Horologicon tops indie Christmas tips

| By Lisa Campbell

Mark Forsyth’s follow-up to last Christmas’ runaway hit The Etymologicon (Icon) has been picked as the top title for booksellers to champion this December.

Publishers pitched alternative Christmas hits to booksellers at the Bookseller Association’s annual conference at Warwick University in September. The retailers voted for their favourites, with Forsyth’s The Horologicon (Icon) today (20th November) revealed as topping the Bookshop Originals list.

Two titles by John Murray made the indies’ choice selection, Patrick Leigh Fermor by Artemis Cooper, also on the shortlist for Waterstones Book of the Year award, at number two, and humorous title The Middle Class ABC by Fi Cotter-Craig and Zebedee Helm, in third.

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Publishers pick their wishes and misses of 2012

The Good Muslim

|The Bookseller Staff

The Good Muslim, The Marriage Plot and Go the F**k to Sleep are among the books literary publishing directors wish they had published themselves this year, with Other People’s Money, What I Did and The Dovekeepers among those they had thought would make a bigger impact.

In a Guardian round-up of “Wishes and Misses”, publishers including Jamie Byng, Suzanne Baboneau and Alexandra Pringle selected the titles they wish they had published, and those they did that they had higher hopes for. Among the reasons for books not catching a wider readership, the editors suggested variously a lack of support from booksellers, and the challenge of “pushing a backlist”.

Pringle, editor-in-chief at Bloomsbury, selected Other People’s Money by Justin Cartwright as her book which deserved better, saying: “It received outstanding reviews—the best, probably, he has every received—and it sold well. Yet not only was it not shortlisted for the Man Booker or Costa; it was not once mentioned in the press as one that should have been nominated.” She selected Tahmina Anam’s The Good Muslim (Canongate) and Louisa Young’s My Dear I Wanted to Tell You (HarperCollins) as books she was “especially sad” not to get, having offered on them.

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Big names set to dominate children’s Christmas

Christopher Paolini's Inheritance

25.11.11 | Caroline Horn

Booksellers are relying on a handful of established names to boost sales this Christmas, with little expectation of any surprise bestsellers emerging in the next few weeks.

Melissa Cox, new titles buyer at Waterstone’s, said: “We already have early indications of what will do well this Christmas, including Jeff Kinney’s Cabin Fever and Christopher Paolini’s Inheritance. David Walliams’ Gangsta Granny is another nice gift book and, I think, his best work to date.”

Rachel Airey, buyer at W H Smith, said: “For us, the big authors are going to be even bigger this Christmas. That is what we have seen so far, and we expect it to continue. We don’t see new names cutting through or generating much excitement.” Sales for Cabin Fever reached 81,804, while Christopher Paolini’s Inheritance has sold 100,984 to date.

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Retailers hail strong and open Christmas

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 | By Charlotte Williams and Lisa Campbell

Comic actor James Corden, star chef Jamie Oliver and actress Joanna Lumley are among the most hotly tipped authors for Christmas 2011, with retailers looking to capitalise on one of the strongest selections of titles for years, and a “really open” market.

Corden’s autobiography, May I Have Your Attention Please? (Century), Oliver’s cookbook, Jamie’s Great Britain (Penguin), and Lumley’s memoir, Absolutely (W&N), were each chosen by three of the leading retailers and wholesalers as Christmas bestsellers.

Comedians Lee Evans and Steve Coogan’s Alan Partridge, fiction stalwarts Cecilia Ahern and Terry Pratchett, and literary stars Haruki Marukami, Carol Ann Duffy and Jeffrey Eugenides were tipped by two retailers, out of the six polled, indicating a strong selection of titles across a variety of genres.

A spokesman at Waterstone’s—heading for its first Christmas under new m.d. James Daunt—said: “The selection of titles is one of the strongest we have seen in years. There are some incredibly big celebrity titles and some quality writing across fiction, children’s, cookery and biography.”

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MPs vote for Mullin

The memoirs of former Labour MP Chris Mullin are the favourite choice for holiday reading among members of parliament, according to a survey conducted for Waterstone’s by polling and research company ComRes.

Four per cent of MPs picked either Mullin’s Decline and Fall or his A View from the Foothills, both published by Profile, while only 3% opted for former PM Tony Blair’s A Journey (Random House)….read more