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Emma Donoghue's controversial Man Booker shortlistee, Room (Picador), has stormed to the top of The Official UK Top 50 thanks to a 20% week-on-week sales surge following its spot under Jo Brand et al's "TV Book Club" spotlight.
The Josef Fritzl-inspired novel sold 26,368 copies in the seven days to 22nd January, up 4,500 on its previous week sale. There were also big week-on-week boosts for other members of the More4 Book Club, including: Daisy Goodwin's My Last Duchess (Headline, up 53%), Rebecca Skloot's The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (Pan, up 27%) and Patrick Hennessey's The Junior Officers' Reading Club (Penguin, up 21%).
Jamie Oliver's Jamie's 30-minute Meals (Michael Joseph) takes second position in the Official UK Top 50 thanks to a 21,108 seven-day sale, while last week's number one, Tess Gerritsen's eighth Rizzoli/Isles thriller, The Killing Place (Bantam), falls two places to third overall.
Thanks to a spot in W H Smith's "£2.99 if you buy the Times" promotion, John Connolly's ninth thriller starring expert private detective Charlier Parker, The Whisperers (Hodder), joins The Official UK Top 50 as this week's highest new entry, while the chart also welcomes Jo Nesbø's latest Harry Hole thriller, The Leopard (Harvill), for the first time.
Nesbø's new novel narrowly held off James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge's fourth Michael Bennett thriller, Tick, Tock (Century), to take top spot in this week's Top 20 Original Fiction list and in doing so becomes only the second translated novel to top the chart since records began in 1998. The only other author to achieve the feat was the late Stieg Larsson whose The Girl Who Played with Fire topped the Original Fiction bestseller list just over two years ago.
Three of Nesbø's other Harry Hole thrillers (The Devil's Star, The Redeemer, and The Snowman) also earn places in the Official UK Top 50. Thanks to the huge success of the latter last year, Nesbø's publisher, Vintage, re-jacketed Nesbø's backlist and, thanks to support from high street booksellers, the redesign seems to paying dividends.
Other new entries into The Official UK Top 50 include Baking Made Easy (HarperCollins), by the newest celebrity chef in town, Lorraine Pascale, and Pulling Myself Together (Pan), the memoir of "Loose Woman" and ex-Corrie star Denise Welch. Mark Logue's The King's Speech (Quercus), based on his grandfather Lionel's diaries of his time as the Duke of York's speech therapist, also débuts. The award-winning silver screen drama based on the story has recently been nominated for 12 Academy Awards.
According to Nielsen BookScan data, £26.7m was spent at UK book retail outlets in the seven days to 22nd January, down very marginally (-0.01%) week-on-week, but down 5.1% on the same week last year when Sophie Kinsella topped the charts with her Twenties Girl (Black Swan).