The biggest book drop of the year

Our top picks from Super Thursday

Oct 14, 2024

It’s been a big week in books.

Last Thursday saw the biggest annual book drop in publishing. This happens every year, on the second Thursday in October, and gears booksellers up for the lead up to Christmas. This years drop is up significantly on previous years, signifying a bounce back post Covid, and 24% of the 1,900 titles are hardback. Books that are released on this date often go on to be the years top bestsellers… so it’s understandably quite a big deal.

Expected to climb to the top is Boris Johnson’s memoir ‘Unleashed’. The other big names mentioned in press releases are Tim Spector, Ian Rankin, Jodi Picoult, Miranda Hart and Kate Mosse. To help you avoid the Boris trap, we’ve pulled together our picks of the new releases. These are the books we’re most excited about, that intrigue us or are by much loved and can’t wait to read again authors.

The Sunday Times Bestseller list for last week comes out this weekend, so no hot takes on what’s trending just yet, but excited to see what the nation has been buying this coming Sunday. (Side note: I found the bestseller list, particularly fiction, very boring this week. What did you think?) However, if Waterstones current bestsellers is anything to go by then so far so predictable.

Also announced last week was Han Kang winning the Nobel Prize in Literature “for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life”. Post which, The Guardian reported she had sold out in South Korea as the country celebrates her win. The pictures of the queues are joyous. Luckily for us, she’s not (yet) sold out here and so I’ll be adding her to my autumn reading list.

And then over the weekend it was Bookshop Day. If you haven’t celebrated yet why not take this as your prompt to pop down to your local for a cosy peruse?

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Here’s our picks of the autumn drop:

What I Ate in One Year by Stanley Tucci

Tucci is one of my favourite celebrities (have you seen his somewhat ludicrous reels of making a cocktail? Or today’s, searching for his book in an airport. I adore them). He seems to make the smaller things in life - like making a drink at home or cooking a meal - feel chic and exciting, and he interweaves very moving personal stories throughout. His new book had a strong write up in The Sunday Times this weekend and I particularly enjoyed this quote:

“What’s that book about?” the boyfriend asks when he sees me reading Stanley Tucci’s What I Ate in One Year. I glare at him. “It’s about what Stanley Tucci ate in one year.”
“Right,” the reply comes. “You’d have to be pretty confident in your personal brand to publish that book.” And you know what? He’s not wrong.

He’s not wrong indeed.

The Little Library Parties by Kate Young

Sticking with the food theme, I’m excited about Kate Young’s new release of party recipes inspired by her favourite literature. And with Caroline Eden as a cover quote I’m even more excited.

Skandar and the Skeleton Curse by A. F. Steadman

This is the fourth book in the popular series which saw Steadman receive what is apparently the largest ever advance deal for a debut children’s writer (in the 7 figures plus film rights from Sony). What a hero. The series follows warrior unicorn riders on a mysterious island.

Meditations for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman

I really enjoyed his previous book Four Thousand Weeks and there is an idea in it that I think of often: in the abundance of so much choice, it’s the decisions that we make that give our life meaning. This is the antithesis to FOMO, and I love it. This book promises to muse on the improvements we can make to our modern lives, delivered in a daily chapter over the course of four weeks.

Paper Boat by Margaret Atwood

First things first, this cover is a beauty. This is a book of poetry covering Atwood’s career which I’m super intrigued by. I am not familiar with Atwood as a poet, but The Handmaid’s Tale remains one of the top books I’ve read so I will be trying it.

The Vegetarian by Nobel Prize Winner Han Kang

Perhaps her most famous, so I’ll be starting here. This was released in 2007, translated to English in 2015, won the International Booker in 2016 and made it to the NYT’s Top 100 Books of the 21st Century list. And now Kang has won the Nobel Prize.

What Happened to Belén by Ana Elena Correa

I first heard about this book when Judith Curr mentioned it in her panel session at London Book Fair this year. It’s a true story of an Argentinian woman imprisoned for having a miscarriage, without knowing she was pregnant. I’ve been waiting for this one for a while - reviews are calling it an essential read about the criminalisation of women’s heath care.

The Starling: A Biography by Stephen Moss

I’m intrigued by this book which looks in depth at the starling, including its influence in culture from Shakespeare to Mozart. Book 6 in Moss’s Bird Biography series.

Here’s the list (with everything linked in our shop, which supports our work):

What I Ate in One Year by Stanley Tucci
The Little Library Parties by Kate Young
Skandar and the Skeleton Curse by A. F. Steadman
Meditations for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman
Paper Boat by Margaret Atwood
The Vegetarian by Han Kang
What Happened to Belén by Ana Elena Correa
The Starling: A Biography by Stephen Moss

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