Start planning those reading lists with this bumper list of new books

Jodi Picoult to Dave Grohl: this combination of book cover images highlights the upcoming releases to hit bookshops soon. Photo: AP

Near the end of 2020, the pandemic had lasted long enough for author Jodi Picoult to try something that seemed unthinkable for novelists in its early stages – turn it into fiction.

“At the beginning of the pandemic, I couldn’t even read, much less write. I didn’t have the focus,” says Picoult, who last November began the novel Wish You Were Here. The fall release is set in New York and the Galapagos during the first two months of the pandemic, March-May of last year.