Literary preview of 2013 - Telegraph Delving deeper into the secrets and illusions of consciousness is a new publication by the great John Gray, The Silence of Animals: On Progress and Other Modern Myths (Allen Lane), which promises to be a chilling sequel to his bestselling Straw Dogs, looking at the ways storytelling and art both obscure and reveal our animal selves. There's always room for a new history of the First Afghan War, especially from a writer as able as William Dalrymple, whose Return of a King: The Battle for Afghanistan is to be published by Bloomsbury. Music lovers will relish two new biographies of Benjamin Britten, by Paul Kildea (Allen Lane) and Neil Powell (Hutchinson), brought out to coincide with the centenary of Britten's birth. It's a strong month for fiction, too, with fans of literary Americana well served. Dave Eggers presents A Hologram for the King (Hamish Hamilton), the story of an unravelling businessman in the Middle East against a backdrop of global recession. And 4th Estate has a remarkable trick up its sleeve with the publication of a recently discovered novel by the folk singer Woody Guthrie: House of Earth promises dustbowl drama told in a unique voice. This month brings Eric Hobsbawm's final book, Fractured Times: Culture and Society in the 20th Century (Little, Brown), a sweeping summation of the last century and its artists, singers, politicians, philosophers and even cowboys. There's history of a more personal nature in Self Portrait as a Young Man by Roy Strong (Bodleian Library Publications) in which the author's recollections are handsomely supplemented by photographs and other documentary material from his early life. The long-awaited memoir of her mother's life by Maya Angelou, Mom and Me and Mom, comes from Virago and promises to be as moving and insightful as her earlier volumes of memoir. Look out for Mary Beard's Classical Traditions (Profile) in which the question of Why The Classics Matter is ably answered by the queen of ancient history, and there are literary lionesses by the dozen in Fifty Shades of Feminism, edited by Lisa Appignanesi, Susie Orbach and Rachel Holmes (Virago), a state of the feminist union address by the likes of Jeanette Winterson and Siri Hustvedt. In fiction, witness a new, macabre direction for Joyce Carol Oates, whose novel The Accursed (4th Estate) is a fantastical and gory story set in Princeton; there's an extraordinary-sounding new novel from JM Coetzee about a boy exiled from his home and parents, The Childhood of Jesus (Harvill Secker); and don't miss the latest from Spain's finest living writer: The Infatuations by Javier Marías (Hamish Hamilton), an enticing tale of obsession, love and murder. A fresh slice of world literature for spring, starting with Iran's bestselling novel of all time, The Book of Fate by Parimoush Saniee (Little, Brown): a tale of forbidden love set amid the upheavals of the sociologist author's native country. Americanah by the 2007 Orange Prize winner Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (4th Estate) is a very modern love story set between Nigeria and the US, while Taiye Selasi's much talked-about debut Ghana Must Go (Viking) also spans the Atlantic to West Africa, dealing with an eminent Ghanaian surgeon and the family he took to America. On the home front, you can't get much more British than Kate's Farm Diary by the darling of Springwatch, Kate Humble (Headline), and for cricket fans there's 80 Not Out by Dickie Bird (Hodder), sure to please lovers of the green grass of home. Political animals won't want to miss The British Dream: Success and Failure in Immigration Policy Since the War by David Goodhart (Atlantic) or Disraeli or The Two Lives by Douglas Hurd and Edward Young (Weidenfeld & Nicolson), not to mention the new historical study by Michael Burleigh, Small Wars, Faraway Places: The Genesis of the Modern World (Macmillan). Falling Upwards by Richard Holmes (HarperPress) is a beguiling history of hot air ballooning, while The Undivided Past by David Cannadine (Allen Lane) takes a lofty approach to history, making a plea for us to stop seeing the past in terms of conflict rather than communality. The Last Train to Zona Verde by Paul Theroux (Hamish Hamilton) is the travel writer's account of his final big African rail journey, taking him from Cape Town to Angola. Last year saw the loss of the brilliant novelist Siân Busby, whose uniquely gripping historical fiction brought her great acclaim in her too-short life. Her final work, A Commonplace Killing, is published posthumously by Short Books. Intrigue of a decidedly more modern hue is at the heart of Mr Loverman by Bernadine Evaristo (Hamish Hamilton), in which the London poet and author tells a ribald tale of gay love in the capital. But the most hyped release in fiction this spring has got to be The Hive by Gill Hornby (Little, Brown). It's a spicy comedy-drama set in the bitchy milieu of competitive school-gate mums by the author also known as Mrs Robert Harris. The bidding war for it was furious, so critics wait with bated breath... And there's a new John le Carré to get your teeth into as well: A Delicate Truth is on its way from Viking. It's a strong month for non-fiction also, with a timely assessment of the limits of genetics from the ever-popular Steve Jones: The Serpent's Promise (Little, Brown) links bible stories and science, while Lewis Wolpert's Why Can't a Woman be More Like a Man (Faber) takes an evolutionary-biological look at gender. A big history title to look out for is Perilous Question: The Drama of the Great Reform Bill, 1832 (Weidenfeld & Nicolson) by Antonia Fraser, while a quirkier offering comes from the always intriguing catalogue of Portobello Books: Deep Sea and Foreign Going: The Uncharted World of Freight by Rose George goes behind the scenes of those mammoth vessels that ply the oceans bringing us all our lovely stuff. And Martin Sandler for Bloomsbury has collected the most revealing of The Letters of John F Kennedy from the two million on file, in time for the 50th anniversary of the president's assassination. The Trip to Echo Spring: Why Writers Drink by Olivia Laing (Canongate) promises literary gossip and serious analysis, as does a special memoir by Geordie Greig, one of Lucian Freud's confidants whose Breakfast with Lucian (Jonathan Cape) is a must for lovers of that extraordinary artist. Finally, A Place in the Country (Hamish Hamilton) is the long-awaited translation of the late WG Sebald's work on the six cultural figures who most inspired him. In summer our thoughts turn to visiting faraway places, and the armchair voyager will be well served by a fine crop of travel books. The editor of the TLS, Peter Stothard, found inspiration in Alexandria (Granta) and writes of its place in his heart and his obsession with Cleopatra. Edward Rutherford, the bestselling author of Sarum, travels in time as well as space for his 2,000-year history of Paris (Hodder); and Ronald Blythe, whose Akenfield is still the ultimate classic about rural England, stays in Suffolk for The Time by the Sea: Aldeburgh 1956-58 (Faber), a memoir encompassing Britten and the famous music festival. Other non-fiction treats to look forward to are an examination of our relationship with the sea, The Sea Inside by Philip Hoare (4th Estate) and Here and Now, a collection of revealing letters between the Nobel laureate JM Coetzee and his friend Paul Auster (Faber). The Autobiography of Ann Widdecombe (Weidenfeld & Nicolson) is sure to be a gutsy and compelling read while, from the same house, Daisy Waugh brings her spiky attitude to the pitfalls of motherhood and the shortcuts you can take to avoid them in I Don't Know Why She Bothers. High summer brings some highbrow history this year, with two more books from Weidenfeld and Nicolson, who have a particularly strong list in 2013. Empire of the Deep: The Rise and Fall of the British Navy by Ben Wilson is a landmark history of our power at sea from King Alfred to the present day, highlighting the extent to which our command of the oceans has driven Britain's success in the world more than any other factor. Churchill and Empire by Lawrence James focuses on the effects of the great man's campaigns in India and Africa on his political development. And there are two rich slices of US history from Mainstream: Who Killed Kennedy? The 50-Year Quest by Matthew Smith, who has been involved in the world's favourite murder mystery since the beginning, and Time Out of Mind: The Lives of Bob Dylan by Ian Bell, a crucial piece of biography that reads between the lines of Dylan's writings and reveals much about his life and work. The best books of the year are always saved for autumn, and this year they should be well worth the wait. From Allen Lane comes the new Malcolm Gladwell, David and Goliath, in which the bestselling author develops the thesis of Outliers to prescribe some winning strategies that the weak might successfully use against the powerful; also Think Like a Freak by Steven D Levitt and Stephen J Dubner, in which the controversial creators of Freakonomics show us how to think bigger, faster and better. Not for them, perhaps, Simon Garfield's mellow Lost Art of Letter Writing or The Novel Cure: An A-Z of Literary Remedies by Susan Elderkin and Ella Berthoud (both from Canongate), but fans of these gentler offerings might also relish a wander through Vita Sackville-West's Sissinghurst: The Making of a Garden, edited by Sarah Raven (Virago) and, from the same publisher, Ten Fascinating Women of the Fifties by Rachel Cooke. In fiction, the always brilliant Margaret Atwood's new novel Maddaddam (Bloomsbury) is the third instalment in the fantastical trilogy that began with Oryx and Crake, and sure to top many people's Christmas lists this year is the debut novel from everyone's favourite shaggy-haired Venetian aristocrat, Francesco da Mosto. Based on his own family's history and centred on artefacts found in their palazzo, The Black King (Little, Brown) promises literary intrigue and beautiful buildings across 16th-century Italy and England. And after 365 days of righteous behaviour, what better tonic could there be?