More than 500 books due out on UK publishing’s biggest day, including memoirs by Eric Idle and Michael Caine, a new Jacqueline Wilson novel and a test book by GCHQ

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Booksellers up and down the country are preparing for the annual deluge of hardbacks published on what has become known as Super Thursday, which will see more than 500 new books by authors from David Attenborough to Jacqueline Wilson hit the shelves today.

Given the name by the Bookseller magazine – in the vein of annual shopping events Cyber Monday and Black Friday – 4 October marks the start of the race for the Christmas No 1 in the book charts. This year, there will be 544 new hardbacks released – 40 more than last year.

Quick guide Ten books coming out on Super Thursday 2018 Show Hide Feminists Don't Wear Pink, edited by Scarlett Curtis (Penguin) This essay collection, the latest in a wave of non-fiction on modern feminism, is framed around the question: 'What does feminism mean to you?' Writers penning replies include Emma Watson, Keira Knightley, Helen Fielding as Bridget Jones, Jameela Jamil (pictured) and Nimco Ali. Kill 'Em All by John Niven (William Heinemann) A long awaited sequel to his music industry novel, Kill Your Friends. Set in 2017, it sees Britpop star Steven Stelfox at 47 working as a ‘consultant’ for the biggest pop star on Earth - who also happens to be a junkie and unrepentant sexual predator. Heimat by Nora Krug (Allen Lane) A bestseller in her native Germany, Krug's graphic memoir is a powerful look at both secrets and antisemitism in her own family, as well as Germany's wider problem with addressing its national legacy. Hubert Horatio: How to Raise Your Grownups (Harper Collins) The newest book by the children's laureate and Charlie and Lola creator Lauren Child sees the return of Hubert Horatio Bartle Bobton-Trent, the long-suffering, sensible child with very silly parents. Old Toffer's Book of Consequential Dogs by Christopher Reid (Faber) The official sequel to TS Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats. Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty (Michael Joseph) The latest novel by the bestselling Australian novelist of Big Little Lies sees nine stressed urbanites meet at a health-and-wellness resort. Things don't stay calm very long. Cordially Invited by Zoe Sugg (Hodder and Stoughton) After a controversial attempt to enter the world of fiction (her bestselling novel Girl Online was later revealed to be ghostwritten), Sugg - also known by her YouTuber name Zoella – is now entering the world of party planning with this guide to throwing a do. Expect this to shift a few copies. The Little Book of Wabi-Sabi: How to Embrace Imperfection and Find Balance the Japanese Way by Akemi Solloway Tanaka (Boxtree) You remember last Christmas, when we needed Swedish people to teach us how to clean and Danish people to teach us how to be happy? Here's that book for this year. Blueprint: How DNA Makes Us Who We Are by Robert Plomin (Allen Lane) In a new book likely to kindle fierce controversy, the psychologist and geneticist argues that genes largely shape our personalities and that nature's role in forming us in overestimated. In a House of Lies by Ian Rankin (Orion) Rankin's latest (and 22nd) turn as John Rebus sees the detective come out of retirement to revisit a cold case involving the mysterious reappearance of a missing policeman's body. Photograph: Ramona Rosales

Waterstones called it a “particularly strong Super Thursday … that truly offers something for everyone”.

This festive period looks to have fewer celebrity autobiographies than previous years. The Bookseller’s non-fiction previewer Caroline Sanderson said the guaranteed bestselling memoirs will be “big names in their 70s”: Eric Idle’s “sortabiography” Always Look on the Bright Side of Life; Tina Turner’s memoir My Love Story; Roger Daltrey’s memoir – named Thanks a Lot Mr Kibblewhite, after the authoritarian headmaster who expelled him from school aged 15; and Michael Caine’s Blowing the Bloody Doors Off, all out this month.

“I felt that publishers think if they’re going to do this, they need somebody with a lot of life to write about,” Sanderson said. “The vloggers have really dropped off.” Memoirs from Gary Barlow, Shane Warne and Jo Brand are also slated for pre-Christmas releases.

Sanderson also highlighted puzzle books as “the new colouring books”, with the nation’s wits set to be tested by titles from GCHQ and the Ordnance Survey, which promises “over 200 fiendish puzzles to find out who will be the ultimate map-master”. Astronaut Tim Peake and the European Space Agency, meanwhile, have teamed up to offer The Astronaut Selection Test Book, which “comprises 100 real astronaut tests and training exercises for readers to try at home, and outlines the full ESA selection process for the first time”.

Waterstones’ buyer Bea Carvalho predicted: “The Astronaut Selection Test Book should corner the gift market much in the same way that GCHQ and Bletchley Park Brainteasers have done in the past couple of years.” Waterstones is also expecting that Michael Lewis’s The Fifth Risk, Andrew Roberts’s biography Churchill and Kevin Keegan’s My Life in Football will all sell well.

An updated edition of Attenborough’s Life on Earth is also out to mark the 40th anniversary of its first publication, with new text and photography.

On the fiction front, big titles range from Wilson’s much-anticipated My Mum Tracy Beaker to The Essex Serpent author Sarah Perry’s Melmoth, a title the Bookseller called a “gothic horror triumph” and tipped as leading a literary trend for all things darkly atmospheric. Carvalho said Melmoth was a real highlight, alongside new novels by Bernard Cornwell, Ian Rankin and Peter James. A collection of Leonard Cohen’s last poems and writings, The Flame, is also out next week.

With nearly 63m books typically sold in the run-up to Christmas in the UK – a third of the market’s annual volume – the influx of new titles will continue in the coming weeks: in November, JK Rowling publishes the screenplay of The Crimes of Grindelwald, while Michelle Obama’s memoir Becoming is also out.

But Sanderson said publishers appear to have steered clear of humour titles this year, after a decline in popularity. In January, WH Smith noted a reduced appetite over the last festive period for the likes of the Famous Five and Ladybird parodies, after a particularly strong performance in 2016.

“There seems to be a dearth of humour titles. Perhaps no one can find much to laugh at,” she said.