Turn off your TV! Put down your iPhone! Silence your walkman and let your tamagotchi die. It’s time to pay homage to the original home of entertainment – still killing it after all these years, ladies and gentlemen, I give you, The Book.

Here are some new ones that you should really take note of in 2015.

Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee

Lee’s second novel is to be released 55 years after its predecessor, To Kill a Mockingbird, to the elation of fans and critics alike. Some have been sceptical, but it’s sure to be interesting, whatever the outcome. MW

God Help The Child by Toni Morrison

Another fierce work of contemporary fiction, this time on childhood trauma, by Nobel laureate Toni Morrison. God Help The Child tells the story of a girl “whose stunning blue-black skin is only one element of her beauty… but which caused her light-skinned mother to deny her even the simplest forms of love.” MW

Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson

Published to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the luxury liner by German U-Boats, Dead Wake is sure to be another encapsulating drama from the author of international bestseller Isaac’s Storm. MW

Finders Keepers by Stephen King

The second volume in a trilogy centred on Detective Bill Hodges, Finders Keepers follows the murder of reclusive writer Bill Rothstein who hasn’t published a book for decades. Another intense, suspenseful novel from the master of horror himself. MW

Mislaid by Nell Zink

Touted as “one of the most exciting debut novels of this year” by the Guardian, Mislaid tells the tale of a gay professor and lesbian student in 1966 Virginia who get married and have two children before the wife, Peggy, runs away with their daughter and adopts an African-American racial persona, despite both being white. As weird as that sounds, Zink is one to watch if only for her incredible life story, in which punk fanzines, communes, doomed love affairs and famous pen pals (Jonathan Franzen, fyi) all play a part. She’s testament to that Doris Lessing quote: “You have to live in such a way that your writing emerges from it.” SJ

Girl in a Band by Kim Gordon

Last year we had Viv Albertine’s Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys and this year we have Kim Gordon’s Girl in a Band. Has any woman had a more prolific career in alternative music (I’m using that as a catch-all for punk, post-punk, grunge, indie, improv etc.) than Kim Gordon? She is literally the queen of bad sound and, traditionally private, this memoir provides a rare glimpse into her expansive psyche. Apparently she’s very honest about the Thurston break-up too. SJ

The Age Of Earthquakes by Douglas Coupland, Hans Ulrich Obrist and Shumon Basar

According to the blurb The Age of Earthquakes is “a paper portrait of Now, where the Internet hasn’t just changed the structure of our brains these past few years, it’s also changing the structure of the planet. This is a new history of the world that fits perfectly in your back pocket.” I don’t know about you but I would very much like a guide to this brave new world. SJ

---