inventing the Impossible by Richard Browning

I Am An Island by Tamsin Calidas

 

Two Roads

Tall Tales and Wee Stories by Billy Connolly

 

W&N

Walking the Great North Line: From Stonehenge to Lindisfarne to Discover the Mysteries of Our Ancient Past  by Robert Twigger

Pluses and Minuses: How Maths Makes Practical Problems Simpler by Stefan Buijsman

 

Any that you’ve heard of?

What takes your fancy?

More importantly, are there any that I might have missed?