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Lee Child has beaten Jamie Oliver to the top slot as spending hit a 2010 high of £36.1m.
A second wave of books destined for Christmas stockings hit the shelves last week, including celebrity memoirs by the likes of Cheryl Cole, Dannii Minogue, Lord Alan Sugar, Russell Brand and Sir Michael Caine. But Lee Child took the number one spot with his 15th Jack Reacher thriller, Worth Dying For (Bantam Press).
The hardback novel sold 30,690 copies in its opening week in UK bookshops, Child's biggest ever hardback weekly sale. It narrowly beats Jamie Oliver's latest cookbook, 30-minute Meals (Michael Joseph, 29,722 copies sold), to top spot.
The late Stieg Larsson's The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest (Quercus) climbs five positions to take third place overall. Sales received a 22% week-on-week boost (to 23,905 copies sold) thanks to a spot in WHSmith's "£2.99 if you buy the Times" promotion.
According to Nielsen data, some 536 hardback books were officially published last Thursday (30th September)—almost seven times the daily average—so it is perhaps no surprise to find that spending at UK booksellers last week was a 2010 high. Just over of £36.1m was spent, up a massive 11.5% (£3.7m) week-on-week.
However, spending was down 4.6% on the same week last year when Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol topped the charts with a 79,000 sale. That week (ending 3rd October 2009) was the week of "Super Thursday", the key date (in terms of blockbuster releases) in the calendar. This year, however, "Super Thursday" is set for 14th October, as on that day titles by Judi Dench, Derren Brown, Martina Cole, Jodi Picoult, Justin Bieber, Michael McIntyre, Chris Evans, Susan Boyle, Danny Dyer, Kathy Reichs, Gok Wan and Simon Pegg, to name but a dozen, will all officially hit the shelves.
With Child taking top spot in Original Fiction, it means publisher Transworld has set a new record. It has now scored three consecutive Original Fiction number ones (Child following Jilly Cooper and Sophie Kinsella)—the first time a publisher has achieved the feat since records began.
Bernard Cornwell's latest historical adventure, The Fort (HarperCollins), Ken Follett's Fall of Giants (Macmillan) and Maeve Binchy's Minding Frankie (Orion) also all join this week's Original Fiction Top 20, having enjoyed solid 7,000-copies-plus opening-week sales.
Paul O'Grady's second memoir, The Devil Rides Out (also Bantam Press), was the bestselling celebrity memoir in the seven days to 2nd October, and takes second position in this week's Hardback Non-fiction Top 20 behind Jamie Oliver. In the battle between "The X Factor" judges, Cheryl Cole's picturesque Through My Eyes (Bantam Press) narrowly trumped Dannii Minogue's My Story (Simon & Schuster)—by 10,829 copies to 9,936.
However, last week wasn't just about celebrity-shopping for Christmas—students were out in force. According to BookScan data, more than 50 textbooks took more than £10,000 through the tills last week. In terms of value (as opposed to volume), Damian Chalmers' European Union Law (CUP, £28,000), and Ross and Wilson Anatomy and Physiology in Health and Illness (Churchill Livingstone, £25,000) were among the biggest money-earners through the tills.
Meanwhile, in the children's sector, Lauren Kate's Torment, Jacqueline Wilson's The Longest Whale Song (both Doubleday), Alyson Noël's Dark Flame (Macmillan) and Darren Shan's Birth of a Killer (HarperCollins) all enjoyed solid opening-week sales and join the Children's Fiction top 10.