We’ve ushered nearly 80 authors into the spotlight since 2014, from Sally Rooney to Douglas Stuart – one of only 20 men ever to have made the cut, incidentally. The class of 2023 includes a writer on an Emmy-winning Netflix show and a book publicist with a 20-year career at the heart of the trade. But the only thing that ever counts is what is on the page: outsider or insider, if we think you’re bringing out a great first novel (and you’re in the UK or Ireland), a place on the list is yours. That’s one job of lists like this, and it’s part of why we spend every autumn hawk-eyed over publishing schedules and trade announcements, buried in bind-up copies and PDFs in our quest for literary gold. No one knew about I’m a Fan, which was basically DIY that list, which everyone pays attention to, legitimised a book that didn’t have the machine behind it.” Patel, who signed with the tiny indie press Rough Trade Books when “no one else was listening”, now says: “I was coming from so far outside the publishing world the industry felt very remote and extremely closed. No one could accuse us of failing to read the runes last time out, when our selection included Bonnie Garmus’s gazillion-selling Lessons in Chemistry, Louise Kennedy’s Trespasses – the title most frequently cited as the best book of 2022, according to industry magazine The Bookseller – and Sheena Patel’s I’m a Fan, another favourite, proclaimed “book of the summer” by the Evening Standard and “the summer’s slow-burning must-read” by the Sunday Times.įar be it from us to say you saw it here first. F or the 10th year running, here’s the Observer New Review’s annual pick of debut novels we reckon you won’t want to miss.

The new life by tom crewe