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Super Thursday has failed to ignite the market with sales down a disappointing 1.4% week on week, despite the more than 200 hardbacks that were officially released on what has been hailed as the biggest day in the 2010 publishing calendar (14th October). However, there was no such disappointment for Booker winner Howard Jacobson with sales of The Finkler Question (Bloomsbury) up a massive 2,300% week-on-week.
Despite the deluge of new titles sales through Nielsen BookScan's Total Consumer Market fell by £535,000 week-on-week. Sales were down 2.5% on 2009's "Super Thursday" week (to 3rd October). In total just shy of £37m was spent on books in the week ending 16th October, down 1.1% year-on-year.
TV chef Jamie Oliver's quick-and-easy cookbook, Jamie's 30-minute Meals (Michael Joseph), retained pole position in this week's Official UK Top 50. Sales of his latest cookbook were up 10% week-on-week, to 48,912 copies sold.
The top performer among the 2010 Super Thursday titles was undoubtedly Martina Cole whose latest thriller, The Family (Headline), sold 29,211 copies in just three days. The novel takes second position in the Official UK Top 50, and number one in an Original Fiction Top 20 that welcomes five other new entries. Among them are two other Super Thursday releases: Michael Connelly's 16th Harry Bosch thriller, The Reversal (Orion), joins the Original Fiction list in fourth place, while Kathy Reichs' Tempe Brennan thriller, Mortal Remains (Heinemann), joins in sixth position.
Also joining the Original Fiction chart for the first time was Jacobson's Man Booker winner. Its hardback sales were up a massive 2,300% week-on-week to 11,704 copies sold. It takes second position in the fiction chart and 18th place in the Official UK Top 50. Before it won the literary prize it had sold just over 8,000 copies.
Meanwhile, the third most popular purchase at UK booksellers last week, Peter James' sixth DI Roy Grace thriller, Dead Like You (Pan), débuts in first place in this week's mass-market fiction chart, earning him his first ever mass-market number one.
In non-fiction, popular comic Michael McIntyre's memoir, Life and Laughing (Michael Joseph), débuts in third position in the Hardback Non-fiction Top 20 behind Oliver, and Guinness World Records. The book sold 15,612 copies in its first three days on sale. The five other new entries in the Top 20 are also all celebrity memoirs. Works by Gok Wan, Chris Evans, Derren Brown, Judi Dench and 16 year-old Justin Bieber all earn bestseller status.
Rick Riordan's The Lost Hero (Puffin), the first book in a new series that follows on from his Percy Jackson adventures, was the bestselling children's book during the seven days to 16th October, and knocks Jacqueline Wilson's The Longest Whale Song (RHC) from the top of the children's charts after only a week at the summit. Becca Fitzpatrick's fallen angel thriller Crescendo (Simon & Schuster), the sequel to the bestselling Hush, Hush, débuts in third position in the children's chart.