Thursday, October 13, 2011

Peter James scores first number one

12.10.11 | Philip Stone - The Bookseller

Crime Writers' Association chair Peter James has scored his first ever Official UK Top 50 number one. The mass-market edition of Dead Man's Grip (Pan), the Brighton-born novelist's seventh Roy Grace thriller, sold 29,640 copies in its first full week in UK bookshops, almost 7,000 more than the second bestselling book of the week, Jamie Oliver's Jamie's Great Britain (Michael Joseph, 22,748 copies sold).
Last week's number one, Lee Child's The Affair (Bantam Press), falls two places to third position overall, while the latest edition of Guinness World Records (Guinness) stays firm in fourth place. Jane Fallon's The Ugly Sister (Penguin) climbs 15 places into fifth position week-on-week, equalling her highest ever Official UK Top 50 chart position.
Rick Riordan's second Heroes of Olympus novel, The Son of Neptune (Puffin), is the highest new entry in this week's Official UK Top 50, débuting in seventh position overall. The novel sold 13,840 copies in its first three days on bookshop shelves last week, up 70% on the first week sales of the previous book in the series, The Lost Hero.
Other Top 50 débutantes include Raymond Khoury's The Templar Salvation (Orion, 25th position); Belinda Bauer's Darkside (Corgi, 30th position); the film tie-in edition of Kathryn Stockett's The Help (Penguin, 33rd position), and Sir Max Hastings' authoritative history of the second world war, All Hell Let Loose (HarperPress, 31st position).
Hastings' £30, 850-page tome was the eighth bestselling hardback non-fiction book of the week and one of four new entries in this week's Top 20 Hardback Non-fiction chart. Claire Tomalin's critically acclaimed biography of Charles Dickens (Charles Dickens: A Life, Viking) joins the list in 12th position with Keith Lemon's The Rules (Orion) and Lord Alan Sugar's The Way I See It (Macmillan) also joining the chart.
With sales of 13,468 copies last week, Lee Evans' The Life of Lee (Michael Joseph) remains the bestselling celebrity memoir in the UK, with James Corden's May I Have Your Attention Please? (Century) the second most popular with sales of 13,106 copies.
In total, £34.4m was spent at UK bookshops in the seven days to 8th October, up 7.4% week-on-week, but down 8% on the same week last year. According to Nielsen BookScan Top 5,000 data, sales of novels remain significantly below last year's levels, with spending on hardback novels down 35% year-on-year and spending on paperback novels down 15%. However, children's book sales are ahead of last year, as are sales of academic books.
Ninety-one different textbooks enjoyed sales of more than £10,000 at UK booksellers last week, up from 83 in the comparative week last year. Stella Cottrell’s perennial bestseller, The Study Skills Handbook (Palgrave), was the bestselling academic title in the UK last week, selling 1,983 copies, while four Oxford University Press titles (A Dictionary of Law, The Globalization of World Politics, EU Law: Texts, Cases and Materials, and Blackstone’s EU Treaties and Leglisation) also enjoyed sales of 1,000 copies or more.


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