The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach, January, Fourth Estate
Bought for a whopping advance of $650,000, this is one of the most anticipated US debuts of the year. Bearing advance praise from Jonathan Franzen and John Irving (and the possibly unique accolade of having already had a book written about how it was written, by author Keith Gessen), The Art of Fielding follows the story of baseball player Henry Skrimshander, as just one wrong throw threatens to send five lives off course.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo graphic novel, adapted by Denise Mina, DC Comics, March
With more than 60m copies of Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy sold around the world, his stars Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist are now set to enter the world of graphic novels. Scottish crime novelist Denise Mina has been chosen to adapt the three titles, with the first slated for March. Mina is promising to make bisexual computer hacker Salander even tougher than she is in Larsson's novels.
Silver by Andrew Motion, Jonathan Cape, April
The former poet laureate makes his debut as a children's author, with this sequel to Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island. Jim Hawkins is now an innkeeper, running a pub in the marshy eastern reaches of the Thames, and telling his son tales of his former days of derring-do. When Long John Silver's daughter turns up, she and young Jim set off in the footsteps of their fathers.
Skagboys by Irvine Welsh, Jonathan Cape, April
Welsh returns to the world of the novel that made him famous, Trainspotting, tracing how Renton, Spud, Sick Boy et al became the drug-addled dropouts we know and love. It starts with a very different Mark Renton: good-looking, with a university place and a girlfriend, he appears to have the world at his feet. But this is the 1980s: the welfare state has gone and, as Renton's family falls apart, he tumbles into heroin addiction.
Mrs Robinson's Disgrace by Kate Summerscale, Bloomsbury, May
Summerscale's The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, her untangling of a notorious 19th-century murder, won the Samuel Johnson prize. Her new book, subtitled The Private Diary of a Victorian Lady, is the story of the unhappily married Isabella Robinson. She pours her feelings – particularly for the "fascinating", handsome Edward Lane – on to the pages of her diary; her husband's discovery of this, and their subsequent divorce, scandalised society.
The Dream of the Celt by Mario Vargas Llosa, Faber & Faber, June
Vargas Llosa's first novel since winning the Nobel prize in 2010, this explores the life of former British consul turned Irish revolutionary Roger Casement, executed for treason for his involvement in the 1916 Easter Uprising. The narrative follows him from Dublin and Liverpool to the Congo and Peru, and, finally, to jail in London. Vargas Llosa has described Casement's life as "perfect for a novel".
Country Girl by Edna O'Brien, Faber & Faber, October
O'Brien's first novel, The Country Girls, was banned in her native Ireland, driving her into exile; she has since picked up award after award for her novels and short stories. Now in her 80s, this is her memoir. It will, O'Brien promises, tell "of life's many bounties … the extremities of joy and sorrow, love, crossed love and unrequited love, success and failure, fame and slaughter".
