January 2025 books

As we welcome in a new year, we ask once again what’s new and good to read this month? Dan Coombes has a look at what’s on offer from publishers in January and chooses Under the Eye of the Big Bird by Hiromi Kawakami, Sweat by Emma Haley and All the Water in the World by Eiren Caffall.

Under the Eye of the Big Bird – Hiromi Kawakami

Probably best known for understated, romantic and keenly observed modern-day fiction like Strange Weather In Tokyo, Hiromi Kawakami has swapped that all for a big slice of far future apocalyptic fiction set over millennia, because why not?

That’s not to say this is a hardcore sf story, it’s still an elegant and astute look at human nature even in the most extreme situations and what makes us who we are, just also set in a world where the entire species teeters on the brink of extinction in the ruins of once-great civilisations. Thought I’d keep it light for the start of a new year.

In the distant future, humans are on the verge of extinction and have settled in small tribes across the planet under the observation and care of the Mothers. Some children are made in factories, from cells of rabbits and dolphins; some live by getting nutrients from water and light, like plants.

The survival of the race depends on the interbreeding of these and other alien beings – but it is far from certain that connection, love, reproduction, and evolution will persist among the inhabitants of this faltering new world.

Unfolding over geological eons, Under the Eye of the Big Bird is at once an astonishing vision of the end of our species as we know it and a meditation on the qualities that, for better and worse, make us human.

Images: Under the Eye of the Big Bird front cover, Author Hiromi Kawakami

Sweat – Emma Healey

Back in the ancient mists of time known as 2014, Emma Healey caused a stir with her debit Elizabeth Is Missing – an unsettling literary mystery that won awards and was one of those books everybody was talking about and reading.

She’s only written two more since then, but so acclaimed was her debut that her first book in nearly seven years is something to be excited about. She’s clearly been honing her knack for twists, tension and nuanced characters and brought them right up to date for a deeply compelling and topical modern day thriller.

All Liam ever wanted was to help Cassie reach her full potential; to push her body to new extremes. Exercise, determination, being the optimum versions of themselves together forever. And Liam always knew what was best.

Nothing could break their intense love for one another, not Liam’s obsessive desire for physical perfection or his relentless control of every aspect of Cassie’s life. Until the day he pushes Cassie far beyond her limits, and she walks out of their flat and away from their toxic relationship for good.

Two years on and Cassie is stronger, fitter, healthier than ever before. And then she sees him – Liam – those green eyes, those stirring muscles. Something inside her flips. But she holds the power now. It’s Liam’s turn to sweat.

Images: Sweat front cover, Author Emma Healey

All the Water in the World- Eiren Caffall

I promise I looked really hard for a swanky new read for 2025 that wasn’t another take on end of the world. Well, quite hard. There’s been a lot of napping and making turkey sandwiches over the last week or so.

But after the Christmas frenzy of big name authors and chart-walloping books, January is a bit quieter to say the least, and this is great stuff. Post-apocalyptic (or sort-of-during-apocalyptic) fiction is one of the finest genres for taking a look at the ups, downs, ins and outs of the human condition, so here it is.

A makeshift community on the New York Museum Of Natural History’s roof are driven from their home by a gigantic storm, and try to preserve the knowledge and achievements of humanity from an age that has come to a catastrophic end as they flee for safety through a strange new world.

In the years after the glaciers melt, Nonie, her older sister, parents and their researcher friends have stayed behind in an almost deserted New York City, creating a settlement on the roof of the American Museum of Natural History. The rule: Take from the exhibits only in dire need.

When a superstorm breaches the city’s flood walls, Nonie and her family must escape north on the Hudson. They carry with them a book that holds their records of the lost collections. Racing on the swollen river towards what may be safety, they encounter communities that have adapted in very different and sometimes frightening ways to the new reality.

But they are determined to find a way to make a new world that honours all they’ve saved. Inspired by the stories of the curators in Iraq and Leningrad who worked to protect their collections from war, All the Water in the World is both a meditation on what we save from collapse and an adventure story-with danger, storms, and a fight for survival.

Images: All the Water in the World front cover, Author Eiren Caffall