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John Grisham's The Confession (Arrow) has retained its position at the summit of the Official UK Top 50 in a week when his publisher, Random House, has scored number ones across all five of The Bookseller's main bestseller lists — the first time a publisher has achieved the feat since record began in 1998.
The mass-market edition of the novel, which sold 121,000 copies in hardback, sold 26,706 copies at UK booksellers last week, down from 35,294 copies the previous week, but comfortably more than the next most popular purchase of the week, Maeve Binchy's Minding Frankie (Orion). The latter sold 21,315 copies in its first week in bookshops, helped by deep-discount promotions at W H Smith and Waterstone's. Bernard Cornwell's The Fort (Harper) climbs three places to third position overall, thanks to a spot in W H Smith's popular "£2.99 if you buy the Times" link-save promotion.
James Patterson’s 17th Alex Cross thriller, Cross Fire (Arrow) and Harlan Coben’s Miracle Cure (Orion, re-released 20 years after it first hit the shelves), both début in the top 10.
With Father's Day in mind, publishers released books by some of the most bankable names in bookselling last week. Series instalments by James Patterson (with Mark Pearson) and Clive Cussler (with Grant Blackwood) both sold more than 6,500 copies in jut three days last week, and début in the Official UK Top 50, while new books by Rick Stein, Rowland White, Sir David Attenborough, Allan Mallison and Kenya-born Ben Kane all hit The Bookseller's genre bestseller lists this week.
Benefitting from better-than-half-price “deal of the week” spots at Amazon.co.uk, Patterson’s Private London (Century) and Cussler’s The Kingdom (Michael Joseph) take the top two positions in the Original Fiction chart with sales of 7,144 and 6,610 respectively. Orange prize-winner Téa Obreht's The Tiger's Wife (Weidenfeld) débuts, courtesy of a 340% week-on-week sales boost. The hardback edition of the novel sold 1,768 copies in the seven days to 11th June, up from just 404 the previous week.
With Patterson and Grisham topping The Bookseller's Original Fiction and Mass-market Fiction charts, Kate McCann's Madeleine (Transworld) and Bill Bryson's At Home (Black Swan) both holding position at the summit of the Hardback and Paperback Non-fiction charts, and Terry Pratchett's I Shall Wear Midnight (Corgi) the new number one in Children's, it means publisher Random House scores number ones across all five of The Bookseller's main bestseller lists.
In total, £25.5m was spent at UK booksellers in the seven days to 11th June—up 1.3% week-on-week, but down 6.6% on the same week last year when Stephenie Meyer’s The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner (Atom) topped the charts with a massive 136,995 seven-day sale.