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Booker boost for book sales

14.08.07 Philip Stone

Ian McEwan's On Chesil Beach (Jonathan Cape) performed best of the 13 titles longlisted for the Man Booker Prize last Tuesday, with 2,518 copies sold in the week to 11th August, an increase of 23.9% on its previous week's sales.

A long way off the figure but second on the Booker list is Tan Twan Eng's The Gift of Rain (Myrmidon Books) which sold 259 units, an increase of 26.3% on the previous week. Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones (John Murray) was the only other title to sell more than 200 units last week, increasing sales from 55 to 201 over the two weeks, an increase of 265.5%.

Catherine O'Flynn's What Was Lost (Tindal Street) was close behind with 197 units sold-an increase of 838% on the previous week's 21 copies sold. Peter Ho Davies’ The Welsh Girl (Sceptre) sold 172 copies last week up from the previous week’s 26.

Nine of the thirteen shortlisted titles featured in the top 5,000. Nicola Barker’s Darkmans (Fourth Estate), Michael Redhill’s Consolations (Heinemann) and Indra Sinha’s Animal’s People (Simon & Schuster) are yet to enter the charts; A N Wilson’s Winnie & Wolf (Hutchinson) is published on 16th August.

The children's edition of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows maintained its position at the top of the charts this week, selling 58,100 copies, down from 127,305 the previous week. The adult edition fell five places to seventh on the list, selling 25,906 copies, less than half the 55,333 units it sold the week before.

In its place is the recently reviewed Richard & Judy's Summer Read Mark Mills' The Savage Garden (Harper), which shifted 34,261 copies, up 65.3% on last week. HarperCollins took third place too, with Michael Crichton back in the charts with the paperback of Next selling 34,052 units.

Notable new entries to the charts this week include John Le Carré's The Mission Song (Hodder) in paperback, selling 8,942 in its first full week since publication, and Peter Robinson's new crime novel Friend of the Devil (Hodder) which is third on the Original Fiction chart behind Katie Price's Crystal (Arrow) and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

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