PRODUCT PREVIEW
Gordon Ramsay
Playing with Fire
Harper, £7.99, 5th, 9780007259885
This should be quite an eyeopener
for all those who
dream of owning a restaurant.
Ramsay’s profile should ensure
a healthy six figures in sales.
BESTSELLERS
Joe Hill
Heart-shaped Box
Gollancz, 1st, £6.99, 9780575081864
My reader felt that this début
from Stephen King’s son
shrugged off the inevitable
comparisons first time out. A
film by Neil Jordan is already in
development.
Stephen Booth
Dying to Sin
Harper, £6.99 5th, 9780007243440
A great, gritty third from the
Crime Writers’ Association 2003
Dagger in the Library winner.
John Twelve Hawks
The Dark River
Corgi, £6.99, 5th, 9780552153355
The Traveller sold 150,000
copies in paperback and this
follow-up managed 20,000 in
hardback.
Lauren Weisberger
With Friends like These (title tbc)
Harper, £6.99, 6th, 9780007262717
With the film of “The Devil
Wears Prada” revitalising sales
it’s a smart move to keep the
spiky stiletto covers.
Mike Gayle
Wish You Were Here
Hodder, £6.99, 1st, 9780340825426
His first for a while, but my
reader—a fan—felt this was
still top notch.
Colleen McCullough
Anthony and Cleopatra
Harper, £7.99, 20th, 9780007225798
The queen of the Roman epic
takes timely advantage of the
popularity of Wilbur Smith’s
ancient Egypt titles.
Jack Henderson
Maximum Impact
Sphere, £6.99, 1st, 9780751539455
A great high-tech terrorism
thriller, the sort of thing Clancy
and Crichton used to do so
well. Little, Brown’s big spend
looks justified.
Eric Van Lustbader
Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne
Betrayal
Orion, £6.99, 29th, 9780752882154
The trilogy of Bourne films
has had a massive influence on
the revitalisation of the thriller
market for men.
Simon Sebag Montefiore
Young Stalin
Phoenix, £9.99, 15th, 9780753823798
Stalin sold more than 200,000
copies and my reader found
this both readable and
thorough. Costa shortlisted.
Alastair
Campbell
The Blair Years
Arrow, £7.99, 1st,
9780099514756
Campbell
provides a new
introduction
to this more
tabloid-look paperback version
of his 135,000-selling diaries.
Dan Mills
Sniper One
Penguin, £6.99, 15th, 9780141029016
This sold 40,000 in hardback on
the back of a Sun serialisation
and a strong supermarket
showing.
Eddie Jordan
An Independent
Man
Orion, £7.99, 15th,
9780752893174
At the time
of writing,
hardback sales
of this title were
looking excellent.
Derek Acorah
Haunted!
Element, £7.99, 19th, 9780007253838
The spoof TV series “High
Spirits” with Shirley Ghostman
shows how much of a cult figure
Acorah has become.
BUBBLING UNDER
Tan Twan Eng
The Gift of Rain
Myrmidon, £7.99, 27th, 9781905802142
This wonderful début,
which is reminiscent of The
Redundancy of Courage, had
already sneaked into Amazon’s
top 100 before its delightfully
unexpected Man Booker
longlisting.
Chuck
Palahniuk
Rant
Vintage, £7.99, 1st,
9780099499367
Palahniuk
surpasses Irvine
20 The Bookseller Spring Paperback Preview | 4 January 2008 www.thebookseller.com
Welsh in his creation of
modern grotesques and is
always a challenge, but sales
figures are reliably in the midfive
figure range.
Rachel Johnson
Shire Hell
Penguin, £6.99, 15th,
9780141035697
Her first, Notting
Hell, sold a
bonkbusting
50,000 copies.
Is Rachel
employing brother Boris as a
researcher?
William Landay
The Strangler
Corgi, 19th, £6.99, 9780552149457
My reader said she saw the end
coming a mile off, but enjoyed
it anyway. The dialogue is
apparently spot-on.
Alison Kervin
WAGs Abroad
Avon, £6.99, 5th, 9781847560551
The follow-up to The WAG’s
Diary, which sold in all the
supermarket chains. The
author is a sports journalist
who brings an insider’s insight
to all the glamour.
Dale Brown
Strike Force
Harper, £6.99, 5th,
9780007243075
There’s no
name more
synonymous
with the airport
thriller and
Brown’s military authenticity
is matched by breathless
storytelling.
Matthew Kneale
When We Were Romans
Picador, £7.99, 2nd, 9780330435727
This is Kneale’s first novel since
Whitbread-winning English
Passengers and it pulls off the
tricky technique of a naïve
child narrator. Fans of Black
Swan Green or The Curious
Incident . . . will like this.
Steven Pinker
The Stuff of Thought
Penguin, £8.99, 29th,
9780141015477
Best known for The Language
Instinct, which has sold more
than 125,000 copies, Pinker’s
latest take on evolutionary
psychology is as readable as
ever. His last, The Blank Slate,
sold 40,000 copies. An odd
jacket though as always.
SPRING PAPERBACK PREVIEW
Johnnie Walker
The Autobiography
Penguin, £7.99, 29th,
9780141024288
The Radio 2
legend’s life
story has sold
more than
20,000 copies
in hardback, with supermarkets
proving the most
significant outlet.
ONES TO WATCH
Holly McQueen
The Glamorous
(Double) Life of
Isabel Bookbinder
Arrow, £6.99, 1st,
9780099524632
Arrow’s biggest
new author
launch for 2008
will see a widespread and
innovative marketing campaign
(including pink, diamantétipped
riding crops).
Nikita Lalwani
Gifted
Penguin, £7.99, 1st, 9780141030395
I was impressed with this
first novel, although the
Man Booker and Costa
acknowledgements took me
rather by surprise.
Duncan
Hamilton
Provided You Don’t
Kiss Me
Perennial, £8.99, 5th,
9780007247110
A smartlywritten
insider’s
biography of
Brian Clough, the man who
symbolises English football
in the 1970s. Winner of the
William Hill Sports Book of the
Year.
Neil White
Lost Souls
Avon, £6.99, 5th, 9781847560186
White’s first title sold
25,000 without Avon’s usual
supermarket presence. Now
these outlets are on board,
trouble could be caused in the
charts. Mark Billingham and
Val McDermid are the closest
comparisons.
Neil Bartlett
Skin Lane
Serpent’s Tail, £7.99, 29th,
9781852429928
My reader thought that
Bartlett’s Costa-shortlisted
third novel—an intimate
To view a Ceros magazine you need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser and have the flash player 8 or higher installed. To install the latest flash player, click the icon above, install the flash plugin and then click here to refresh this page.