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A controversial account of the US Navy SEAL raid that resulted in the death of Osama Bin Laden has knocked E L James off the top of the US bestseller list.
No Easy Day (Dutton), published on Tuesday last week (4th September), sold 253,000 copies in its first week on shelves Stateside, according to BookScan US data, sending it straight into pole position. It knocks James' Fifty Shades of Grey (Vintage) off top spot following 20 consecutive weeks at number one.
James' début novel falls one place into second position overall, with books two (Darker) and three (Freed) in her series charting third and fourth respectively.
No Easy Day was published under the pseudonym "Mark Owen", but the writer's anonymity didn't last until publication day. Fox News revealed on 23rd August, almost two weeks ahead of the book's publication, that the author was in fact former SEAL Matt Bissonnette.
According to numerous reports, the Pentagon isn't too happy with Bissonnette as the memoir's release constitutes a possible "material breach" of classified information. The book was published despite Pentagon officials threatening legal action as the book had not been submitted to the Defense Department for review.
Subject to a worldwide embargo, the book was released in the UK by Penguin on 4th September, but it narrowly missed out on a spot in the Official UK Top 50. Its first-week sale of 3,951 copies was only strong enough for 55th place overall in this week's chart.
However, it will score a UK number one this weekend when it appears at the summit of the Sunday Times' Hardback Non-fiction chart, compiled by The Bookseller.
US Top 10: week ending 9th Sept
1) Mark Owen's No Easy Day (Dutton) 253,000
2) E L James' Fifty Shades of Grey (Vintage) 86,000
3) E L James' Fifty Shades Darker (Vintage) 61,000
4) E L James' Fifty Shades Freed (Vintage) 59,000
5) James Patterson's Zoo (Little Brown) 37,000
6) Mitch Albom's The Time Keeper (Hyperion) 36,000
7) Patricia Cornwell's Red Mist (Berkley) 27,000
8) Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl (Crown) 24,000
9) E L James' Fifty Shades Trilogy (Vintage) 22,000
10) Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games (Scholastic) 21,000