The Bookseller.com

30th August 2008

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Summer Reads lead the field

22.07.08 Tom Holman

Richard and Judy's Summer Read slot has tightened its grip on the bestseller lists by taking the top two slots in the book charts last week. Linwood Barclay's No Time for Goodbye leads the charts for a third week in a row with sales of 42,929 through Nielsen BookScan's TCM in the seven days to last Saturday (19th July).

Second—and completing a top two for Orion as well as Richard and Judy—was Julia Gregson's East of the Sun, featured on the show on 9th July, with sales of 29,059. The Summer Read discussed last week, John Hart's Down River (John Murray), sold 16,199 copies.

The biggest seller outside of Richard and Judy was Katie Price's new hardback novel Angel Uncovered (Century), with sales of 28,834, while elsewhere summer promotions are starting to fill the chart with paperbacks.

The end of Asda's controversial £1 promotion for J K Rowling's Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows means that the children's edition of the book sold on average for £5.42 last week—well up from last week's figure of £1.96 but still representing an average discount of 40% off the £8.99 rrp. Combined sales of Bloomsbury's children's and adults editions were 17,355.

Overall last week, sales through the TCM were worth £30.1m, down slightly from £30.6m in the previous seven days.

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