Make room on your shelves

MARK BROATCH previews what's coming in books in 2023.

First up in the new year is Prince Harry's memoir about giving up royal duties to marry actress Meghan Markle and move to the US. The provocatively titled Spare, complete with a cover of the royal looking like his Madame Tussaud's stand-in and coming on the tail of the couple's buttonpushing Netflix series, will doubtless shift palace-loads.

Patrick Radden Keefe, author of the prize-winning opiate saga Empire of Pain, in February publishes The Snakehead, the tale of a massive people-smuggling operation run by a grandmother out of a noodle shop in New York's Chinatown.

Abrace of fascinating science titles are on their way. Pathogenesis, by a UK expert in global public health, is a welcome account of how infectious diseases shaped human history. We Are Electric explores the bioelectricity in every cell in our bodies and what it means for life, health and ageing.  Sensational is a new account of the senses, by an Australian professor in animal behaviour. Peter Frankopan's The Earth Transformed is a study of natural and unnatural climate patterns and how they have shaped history. Plus there are explorations of fungi, a book on the science of meditation and one on the science of pain.

Also on their way are a book from a psychiatrist-neuroscientist on how we invent, and reinvent, our personalities; one on improving our longevity; an account of how medicine fails women; a history of the womb; a new take on extraterrestrial life in the universe; and a book on how to get back your attention span in an age of constant distraction.