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A Christmas to remember: Charlie Mackesy's follow-up tops bestseller list for bookshops
Charlie Mackesy’s Always Remember (Ebury Press) has been a “hugely popular” title in the lead up to Christmas this year. Featuring messages of “kindness, love and compassion”, the book has been a top gift choice for customers, while Waterstones head of books Bea Carvalho noted that “this year’s autumn publishing selection has been a gift for booksellers”.
At Gulp Fiction Books in Oxford, the booksellers are “leading with three titles on single title tables”, including Always Remember, Map Men’s This Way Up (Mudlark), and The Rose Field (Penguin and David Fickling Books), the conclusion to Philip Pullman’s the Book of Dust series. “Always Remember is popular because of the success of the previous title, obviously, but also because it has moral messages that are in line with the deeper meaning of Christmas,” said owner Oliver Mason. “It makes a good gift for anyone: this book says ‘I care about you’, ‘you’ being the recipient.”
Lucy Steeds’ The Artist (John Murray) and The Café At The Edge Of The Woods (HarperCollins Children’s Books) by Mikey Please have emerged as Waterstones’ bestsellers this season, after being announced as Book of the Year and Children’s Book of the Year respectively last month, while Tim Siadatan’s Padella (Bloomsbury) has also “shot up the charts”. “This year’s autumn publishing selection has been a gift for booksellers, with long-awaited titles bringing more occasional customers through the doors and plenty for more regular readers to discover: the bookshops are pleasingly busy as a result,” Carvalho said.
Book shoppers started their Christmas shopping “slightly earlier” than last year, according to Amber Harrison of FOLDE Dorset, with customers “coming in mid-November to ‘look ahead’ and plan their spending, in response to managing budgets”. The booksellers have noticed a “seasonal element too driven by the weather shift, with people wanting to settle down in the evening with a good book”.
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The co-founder of FOLDE highlighted titles including Katherine May’s Wintering (Rider), which reflects readers’ “desire to retreat” during the season, and Robert Macfarlane’s “hugely giftable” Firefly, illustrated by Luke Adam Hawker (Magic Cat Publishing). Other bestselling titles have included Jane McMorland Hunter’s A Nature Poem for Every Winter Evening (Batsford), Alice Fox’s Wild Weave (Batsford), The Lyme Regis Women’s Swimming Club by Rachel McLean and Millie Ravensworth (Ackroyd Publishing), and The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley (Sceptre). “Overall, we’re finding many customers are keen to give books that they have enjoyed, or have been waiting for, and are enjoying the range that’s available at the moment,” Harrison said.
Alex Call, the founder and owner of Bert’s Books in Swindon and The Bookseller’s Charts editor, also noted an early start to the Christmas shopping rush this year. While sales were up for the bookshop in the last week of November, Call noted that this trend was not reflected in the market. “Always Remember has been delighting customers as they find it in the shop,” he said, “many of them have loved the original title and have been thrilled to find a sequel – many are gifting it for Christmas.”
Mackesy’s first book and Chloe Dalton’s Women’s Prize-shortlisted Raising Hare (Canongate Books) have become “ongoing favourites”, for customers at White Rose Books in York, according to managing director Sue Lake. This was echoed by Harrison, who said customers are “keen to give [Raising Hare] to friends and family. It’s definitely the book of the year for us and our customers. And the indie freebies of bookmarks and gift wrap are an added bonus”.
For White Rose Books, the autumn’s bestselling title has been the full-price edition of The Rose Field, despite “deep discounting elsewhere”. The booksellers have also continued to sell Bob Mortimer’s The Long Shoe (Gallery UK), James Fox’s Craftland (Bodley Head), and Alice Loxton’s Eleanor (Macmillan). The booksellers “observed earlier Christmas gift buying this year”, with sales up since mid-November.
Titles with a local twist have also been popular Christmas gift options this year. Mel Griffin of Griffin Books in Penarth highlighted According to G (Quercus), recently retired Welsh cyclist Geraint Thomas’ autobiography, and Call noted the popularity of Harriet Hitchen’s Swindon Mountain (Crumps Barn Studio). White Rose Books is “lacking a really strong local title this year” but Lake is anticipating the success of ‘Yorkshire Shepherdess’ Amanda Owen’s Christmas Tales from the Farm (Puffin).
In Children’s, Sarah Dennis, owner of Mostly Books in Abingdon, noted the continued success of The Poisoned King by Katherine Rundell (Bloomsbury Children’s), while Call said popular choices for young readers have included books from Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid (Puffin), Jamie Smart’s Bunny vs Monkey (DFB Phoenix) and Dav Pilkey’s Dog Man (Scholastic) series.
