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Stephenie Meyer's Twilight novella, The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner (Atom), sold 136,995 copies in its first full week at UK bookshops, taking £778,400 through the tills, an incredible achievement for a book that has been free to view online at www.breetanner.com since 7th June.
Bar J K Rowling, it is the strongest ever weekly sale from a children's/young adult author since TCM records began in 2001. It outsold the second bestselling book of the week, Patricia Cornwell's Scarpetta Factor (Sphere) by more than five copies to one, and accounted for 3.6% of all book sales last week.
Stieg Larsson's The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest (Quercus) holds third position in The Official UK Top 50 week-on-week while James Patterson's 16th Alex Cross thriller, I, Alex Cross (Arrow), debuts in fourth position as this week's highest new entry. The top 10 also welcomes the mass-market editions of two of the bestselling hardback fiction titles of 2009: Maeve Binchy's The Return Journey (Orion) and Terry Pratchett's Unseen Academicals (Corgi), which sold a massive 256,000 copies in its hardcover format.
Charline Harris' 10th "True Blood"/Sookie Stackhouse vampire thriller, Dead in the Family (Gollancz), joins the Top 50 in fifth position having sold a massive 22,717 copies in just three days. It tops this week's Original Fiction chart, earning the US author her first ever UK number one. The book sold a tremendous 199,700 copies in just six days upon release in the US last month, and its 22,717 UK sale is a remarkable uplift on the sales of Harris' previous book in the series, Dead and Gone, which sold just 630 copies in its first week in UK bookshops.
And it is somewhat remarkable considering her The Poisonwood Bible (Faber) has sold almost 300,000 copies since records began in 1998, but Barbara Kingsolver enters the Official UK Top 50 for the very first time this week. Sales of her The Lacuna (Faber), rocketed 95% week-on-week following its Orange Prize win, to 8,021 copies sold‚ strong enough for 30th position overall.
In non-fiction, Bill Bryson's At Home (Doubleday) stays top of the hardback charts ahead of Peter Andre's My World (Michael Joseph), which debuts in second position, while controversial comedian Frankie Boyle's My Shit Life So Far (Harper) debuts in pole position in the paperback list. Ant and Dec's Ooh! What a Lovely Pair (Penguin), which sold 310,000 copies in hardback over Christmas last year, debuts in ninth place.
The World Cup has certainly had an impact in one area of the market: sport books. The 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa Official Book (Carlton), The Sun Guide to the 2010 World Cup (HarperSport) and the Match! World Cup! (Boxtree) all sold more than 1,500 copies last week, while sales of Spain striker Fernando Torres' El Nino (HarperSport) jumped 3% week on week. Sales of BBC commentator John Motson's Motty (Virgin) jumped 2% week on week while sales of Steven Gerrard's My Autobiography (Bantam) jumped 4%.
There were also strong sales for John Blake's "World Cup Heroes" titles, driven by huge discounting at W H Smith. Steven Gerrard proved the most popular with sales of 915 copies last week at 88% off its £6.99 r.r.p.
Just shy of £27.3m was spent at UK book retail outlets during the seven days to 12th June, up 2.3% week on week and up 0.5% on the same week last year. It is third week in a row that the market has been ahead of the previous year, the first time this has occurred since May last year.