Available soon!

Chesterton said that novels are written for the

sake of five or six words. Gregory Norminton

has dispensed with the dross and given us

nothing but the real thing: a whole library

of “five or six words” in their magnificent,

illuminating, witty and moving essence.

Alberto Manguel

You can preorder the book for less than £4 (incl. postage) at Book Depository

TippingPoint Newcastle, 22-24 February

Since 2007 - it's taken that long! - I have been working alongside Mike Robinson, chairman of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, to commission and publish a collection of short stories in aid of Stop Climate Chaos. The goal has been to challenge UK authors to find new ways of writing about the climate crisis: something so overwhelming in its implications that, with a few exceptions, it has so far been the preserve of genre fiction.

After struggles too numerous to mention, we found an excellent publisher willing to produce the book and funding from an unlikely source to meet the costs of a briefing weekend in Perthshire. Nearly a year on, the typescript for Out of Chaos - stories for our shared planet, is sitting on the desk beside me, almost ready to submit to the proof reader. The book boasts twenty-one original stories by a fantastic selection of authors, including Joanne Harris, Liz Jensen, Alasdair Gray, A.L. Kennedy, Toby Litt, Janice Galloway, Adam Thorpe, David Constantine, Maris McCann and Tom Bullough.

I will, in the coming months, post frequently about the project. For now, folk in Tyne and Wear may be interested to know that I and two of the book's contributors will be talking about literature and climate change at TippingPoint Newcastle on Wednesday 22nd February. This is part of a conference organised by Peter Gingold at Tipping Point to bring together arts practitioners engaged in the communication of ecology and sustainability. The event in the evening is open to the general public. I will be hosting a discussion with Jay Griffiths, whose book Wild may be one of the great non-fiction works of the century so far, and the ingenious Lawrence Norfolk. Follow the hyperlinks for more information. I very much hope to see you there.

A year of magical reading

2012 looks set to be memorable for a host of reasons. The Queen's Diamond Jubilee (Gawd bless yer, ma'am), the London Olympics, important elections (Obama versus the flat earthers, Sarkozy versus the French, bumptious cock versus slippery newt) and a global picture of droughts, floods, economic misery and crap pop music.

There are, however, things to look forward to. I'm talking, of course, about books. Some of my favourite contemporary (or, alas, near-contemporary) authors have new titles coming out in 2012, and here follow my top tips. (I'm aware of the homosocial nature of this selection. It's not by design. I mean, I do read books by women.)

Jon McGregor, This Isn't The Sort of Thing That Happens To Someone Like You (Bloomsbury) One of our best young writers has sunk his teeth into global warming and its ghastly implications, in what looks set to be a pretty extraordinary first collection of short stories.

Geoff Dyer, Zona (Canongate) Dyer's publisher was expecting him to write a book about tennis. Instead he produced a scene-by-scene account of, and meditation on,  Andrei Tarkovsky's film, Stalker. It shouldn't work but having read it in a day I can assure you that it does. The book made me see the film again in my imagination and sent me back to the DVD with renewed fervour.

John Lanchester, Capital (Faber) Following on from Whoops!, his non-fiction expose on, and explanation of, our current financial woes, John Lanchester is publishing his first novel in a decade. Here he is talking about it:

Russell Hoban, Soonchild (Walker Books) The 'cult' author of Riddley Walker - for my money one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century - died in London in December. This, then, is likely to be his last book.

Tom Bullough, Konstantin (Penguin Books) My friend Tom's third novel is about Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, "the father of Russian rocketry", a nineteenth century theorist of space travel. John Banville likes it, which is recommendation enough. I really admired Tom's previous novel, The Claude Glass, and look forward to getting my hands on this new work. Plus, it's got a beautiful cover design.

Robert Macfarlane, The Old Ways (Penguin Books) Macfarlane appears to have written the very book I have been meaning to write for years. I'm sure he's done it better than I could have.

Lawrence Norfolk, John Saturnall's Feast (Bloomsbury) It's been twelve years since Norfolk's last novel, In the Shape of a Boar. Looks like it will have been worth the wait.

Alan Garner, Boneland (Harper Collins) Perhaps the most exciting prospect of all! I was introduced to Garner only last year by my friend Dougald Hine, and he immediately leapt to the top of my reader's pantheon of British writers. Garner, that is. Dougald's got more writing to do yet. Boneland returns to Alderley Edge and the protagonists of his first and second novels. It's a return to his literary origins, as well as a return to the origins of human art and mythology.

You can watch the great man in a rare film interview here. After the witless commercial.