You are viewing your 1 free article this month. Login to read more articles.
Booksellers are anticipating an autumn “brimming with fantastic stories” for children, and an “extremely strong” offering across adult fiction, biographies and cookery titles this year, despite a statistically thinner year for titles released on Super Thursday.
Retailers have predicted books including Manifesto: A Rallying Cry to Never Give Up by Bernardine Evaristo (Hamish Hamilton), Anthony Doerr’s Cloud Cuckoo Land (HarperCollins), Riccardino by Andrea Camillieri (Pan Macmillan), John le Carré's Silverview (Viking) and Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead (Little, Brown) will be bestsellers, alongside Sally Rooney’s latest novel and The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles (Cornerstone).
Indies have also reported healthy summer sales so far, as many customers choose British staycations, and they anticipate this will only surge as autumn’s offerings hit the shelves.
Bea Carvalho, Waterstones fiction buyer, said: “In an extremely strong autumn for fiction publishing, John le Carré's Silverview is a stand-out highlight: the news that we would be treated to one final novel from the great storyteller was a welcome surprise, and it is sure to be one of the year’s bestselling and most talked about novels. The day also sees the arrival of the Riccardino, the final Inspector Montalbano mystery from Andrea Camillieri. Both releases mark significant and historic moments in fiction publishing, and allow us to reflect on the incredible careers and works of two true masters of their craft.
“Other highlights in the week’s fiction offer include Chris Hadfield’s debut crime novel The Apollo Murders (Quercus), which is pre-ordering exceptionally well, a new standalone from Sophie Kinsella, and the long-awaited print version of Keisha the Sket.”
Across non-fiction, a number of “stellar” biographies by comedians and celebrities are tipped to sell well at the chain, according to non-fiction buyer Kate McHale. “Among many stand-ups sharing their story this year Billy Connolly's look back over an incredible 50-year career in Windswept and Interesting (Hodder & Stoughton) will be a particular stand out. We're also expecting Tom Daley to score another victory with Coming Up For Air (HarperCollins), and have seen excellent pre-orders already for Bimini Bon Boulash's Release the Beast (Penguin)."
Florentyna Martin, Waterstones children’s buyer, has said the week of 14th October shows a strong increase of seasonal publishing for all ages. “Two of the key titles this week feature new author-illustrator partnerships, with Julia Donaldson and Victoria Sand√∏y creating the heartfelt The Christmas Pine (Scholastic) and J K Rowling and Jim Field bringing us The Christmas Pig (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers),” she told The Bookseller. "Children’s publishing this autumn is brimming with fantastic stories, creative illustrations and engaging formats."
Seasonal titles including the paperback edition of Dogger’s Christmas by Shirley Hughes (Penguin) alongside two Christmasaurus stories from Tom Fletcher and Shane Devries, plus Rob Biddulph's An Odd Dog Christmas (HarperCollins Children's Books) are also predicted to sell well. Martin added new entries to the children’s market, such as Lenny Henry’s The Boy with Wings (Pan Macmillan), illustrated by Keenon Ferrell promises to be "engaging and entertaining" in a "particularly strong hardback autumn for children’s fiction".
Jessie Burton’s Medusa, illustrated by Olivia Lomenech Gill (Bloomsbury), Lyra’s Oxford by Philip Pullman, illustrated by Chris Wormell (Penguin) and Smriti Halls and Steve Small’s I’m Sticking With You Too (S&S) will be recommended as gifts by the retailer.
Commenting on the autumn season, Blackwell’s chief online bookseller Euan Hirst said: “It feels like a greater number of bigger books than usual are coming. Even December has biggies such as the new Amanda Gorman poetry collection”. He predicted The Storyteller by Dave Grohl (S&S) would be “lapped up” by readers, alongside Claire Tomlin’s book on H G Wells. Nigel Slater’s A Cook's Book, the Ottolenghi Test Kitchen series and Rachel Roddy’s An A-Z of Pasta (Fig Tree) are also predicted to sell “fabulously well”.
However, he was more cautious about the novels coming out over the coming months. He explained: “Fiction to me, at this stage, feels more solid than spectacular. Outside of the ‘can’t miss’ such as Richard Osman I’m hoping that Jessie Burton’s Medusa (Bloomsbury) is produced as gorgeously as it promises to be.”
Nic Bottomley, founder of Mr B's Emporium in Bath, said: "We’re excited this autumn about Amor Towles' The Lincoln Highway, Anthony Doerr’s Cloud Cuckoo Land, Ruth Ozeki’s Book of Form and Emptiness and Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead. So as usual, we're not really focused on Super Thursday but just excited for some big new fiction titles across the autumn. We're excited for the Dave Grohl biography, and lots of great looking kids books coming out.”
Rustie Baker, assistant manager at Rossiter Books in Ross-on-Wye, is among the indies to be benefiting from domestic tourism, and hopes this will continue in the lead up to Super Thursday. “We appear to be having a great summer so far with sales being slightly higher than they usually would. We are lucky to be situated in the Wye Valley, which is proving to be one of the holiday destinations this year. There has definitely been a surge in tourist shoppers. If things remain as they are I can see autumn continuing at a steady pace, we are starting to prepare for physical events again rather than just online and there is a sense in which people are starting feel like things are getting back to some sense of normality.”
He expects new titles by Delia Owens, Evaristo, le Carré, Whitehead, Rooney and Camilleri will sell well, and is looking forward to the republication of Jackie Morris' East of the Sun, West of the Moon and The Wild Swans (Unbound) along with The Song that Sings Us by Nicola Davies (Firefly Press), which Morris has illustrated.
“While autumn's books may be spread out a little more this year, there are certainly lots of titles to look forward to,” he said.
Chrissy Ryan, founder of new shop BookBar in Islington in north London, predicted Taste: My Life Through Food by Stanley Tucci (Fig Tree), Evaristo’s Manifesto, Case Study by Graeme Macrae Burnet (Saraband) and William Sieghart’s anthology Everyone Sang: A Poem for Every Feeling (Walker) will prove popular with readers.
“Although generally, I feel like there is a smaller list and most of it is even more tailored to big retail brands than usual, I'm really excited to see what breaks out at BookBar — especially as it's our first Super Thursday. I know we'll continue to hand sell our favourite titles from the year and expect our non-fiction hardback sales to continue to grow into autumn,” she said.