March 2026 Books

What’s new and good to read? Dan Coombes has a look at what’s on offer from publishers in March and chooses Hooked by Aasako Yuzuki,  Son of Nobody by Yann Martel,  and The Quantity Theory of Morality by Will Self.

Hooked by Asako Yuzuki

When Asako Yuzuki’s novel Butter was translated into English in 2024, it was heaped with pretty much universal praise by everyone and their goldfish (communicating via Morse code with bubbles), winning prestigious awards and  generally being loved by everyone.

It even prompted a well-known bookshop chain whose name I can’t quite recall at this instant to purchase a giant plastic cow to display in every single one of their branches and name it their book of the year. The book, not the cow.

So, when I heard her name being mentioned again and people raving about an incredible, one-of-a-kind, deeply unsettling psychological thriller I naturally assumed they were talking about that one, but no – it’s her new novel Hooked, already being called a masterpiece by all kinds of book-based folk, and the most anticipated book of 2026 only two months in. I was quite surprised. ‘I can’t believe it’s not Butter!’ I exclaimed.

Eriko’s life appears perfect – devoted parents, pristine apartment and a high-flying job in the seafood division of one of Japan’s largest trading companies. But beneath her flawless surface she is wracked by loneliness. Eriko becomes fascinated with a popular blog written by a housewife, Shoko.

Shoko’s posts about eating convenience-store food and her untidy home are the opposite of the typical Japanese housewife’s manicured lifestyle. When Eriko tracks Shoko down at her favourite restaurant and befriends her, Shoko is at first charmed by her new companion. But soon Eriko’s obsession with Shoko begins to spiral out of control, threatening her carefully laid plans.

How far will she go to hold on to the best friend she’s ever had? Hooked is an unsettling story of the line between friendship and dangerous obsession, and a delicious exploration of food, loneliness and womanhood in contemporary Japan.

Hooked front cover,  Author Asako Yuzuki

Son of Nobody by Yann Martel

Yann Martel absolutely does not get the praise and recognition he deserves. He’s most well-known for the 2002 Booker-winning Life Of Pi, which just to have a Terribly Earnest Bookseller Moment changed my life just a little bit, along with my early-twenties notions of what ‘normal’ fiction could be.

Since then he’s only written a few more books, but each one has been quality, engrossing and just a little bit more inventively odd than most human dramas.

Each one a grounded and moving exploration of human nature, faith, belief and all sorts of Big Subjects, carefully constructed and richly brough to life.

Son of Nobody centres around a man who sacrifices family and love for his career, leaves his failing home life in Canada behind for a life of academia in Oxford and promptly discovers a lost account of the Trojan War. As he explores and translates it discovers some universal things that echo his own life and might just change it too.

I realise as I write this that it all sounds a bit cheesy, but it’s really not…well, maybe a tiny bit, but he’s a unique writer with a knack for turning domestic tales into epic poetry.

In Martel’s new book, Harlow Donne has devoted his life to the Classical world. When a chance comes up to study an obscure collection of papyrus fragments at Oxford University, he seizes it. Though it means leaving his daughter and fracturing marriage back home in Canada, this is the kind of career break he desperately needs.

In the depths of the Bodleian Library, Harlow discovers a lost account of the Trojan War, a glimpse into the founding of Western civilization itself. He names the epic poem The Psoad, after its protagonist, a Greek commoner identified as Psoas of Midea but known to all as ‘son of nobody’. As sole translator and interpreter of the Psoad, Harlow dedicates the poem and its footnotes to his daughter, Helen.

Under his gaze, the text unlocks echoes of Ancient Greece into the present day, and a personal message to his beloved child appears. Despite the three-thousand-year gap between the two, a thread hasn’t frayed: the universal song of homesickness and regret, of ambition, love and grief.

Son of Nobody front cover,  Author Yann Martel

The Quantity Theory of Morality by Will Self

Will Self is generally considered a dark horse, as much for his own troubled life as for the cynical and often grotesque nature of his writing, which usually has a point to it, but sometimes that point is just to do something a bit taboo and create a stir.

It’s almost impossible to read a review of any of his books that doesn’t contain the words ‘savage’, ‘brutal’ or ‘uncompromising’, if that gives you some idea of what to expect.

But whatever else you could say about him he’s most certainly a clever and uniquely gifted author who has been writing acclaimed novels for forty-odd years, blurring genres left right and centre, and being all metatextual and postmodern like it’s going out of fashion.

The Quantity Theory of Morality is half short story collection, half ‘fractured novel’ and a kind-of-sequel to his debut The Quantity Theory Of Insanity, which he wrote back in 1991. Taking a satirical look at the state of the modern world through the eyes of recurring characters old and new, it’s funny, slightly silly, occasionally just a bit grim, and also kind of brilliant.

The Quantity Theory of Morality front cover,  Author Will Self

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