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'Super Thursday' hopes to bring patrons into UK bookstores

More than 300 titles became available in bookstores today in the UK. Bookstore owners are hoping the huge amount of titles will get curious visitors into their shops.

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Joel Ryan/Invision/AP
John Cleese arrives ahead of a book signing for his book 'So, Anyway' at Waterstones Piccadilly in central London on 'Super Thursday.'
  • By Molly Driscoll Staff Writer

If you live in a UK and there’s a book you’ve been waiting for this year, chances are good it hits bookstores today. 

In the UK bookstore world, today is known as Super Thursday – more than 300 of the year’s top titles are all coming out today, according to the Guardian. Titles by authors such as John Cleese, Jacqueline Wilson, Terry Pratchett, Rachel Joyce, and Andrew Motion, among many others, are now available.

According to Sky News, Super Thursday was first named in 2008, but according to the Telegraph, this is the largest amount of titles to be released on a Super Thursday yet.

The Independent’s Sunday literary editor Katy Guest told Sky News, “Maybe the fact that publishers and booksellers are all coming together – instead of working against each other and pitting their books against each other for sales – will help.”

Booksellers Association president and owner of two bookstores Tim Walker told the Guardian he expected lines outside his stores today. He said he hopes the amount of titles just gets people in the door.

“The huge number of new  and highly anticipated new titles creates an awful lot of news and gets people into bookshops, which are the best places to discover other books,” Walker said in an interview with the Guardian.

Meanwhile, artist Tracey Emin of the campaign Books are my Bag designed a Books are my Bag tote for the day and 25,000 of them will be distributed today at bookstores, according to the Guardian.

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