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Book sales last week were down a catastrophic 18.4% (£11.4m) year-on-year as high street booksellers counted the cost of the big freeze. According to Nielsen BookScan Total Consumer Market data, a total of £50.5m was spent at UK booksellers during the seven days to 4th December, up 10.5% week-on-week, but down heavily on the £61.9m spent during the same week last year. Nielsen BookScan's General Retail Market panel of UK booksellers, which is a good indicator of high street performance, reported sales up just 0.8% week-on-week (to £25.2m).
The data suggests that shoppers logged online to make book purchases instead of struggling in the snow to their local bookshop, but internet sales alone were nowhere near high enough to compensate for the huge high street sales shortfall. Although overall book sales grew 10.5% week-on-week, sales over the comparative weeks last year were up a much larger 28.2% week-on-week.
The bestselling book in a weather-disrupted week for booksellers was once again Jamie Oliver's Jamie's 30-minute Meals (Michael Joseph). The supermarket bestseller sold an impressive 110,850 copies in seven days—more than double the sales of the next bestselling book, Guinness World Records, sales of which were down 8% week-on-week. TV meerkat Aleksandr Orlov's A Simples Life (Ebury) was the third bestselling book of the week with a seven-day sale of 37,640 copies.
Martina Cole's The Family (Headline) proved once again the bestselling hardback fiction book of the week, selling 17,602 copies, while Jodi Picoult's 17th novel, House Rules (Hodder), was the bestselling mass-market fiction book of the week. The latter takes top spot in this week's mass-market chart ahead of James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge's Michael Bennett thriller, Worst Case (Arrow).
In non-fiction, Michael McIntyre's Life and Laughing (Michael Joseph) was once again the bestselling celebrity memoir of the week (the meerkat excluded), while sales of Stephen Fry's The Fry Chronicles (also Michael Joseph) were up an impressive 49% week-on-week thanks in part to his recent appearance on Graham Norton's BBC One sofa ("The Graham Norton Show", 26th November).
The British brainbox's first memoir, Moab is my Washpot (Arrow), rejoins this week's Top 20 Paperback Non-fiction chart thanks to a sale of 4,394 copies—its strongest ever weekly sale.
In children's, Jeff Kinney's fifth Diary of a Wimpy Kid instalment, The Ugly Truth (Puffin), was once again the bestselling book in the genre, but overall children's books sales remain down on last year — principally because Stephenie Meyer's Twilight saga was selling in huge 50,000-plus numbers this time last year.