Celebrity books from Peter Kay, Ant and Dec, Jeremy Clarkson and Jamie Oliver were being tipped to storm the Christmas book charts as the busiest publishing day of the year got under way, while Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol looks set to be the festive number one.
Nearly 800 major new hardback titles were published today - dubbed “Super Thursday” by the publishing trade - kicking off the anticipated Christmas stampede.
Bookmakers William Hill has teamed up with retailer Waterstone’s to offer odds for the first time on who will be the number one author at Christmas.
Andrew Flintoff and Jenson Button are also in with a shout of a Christmas number one according to the betting experts, as are Katie Price and Delia Smith.
Punters and book lovers can place bets on which title will be the nation’s number one in Christmas week (the chart for the week ending December 19).
At odds of 5/2, Brown’s The Lost Symbol, the long-awaited follow-up to The Da Vinci Code, is expected to come out on top, having sold more than one copy every second in its first five days of release.
But following the massive success of his 2006 memoir, Kay’s new book Saturday Night Peter could steal Brown’s thunder, with odds of 3/1.
Waterstone’s spokesman Jon Howells said that celebrity memoirs often take the crown in the last days before Christmas.
He said: “Russell Brand was number one in 2007; Peter Kay did it in 2006 and Jamie Oliver in 2005. Peter and Jamie are both back this year, but so are many other huge names - there is no sure thing.”
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