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Booksellers' Super Thursday excitement driven by Boris Johnson and Kate Mosse
Memoirs, cookbooks and a range of children’s and historical fiction titles are anticipated by booksellers and buyers this Super Thursday, which this year falls on 10th October. Books by Boris Johnson, Ian Rankin, A F Steadman, Stanley Tucci and many others will be published on the industry’s heaviest publication day this year, which will see the release of nearly 1,900 titles, including 457 hardbacks.
Booksellers and buyers are looking forward to the day which, according to Waterstones head of books Bea Carvalho, indicates “the arrival of our busiest time of year”. Carvalho expects Johnson’s political memoir Unleashed (William Collins) to be particularly popular among Waterstones customers. She is also keeping an eye on Out of Character (Harper Collins), the forthcoming memoir by Gavin and Stacey star Alison Steadman, and pop singer Rick Astley’s autobiography Never (Macmillan). Johnson’s memoir was also highlighted by Jen Barrett at Amazon Books UK, who said that the book is sitting at the top of the online retail giant’s bestseller rankings, coming in at third place on Amazon Charts.
However, Adam Hewson, the proprietor of The Kew Bookshop, The Sheen Bookshop and the newly opened Hewson Books Brentford, said that books like Johnson’s memoir and other titles published on Super Thursday are targeted more towards bigger book retailers. He argued that “indies won’t get much of these sales” when it comes to some memoirs and cookbooks, but in fiction, he highlighted releases by Rankin, Sophie Kinsella and Kate Mosse. Even when it comes to fiction, Hewson claimed that titles released on Super Thursday “will be heavily discounted” elsewhere and his bookshops “won’t get much of the share of sales”.
Rankin’s Midnight and Blue (Orion) and Mosse’s The Map of Bones (Mantle) were also highlighted by Carvalho and Barrett. Carvalho is also looking forward to Paula Hawkins’ thriller The Blue Hour (Doubleday), which is “generating much excitement amongst booksellers”, as well Laurie Gilmore’s The Christmas Tree Farm (HarperCollins Publishers). Meanwhile, Barrett noted a “surge in historical fiction releases” this year, adding that, alongside Mosse’s final book in the Joubert Family Chronicles series, “The Snow Angel by Dilly Court and Christmas for the Bomber Girls by Vicki Beeby will likely see this genre perform well in the run up to Christmas”.
In terms of children’s releases on Super Thursday, Hewson highlighted titles like Tom Gates Ha! Ha! Hilarious by Liz Pichon (Scholastic), Jamie Smart’s new Bunny vs Monkey books (David Fickling Books) and A F Steadman’s Skandar and the Skeleton Curse (Simon & Schuster Children’s UK). He said these books “have a better chance” of being popular with customers at his bookshops, especially the ones that are not located near branches of the larger retailers. The booksellers at Hewson’s stores are instead looking forward to pushing various titles published on other days during the autumn, including The Peepshow by Kate Summerscale (Bloomsbury Circus), which was published earlier this month, Gliff by Ali Smith, due to be released on 31st October, and Alan Connor’s 188 Words for Rain (BBC Digital), which will be published on 14th November.
The new children’s books by Smart were also mentioned by Elle Moyse, bookseller and subscriptions manager at Sevenoaks Bookshop in Kent, who also highlighted “much anticipated” releases like The Breakfast Club Adventures: The Headless Ghost by Marcus Rashford (Macmillan Children’s Books) and Laura Bates’ Sisters of Fire and Fury (Simon & Schuster Children’s UK). Meanwhile, in non-fiction, Moyse said Tim Spector’s Food for Life Cookbook (Jonathan Cape) is “likely to be a big seller” for the booksellers, as is Stanley Tucci’s What I Ate in One Year (Fig Tree).
These two non-fiction titles are also highly anticipated at Amazon, and Barrett said that Spector’s book is likely to “become the nation’s most gifted cookbook this Christmas”.
Carvalho added: “Elsewhere in non-fiction, Terry Deary’s first adult offering, A History of Britain in Ten Enemies (Bantam), provides something fresh and fun for history sections, whilst Gunther Steiner’s Unfiltered (Bantam) is a stand-out for sports. Mary Berry’s Foolproof Dinners [BBC Books] is a highlight for food and drink, and Stanley Tucci’s What I Ate in a Year is sure to be another crowd-pleasing delight.”
Poetry books are also on the publication schedule this Super Thursday, and Carvalho said Margaret Atwood’s anthology Paper Boat (Chatto & Windus) is “sure to be a landmark publication”. As well as Atwood’s book, Moyse also highlighted Stevie Smith’s Not Waving but Drowning (Faber & Faber).
Meanwhile, Carvalho said that “October also signals the start of Christmas gifting season”, highlighting titles like A Story of the Seasons by Anna Wilson and Carolina Rabei, written in partnership with National Trust (Nosy Crow), Tim Peake’s Cosmic Diary of a Future Space Explorer (Wren & Rook), and the third title in Hartigan Browne’s Cluedle puzzle mysteries (Macmillan Children’s Books). Moyse said that Sevenoaks booksellers "always do well with gifty/novelty books this time of year", and they are anticipating the releases of the new Cluedle book and G T Karber’s new book in his Murdle series on Super Thursday, as well as The Official Agatha Christie Puzzle Book (Laurence King Publishing).
