Osman strikes thrice with The Bullet that Missed

Richard Osman’s The Bullet that Missed (Penguin) hit the target for a third week running, claiming the UK Official Top 50 number one with 30,715 copies sold. Appropriately, this was Osman’s 30th week in the overall top spot, in under three years since the publication of The Thursday Murder Club’s hardback (Viking) in September 2020.

Rugby union defence coach Kevin Sinfield’s The Extra Mile (Century) charged into the runner-up spot and swiped the Hardback Non-Fiction number one from Nathan Anthony’s Bored of Lunch: The Healthy Air Fryer Book (Ebury). The sportsman has raised over £7m for motor neurone disease funding and recently ran the inaugural Rob Burrow Leeds Marathon, which he also helped to fund.

Celebrity make-up artist Hannah Martin’s Makeup (HQ) lined up in third in Hardback Non-Fiction, as John Nichol’s Eject! Eject! (S&S) found its seat in fourth place, as Father’s Day gift-buying began to show in the charts.

Rebecca F Kuang’s Yellowface (The Borough Press) soared into the Original Fiction number one, knocking Lucinda Riley and Harry Whittaker’s Atlas (Macmillan) from the top.  Despite the success (and recent Nibbies win) of Kuang’s dark academia title Babel, this is her first pole in the category chart. Jo Nesbo’s Killing Moon (Harvill Secker) also debuted in Original Fiction, with Mark Billingham’s The Last Dance (Sphere) and Thomas D Lee’s Perilous Times (Orbit) entering the top 10. 

Ian Rankin’s A Heart Full of Headstones (Orion) and Bob Mortimer’s The Satsuma Complex (S&S) thundered into the Mass Market Fiction top three, though The Bullet that Missed was clear at the top. 

Davinia Taylor’s Hack Your Hormones (Orion Spring) spiked into the Paperback Non-Fiction number one, as Ben Macintyre, the paperback king of Father’s Day, hit third place with Colditz (Penguin). 

Stephen Mulhern and Tom Easton’s Max Magic: The Greatest Show on Earth (Piccadilly) conjured itself into the Children’s number one, leapfrogging David Walliams’ Robodog (HarperCollins). 

The print market, at 3.02 million books sold for £27.6m, found itself back over the three million books sold mark for the first time since the last week of April, rising 6.2% in volume and 5.2% in value week on week. However, it was still trailing the same week in May 2022, down 11.9% in volume and 6.3% in value.