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Mini-Shopaholic grabs top slot

01.01.70 | Graeme Neill

Sophie Kinsella’s sixth Shopaholic instalment, Mini Shopaholic (Black Swan), was comfortably the bestselling book in the UK last week, earning the novelist her ninth Official UK Top 50 number one.

The mass-market novel sold 37,523 copies in its first full week in bookshops and earns publisher Transworld its eighth Official UK Top 50 number one of the year. Only Penguin has scored more, notching up nine so far this year. Last week's number one, Dawn French's A Tiny Bit Marvellous (Penguin) falls one place to second spot, while Kathy Reichs' Spider Bones (Arrow) holds firm in third position.

Paul Christopher's The Templar Cross (Penguin), the second book in his Templar series, débuts as the highest new entry in 23rd place. Official UK Top 50 débuts are also scored by Nicholas Evans' The Brave (Sphere), a member of W H Smith's "£2.99 if you buy the Times" link-save promotion; Paige Toon's Baby Be Mine (Simon & Schuster), which benefitted from a spot in a half-price "great read guaranteed" promotion at the same retailer; and Elizabeth Speller's The Return of Captain John Emmett (Virago)—the latest Richard and Judy Book Club "Review Title".

Overall sales of paperback novels, however, fell sharply in comparison to last year, with sales through Nielsen BookScan's Top 5,000 bestseller list down 25%. Part of the reason for the decline is the fact Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol (Corgi) sold in high numbers in the comparative week last year (141,000 copies), but even stripping out this unique high-seller would see sales of paperback novels down 20% year-on-year last week.

Comparatively, sales of non-fiction and children's books through the Top 5,000 chart were  slightly ahead of 2010. Seven paperback non-fiction books, led by Pierre Dukan’s The Dukan Diet and Bill Bryson’s At Home, sold more than 10,000 copies at UK booksellers last week, a feat achieved by just three books, led by Frankie Boyle’s My Shit Life so Far, in the same week last year.

In total, £28m was spent on physical books during the seven days to 30th July, down 2.7% (£0.8m) week-on-week, and down 11.7% (£3.7m) year-on-year. However, it should be noted the comparative week last year, when £31.8m was spent on books in seven days, was an unusually strong one, partly because of the strength of The Lost Symbol in paperback. Only twice before since records began was more than £31m spent in a single week in the month of July, during the Harry Potter hardback-boosted years of 2005 and 2007.

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