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Jeff Kinney's eighth Diary of a Wimpy Kid novel, Hard Luck (Puffin), has retained top spot in the official UK book charts.
Wimpy Kid Greg Heffley's latest adventure, which sees the hapless middle school student entrust life decisions to a Magic 8 ball, sold 67,848 print copies in the seven-day period ending 16th November.
Sales were down 18% on its first-week sale of 82,999 copies, but the £12.99 hardback novel sold almost 6,000 copies more than the second bestselling book of the week, Sir Alex Ferguson's My Autobiography (Hodder & Stoughton, 61,979 units sold). The former Manchester United boss’ memoir has now sold an impressive 353,936 copies since its release on 24th October. Only three books have sold more copies in 2013: Dan Brown’s Inferno (Bantam Press, 607,000 sold); Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl (Orion, 581,000) and Michael Mosley and Mimi Spencer’s The Fast Diet (Short Books, 489,000).
Fellow Scottish sports hero Andy Murray’s account of his rise to Wimbledon glory, Seventy-Seven (Headline), is this week’s highest new entry. Officially released on 7th November, it has sold 13,237 copies to date—almost as many copies his 2008 memoir Hitting Back (retitled Coming of Age for its paperback release in 2009) has sold in its entire lifetime (14,300 copies).
British novelist Katherine Webb’s The Misbegotten (Orion) débuts in 33rd position in the Official UK Top 50 helped by its spot in the Telegraph/W H Smith £1.99 link-save “Pick of the Week” promotion, while Patricia Cornwell’s 21st Kay Scarpetta thriller, Dust (Sphere), hits the chart in 29th place. Cornwell’s previous Scarpetta thriller, The Bone Bed, sold 67,000 copies in hardback—an enviable sale for most novelists but down 70% on Cornwell’s halcyon days of 2005 when Predator sold 220,000 copies in the format.
Dust’s 7,304 sale is strong enough for fourth place in this week’s Original Fiction chart, behind Terry Pratchett's Raising Steam (Doubleday), Ian Rankin's Saints of the Shadow Bible (Orion) and Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy (Cape). The Original Fiction chart welcomes just one other new entry: Sebastian Faulks’ Jeeves and Wooster novel, Jeeves and the Wedding Bells (Hutchinson), which was commissioned by the estate of P G Wodehouse earlier this year.
Faulks, of course, is no stranger to taking on the mantle of a popular author, having added to Ian Fleming’s James Bond canon in 2008 with Devil May Care (Penguin 007). It became one of the fastest-selling hardback novels of all time upon release and has gone on to sell close to 300,000 copies across all print editions to date.
Helped by uplifts in sales of children’s books and hardback non-fiction titles last week, volume sales of printed books surpassed the 4m barrier for the first time in 2013. According to Nielsen BookScan Total Consumer Market data, 4.1m books were bought in the seven-day period ending 16th November—an increase of 300,000 units (7.9%) on the previous week. The value of the market increased more than £2m, to £32.6m—also a 2013 record.