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Sales of books for children surged in the UK last week, as schools broke for the spring half-term break. Nielsen BookScan top 5,000 bestseller list data reveals sales through the sector jumped 8% week on week, with sales of pre-school books up 4%, sales within children's fiction surging 13% and sales of general non-fiction titles rocketing 18%.
However, in a mixed week for booksellers, sales of books for adults plummeted—by 13% within the fiction sector and by 17% within non-fiction. Overall, £22.4m was spent on printed books in the seven days to 23rd February — down 7.1% (£1.7m) week on week, but down a shallower 2.6% (£0.6m) on the same week last year.
Despite a 16% fall in sales week on week, Mimi Spencer and Dr Michael Mosley's The Fast Diet (Short Books) holds top spot in the Official UK Top 50 for a fifth consecutive week. The intermittent fasting guide sold 22,632 copies in the UK last week, while a handful of other fasting titles enjoyed solid sales: Michelle Harvie and Tony Howell's The 2-day Diet (Vermilion), Kate Harrison's The 5:2 Diet (Orion) and Jacqueline Whiteheart's self-published The 5:2 Diet Recipe Book (Createspace) all earn places in Bookseller bestseller lists this week, with combined sales of 14,900 copies.
The mass-market edition of Katie Fforde's Recipe for Love (Arrow) was the bestselling novel in the UK last week, taking second position in the Official UK Top 50 with a 14,728 sale. Fforde's novel deposes Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl (Phoenix) from the summit of this week's Mass-market Fiction chart, scoring the novelist her first ever Bookseller number one.
Tarek Malouf is another writer earning his first ever Bookseller number one this week. His Hummingbird Bakery: Home Sweet Home (Collins) proved the bestselling hardback non-fiction book in the UK last week, scoring sales of 6,122 copies. In total, £5.2m has been spent on books featuring recipes from the popular London bakery since the first, The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook (Ryland, Peters & Small) hit shelves in March 2009.