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Stieg Larsson's The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest (Quercus) has retained its position at the summit of the Official UK Top 50.
The final part in the Swedish author's Millennium trilogy sold 60,384 copies in a quiet week for the trade, brought about by reduced trading over the latter half of the Easter weekend. In total, £24.6m was spent at UK book retailers during the seven days to 10th April period, down 17.9% on the previous week, and down 18.7% on the same week last year. When compared with the same post-Easter week last year, sales were down a shallower 6.1%.
Jeffery Deaver's second Kathryn Dance thriller, Roadside Crosses (Hodder), takes second position in the Top 50 this week with Larsson's The Girl Who Played with Fire (Quercus) in third. Once again, sales of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Quercus) were split between the original mass-market edition (16,450 copies sold) and the new film tie-in version (13,926). This week's highest new entry, Tracy Chevalier's Remarkable Creatures (Harper), debuts in sixth position and was helped by a spot in W H Smith's "£2.99 if you buy the Times" promotion.
In Original Fiction, not even Jesus (Philip Pullman's version - The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, which Canongate published on 29th March) can prevent James Patterson and Maxine Paetro's 9th Judgement (Century) from retaining its position at the summit of the chart, while Alison Weir's The Captive Queen (Hutchinson), a fictionalisation of the life of Eleanor of Aquitaine, débuts in sixth place.
In non-fiction, The Hairy Bikers' (Weidenfeld & Nicolson) reign at the summit of the hardback chart has come to an end after an impressive 12 weeks. The Masterchef Cookbook (DK), the spin-off from the latest series of the long-running BBC show which came to an end last week, takes over pole position.
A week after Simon & Schuster scored its first paperback non-fiction number one in more than seven years, the publisher has achieved the feat again. As Sean Smith's celebrity biography, Cheryl, falls from first to third position, Patrick Swayze and Lisa Niemi's The Time of My Life (both published under S&S's Pocket imprint), climbs into top spot.
Children's titles continued to receive an Easter-break boost, not least Stephenie Meyer who, once again, finds herself back at the top of the charts. Titles by Rick Riordan, Jeff Kinney and Cressida Cowell all continue to enjoy strong sales thanks to silver-screen adaptation.
Meanwhile, the latest edition of the Wisden Cricketers' Almanack sold 787 copies during the seven days to 10th April as, once again, the embargo (which ended yesterday, 12th April) on the cricketing bible was broken.