Super Thursday in Britain, and what U.S., U.K. publishers will be taking to Frankfurt

Americans have “Black Friday,” the Friday after Thanksgiving, which is the start of the Christmas shopping fiasco season, and which can, on occasion, lead to actual loss of life. It’s hard to imagine book buyers trampling store employees to death to get their hands on the new Audrey Niffenegger title, but British retailers are boning up for what they’re calling “Super Thursday” this Oct. 1, when a staggering 800 titles will publish in advance of the Christmas selling season.

With the months between October and December accounting for anywhere from 30% to 40% of annual sales, publishers obviously have a lot invested in the books that will drop this week. But one wonders how anyone hopes to break out of the pack with so many titles appearing on store shelves simultaneously. From the Guardian:

“It’s nice to have a day that feels quite special, because it is a rare title that is truly big enough to be a publishing event in itself,” says Julia Kingsford, head of marketing at bookseller Foyles. “But the inevitablility, with 800 books coming out on this one day, is that there will be things that are missed. There are an awful lot of books published, and not everything can be number one.”

Of course, British publishers can breathe (somewhat) easier knowing that the behemoth blockbuster of the fall, Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol, has already dropped, so they’ll only have the ripple effects of its publication to deal with. Still, with new books from Terry Pratchett, Kate Mosse, Ozzy Osborne, and Stieg Larsson among those set to appear on Thursday, it’s a tight field.

Meanwhile, publishers in both the U.S. and Britain are gearing up for that other fall ritual: the Frankfurt Book Fair. Publisher’s Weekly gives a rundown of some of the big titles that reps will be taking with them to the annual fair, and it’s another cornucopia of big names and potential blockbusters. Some highlights:

• Imperial Bedrooms, Bret Easton Ellis’s sequel to Less than Zero
• 1Q84, Haruki Murakami’s doorstopper of a novel
• The Living Dead, zombie maestro George A. Romero’s first novel
• Stones into Schools, Greg Mortenson’s follow-up to the best-selling Three Cups of Tea
• Insatiable, a modern-day sequel to Dracula by chick-lit mainstay Meg Cabot
• Horns, by best-selling Stephen King progeny Joe Hill
• The Memory, an adult novel from “Sisterpants” author Ann Brashares
• Committed, the new book from Elizabeth Gilbert, of Eat, Pray, Love fame
• The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, a typically uncontroversial novel from Philip Pullman
• Revenge, the fiction debut from Sharon Osbourne (what’s good for the goose…)

About Author Audrey Niffenegger

Sponsored Blog Post: Audrey Niffenegger resides in Chicago, where she is a visual artist and professor in the MFA program at the Columbia College Chicago Centre for Book and Paper Arts. At the end of four and half years of writing The Time Traveler’s Wife, Niffenegger dyed her hair red, as a tribute and a way to say goodbye to lead character Claire Tabshire.  She has published The Three Incestuous Sisters: An Illustrated Novel ( Harry N. Abrams Publishers, 2005) a fairytale about the lives of three sisters who live by the sea, and The Adventuress (Harry N. Abrams, 2006) a dreamy tale of an alchemist’s daughter and her discovery of love. Both books featured illustrations done by Niffenegger. This September, Audrey Niffenegger will publish Her Fearful Symmetry: A Novel (Scribner), about the lives of twin girls who inherit a home near Highgate cemetery in London. According to the NY Times, she received an advance of US$5 million. Currently the trade paperback edition of The Time Traveler’s Wife is one of the top five bestsellers on the New York Times Bestseller list.

IFOA goes XXX with Alice Munro, Margaret Atwood, Eoin Colfer and more

The International Festival of Authors has just announced the preliminary lineup for this year’s edition, which will mark the festival’s 30th anniversary. (In the press release, the festival is dubbed “IFOA XXX,” which suggests the usual schedule of readings, panels, and onstage interviews will be enlivened by literary mud wrestling and peep shows. Alas…)

Though it seems a wee bit early  for the announcement – the festival runs Oct. 21-31 – the list of confirmed authors is impressive.

Already confirmed are Alice Munro, Margaret Atwood, Barry Callaghan, Anne Michaels, Lisa Moore, Miriam Toews, Daniel Poliquin, Leon Rooke, Jane Urquhart, John Irving, Nicholson Baker, Debra Adelaide, Denise Mina, Tash Aw, Paul Theroux, Sarah Waters, Audrey Niffenegger, Kyle Buckley, Paul Durcan, Jacob McArthur Mooney, Linwood Barclay, John Brady, Hal Niedzviecki, Tim Cook, Sherman Alexie, John Bemrose, Diana Fitzgerald Bryden, Bonnie Burnard, Dani Couture, Michael Crummey, Anne DeGrace, Margaret Elphinstone, Robert Girardi, Jason Guriel, Jennica Harper, Jim Lynch, Linden MacIntyre, Jean McNeil, James W. Nichol, Kate Pullinger, Boualem Sansal, Ingo Schulze, Olive Senior, Adam Thorpe, Michael Turner, and Alexis Wright.

In other words, more writers than you can shake a stick at.

There will also be an appearance by Anne Murray – yes, that Anne Murray – and fans of the late Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series will get a look at a new, 6th installment, penned by U.K. kidlit favourite Eoin Colfer.

(We are also happy to note that Q&Q‘s own Meaghan Strimas will be reading at the festival.)

Books that need to be films

A day after posting a list of the worst book-to-film adaptations, the A.V. Club has come up with a much more interesting and imaginative feature: 21 good books that need to be great films, like now.

The list consists of several recent literary hits – Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife – but there are also a lot of surprising, left-field choices, too, such as Don Rosa’s graphic novel The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck – which would indeed make an excellent kids flick – and David Rains Wallace’s based-on-a-true-story The Bonehunter’s Revenge, about two duelling 19th century paleontologists.

There’s also a bit of CanCon on the list, with Lydia Millet’s Oh Pure and Radiant Heart being nominated as potential material for Terry Gilliam, and Barbara Gowdy’s Mister Sandman as material for Tim Burton (!).