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Sarah Waters’ The Little Stranger is the most popular title of those books from the Booker longlist currently available, with sales almost double those of its nearest rival. The Booker 'dozen' was announced on Tuesday (28th July), with the trade hailing the list as "strong" and likely to draw "new readers into bookshops".
Waters’ latest historical novel, published in May by Virago, has already chalked up sales of 27,005, almost double the sales of its nearest rival Me Cheeta which has sold 14,305 since it release in October 2008. Third in line is Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, which has sold 14,092 since April this year, followed by The Children’s Book by A S Byatt with 12,202 since May. Brooklyn by Colm Toibin has so far picked up sales of 9,405, The Wilderness by Samantha Harvey 7,445, How to Paint a Dead Man by Sarah Hall at 1,221 and Adam Foulds’ The Quickening Maze with sales of 1,057.
J M Coetzee’s Summertime (Harvill Secker) and William Trevor’s Love and Summer (Viking) are not yet published, while The Glass Room, Not Untrue and Not Unkind and Heliopolis have so far reported sales too low to appear on Nielsen BookScan's weekly top 5,000 bestseller list.
Sam Husain, c.e.o. of Foyles said the list "has something for everyone and should continue the work of last year's winner in drawing new readers into bookshops". Emma Milne-White of Hungerford Bookshop agreed "there are a lot of big publishers [on the list] it would have been nice to have more indies". She added: "A lot of the titles we would stock anyway; the longlist is not usually commercially viable for us, the shortlist is more so and the winner definitely."
Janine Cook, Waterstone's fiction buyer said: "It's a very strong longlist, with the potential to become an exceptional shortlist in terms of attracting readers." Chris Rushby, buying and marketing director at Bertrams, said: "There are some solid literary titles in there. I was really pleased about Me Cheeta's inclusion. It's a leftfield choice that will generate a lot of column inches." But he said the longlist was "not a massively exciting prospect in terms of sales. It's really only the winner who gets a massive boost".
The shortlist will be revealed on 8th September, and the winner announced on 6th October. The bookies have installed Coetzee as the favourite, with Waters the second favourite.