Five Go, I-Spy and Girl's Guide spoofs hit shelves today

Three different sets of spoof titles hit shelves today (3rd November) hoping to cash in on a slice of the success the Ladybird Books for Grown-Ups series achieved last Christmas, which racked up sales of a million copies.

Five Enid Blyton for Adults books written by Bruno Vincent and published by Quercus are released today (3rd November), seeing the nostalgic Famous Five characters Julian, George, Dick, Anne and Timmy reimagined as grown-ups. Across five titles, they confront the challenges of living without booze for a month, finding themselves on a puzzling "strategy away day", attempt to find a good gluten-free cream tea, trapped on “Brexit Island” and "most perilous of all", prepare for parenthood in Five Give Up the Booze, Five Go Gluten Free, Five Go On A Strategy Away Day, Five Go Parenting and Five on Brexit Island, priced £7.99 each.

Mills & Boon is releasing a “fun and feminist” series of spoof Girl’s Guide books with the aim of “celebrating the sisterhood from A to Z", staring today with The Mills & Boon Modern Girl’s Guide to Working 9 to 5 and The Mills & Boon Modern Girl’s Guide to Happy Hour, also priced £7.99 each.

Meanwhile, Sam Jordison's humorous I-SPY spoofs published by HarperCollins are also released today. The series is a new take on the classic collection that were a hit for children from the 1950s to the present day, and will encourage readers to consider more adult-related matters, "such as the absolute state of Great Britain, and equally pivotal troubles, like what parents get up to at the school gates," the publisher said. They include four pocket-sized books: At The School Gate: My Mum Is Better Than Your Mum, Pets: When Human Friendship Is Not Enough, The UK: While It Lasts and Signs and Instructions: You Must Obey.

The parody titles will all be hoping to grab a share of the recent resurgence of the nostalgia market, which saw which saw eight pocket-sized Ladybird Books for Grown-Ups parodies authored by Jason Hazeley and Joel Morris become a festive hit last year, selling over a million collective copies in volume sales in the UK, with The Husband clinching the Christmas number one spot.     

Since they first hit shelves in October 2015, they have shifted over 1.9m copies for £11.1m, according to Nielsen BookScan TCM, with nine new titles released last month.

A spokesperson for Quercus said they were hopeful the Five Go spoofs would prove also to be a hit.

“There is an enormous amount of excitement surrounding the release of the first titles in the Five Go series this Thursday,” the spokesperson said. “The pre-orders are incredibly strong, and we have a subscription across the five launch titles of over 400,000 copies.”

The Mills & Boon guides, meanwhile, will contain "vital advice every woman needs to survive the modern world", on topics such as ‘drunk E-baying’, office fridge etiquette and "explaining your job to your parents", the publisher promised.