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Printed book sales soared by £8.8m week-on-week last week, with the latest edition of Guinness World Records once again proving the UK bestseller. In total, £49.8m was spent at UK book retail outlets in the seven days to 3rd December, up 21% on the previous week.
Helped by a week-on-week sales boost of 37%, to 60,587 copies sold, Guinness World Records 2012 returns to the summit of this week's Official UK Top 50 for the first time in four weeks. Jamie Oliver's Jamie's Great Britain (Michael Joseph) narrowly outsold Jeff Kinney's Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Cabin Fever (Puffin), and takes second position overall. Oliver's cookbook sold 45,939 copies to Cabin Fever's 44,970.
Comedian Lee Evans' The Life of Lee (Michael Joseph) remains the bestselling celebrity memoir in the UK. Sales jumped 46% week-on-week, to 33,350 copies sold, Evans retains fourth position in the Official UK Top 50. River Cottage Veg Every Day! (Bloomsbury) takes fifth position in the chart, scoring TV chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall his highest ever chart position.
The mass-market edition of Simon Toyne's début novel, the apocalyptic thriller Sanctus (HarperCollins), is the Official UK Top 50's highest new entry, joining in 20th place. Sales of the book totalled 16,351 copies last week helped by a spot in W H Smith's half-price "book of the week" promotion. It is one of the strongest weekly sales of the year from a début novel.
Other new entries into the Top 50 include Katherine Webb's second novel, The Unseen (Orion), a member of W H Smith's "£2.99 with the Times" promotion, Sinclair McKay's The Secret Life of Bletchley Park (Aurum), and Sir Max Hastings' All Hell Let Loose (HarperPress). Sales of the latter soared 195% week-on-week helped by "book of the year" recommendations in the press and the author's appearance on Simon Mayo's BBC Radio Two "Drivetime" show on Wednesday.
According to Nielsen BookScan top 5,000 data for the seven-day period, sales of hardback non-fiction grew by 32% week-on-week last week, while spending on hardback novels and hardback children's titles grew by 25% and 11% respectively. Overall sales were down just 1.4% (£700,000) year-on-year, although this is in comparison to a poor week in 2010 when when Britain's "big freeze" caused temperatures to plummet and sales to slump 18.5% (£11.5m) against to 2009. Compared to 2009, spending at UK bookshops last week was down 20%, or £12m.
The BBC "The One Show" scandal, meanwhile, seems to have had little effect on the performance of Jeremy Clarkson's new book. Sales of his Round the Bend (Michael Joseph), jumped 40% week-on-week, slightly above the 32% average within the hardback non-fiction sector, although well behind the likes of James Corden (up 81% week-on-week), Rob Brydon (up 55%), One Direction (up 49%), and Lee Evans (up 46%). In comparison, sales of Jonathan Ross' aptly-titled memoir, Why Do I Say These Things? (Bantam Press), slumped 45% week-on-week in 2008, following the "Sachsgate" scandal.