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McCall Smith tops charts for L,B

12.02.08 Philip Stone

The eighth title in the Number One Ladies Detective Agency series has earned Alexander McCall Smith his first ever chart-topper. The Good Husband of Zebra Drive's 35,945 weekly sale also represented Little, Brown's first overall number one since Patricia Cornwell's Predator in April 2006, and the first for the Abacus imprint.

Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns (Bloomsbury) remains second overall, with a weekly sale of 26,765, spending a fifth consecutive week leading the Independent Retailer's chart. With Patrick Gale's Notes From an Exhibition (HarperPerennial) in third with 23,090, Hosseini remains the only member of this year's Richard and Judy Book Club to top the overall charts.

James Patterson jumped into the top fifteen for the second time this year but under his previous publisher. The mass-market edition of 6th Target (Headline) follows hot off the heels of 7th Heaven (Century), with a 17,836 weekly sale.

Meanwhile the latest instalment of Katie Price's memoirs, Jordan: Pushed to the Limit (Century), is the new number one within hardback non-fiction. With its embargo lifted on 7th February, the title managed to sell 14,605 copies in just three days, taking 11th position in the overall chart. Price's previous publication, Jordan: A Whole New World, spent eleven weeks at the top of the hardback non-fiction charts in the first half of 2006.

Revenue through the TCM remained ahead of last year for the eighth consecutive week. £30.7m was spent on books last week, up 3.3% week-on-week (£29.7m), and 7.6% year-on-year (£28.5m).

Retail Bestseller News Philip Stone Charts Alexander McCall Smith

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