PRODUCT PREVIEW
A bumper start to the year
Jonathan Ruppin shares his pick of titles set for success in the first half of 2008
KEY TO RANKING:
Giants 100,000+ sales
Bestsellers 50,000+ sales
Bubbling Under 30,000+ sales
JANUARY
GIANTS
Ian McEwan
On Chesil Beach
Vintage, £6.99, 3rd,
9780099512790
Opinion has been
more divided
over On Chesil
Beach than on
McEwan’s last
few titles, but the extraordinary
sales of Atonement on the back
of the film adaptation will bring
him a new readership.
Markus Zusak
The Book Thief
Black Swan, £7.99, 1st,
9780552773898
My reader
couldn’t find
fault with this
and, after selling
40,000 copies
in hardback, Transworld may
reach its ambitious target of
500,000 and will pull out all the
stops to promote.
Lesley Pearse
Faith
Penguin, £6.99, 17th,
9780141030487
Pearse’s last title,
Hope, sold over
250,000 copies—
a 10% increase
on her previous
novel, A Lesser Evil. Penguin
is aiming to break 300,000 and
take her to number one in the
charts for the first time.
John Connolly
The Unquiet
Hodder, £6.99, 10th,
9780340920510
With the most
recent novel
in his Charlie
Parker series
selling 200,000
copies, Connolly has earned his
position as one of the biggest
names in UK crime fiction.
The following titles have been
selected for the “Richard &
Judy” Book Club. The
selection was made public
on 27th December, with
publishers committing to
make them available in
bookshops from this date. All
10 titles picked should reach
giant status based on the
performance of past “Richard
& Judy” titles.
Danny
Scheinmann
Random Acts of
Heroic Love
Black Swan, £7.99,
9780552774222
Originally set
for release
in February,
this was always an inhouse
favourite at Transworld, who
had ambitious targets for
it. It’s set firmly in Louis de
Bernières territory.
R&J transmission date: 9th January
Khaled
Hosseini
A Thousand
Splendid Suns
Bloomsbury, £11.99,
9780747582977
Perhaps only
J K Rowling is
less in need of
Richard and Judy’s blessing!
With 120,000 hardbacks sold
before this trade paperback
was released for Christmas,
Hosseini has not disappointed
with his follow-up to The Kite
Runner. The film and tie-in
cover of The Kite Runner
coincide too.
R&J transmission date:
16th January
RICHARD & JUDY 2008 PICKS
10 The Bookseller Spring Paperback Preview | 4 January 2008 www.thebookseller.com
Katharine
McMahon
The Rose of
Sebastopol
Phoenix, £6.99,
9780753823743
Originally set
for publication
in April, this
is a well-researched account
of the Crimean War from the
point of view of the fiancée of a
combatant. My reader found it
rather slow though.
R&J transmission date:
23rd January
R J Ellory
A Quiet Belief in
Angels
Orion, £6.99,
9780752882635
Ellory is already
widely reviewed
as a rising
star in crime
fiction. This is a gripping
serial-killer thriller with real
depth.
R&J transmission date: 30th January
Patrick Gale
Notes From an
Exhibition
Perennial, £7.99,
9780007254668
A subtle and
sensitive
exploration
of manic
depression originally due for
publication in June. Perfect for
fans of Carol Shields’ Unless.
R&J transmission date:
6th February
Joshua Ferris
Then We Came to
the End
Penguin, £7.99,
9780141027630
A great new
jacket for a
book which
didn’t suit a
hardback release. The book is
staggeringly good: Generation
X with a mortgage, “Office
Space” with millennial angst.
R&J transmission date: 13th
February
SPRING PAPERBACK PREVIEW
Mark
Slouka
The Visible World
Portobello, £7.99,
9781846270864
An ambitiously
post-modern
choice for
“Richard &
Judy”, but the idea that our
lives are in thrall to a broader
history is universal.
R&J transmission date: 20th
February
Lloyd
Jones
Mister Pip
John Murray, 7.99,
9780719569944
Despite not
winning the
Man Booker, I’d
already thought
this unforgettable novel
would outsell The Gathering
comfortably. My tip to win the
viewers’ vote.
R&J transmission date: 27th
February
Tim
Butcher
Blood River
Vintage, £8.99,
9780099494287
Butcher’s
culturally
sensitive
account of
the Congo should finally lay
to rest Joseph Conrad’s
imperial vision.
R&J transmission date:
5th March
Peter Ho
Davies
The Welsh Girl
Sceptre, £7.99,
9780340938270
Man Bookerlonglisted
and
better, in my
opinion, than
both McEwan and Faulks
to whom he has been
compared.
R&J transmission date:
12th March
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