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Sophie Kinsella’s Surprise Me (Black Swan) has elbowed John Grisham from the UK Official Top 50 number one spot, selling 19,104 copies in its first three days on sale through Nielsen BookScan’s Total Consumer Market. This, the author’s 12th number one in total, is her first since March 2014’s Wedding Night.
Surprise Me has also returned Kinsella’s highest volume for three days on sale since 2010’s Mini Shopaholic, and was a hefty 29% up on the first three days of 2017’s My Not So Perfect Life.
Additionally, Surprise Me seals up Kinsella’s 21st week in the Mass Market Fiction number one, and her first since 2014.
At 19,104 copies sold, Surprise Me is the lowest-selling number one of the year to date—but becomes only the third title of the year to cruise to the top spot after fewer than seven days on sale. Kinsella joins Transworld stablemates Lee Child (with The Midnight Line) and Paula Hawkins (with Into the Water) among the half-week wonders.
Martina Cole’s Damaged (Headline) missed out on the number one spot by 409 copies. Instead, it entered in second place overall, pushing Grisham’s The Rooster Bar (Hodder) to third place.
Caitlin Moran’s How to Be Famous (Ebury) entered the Top 50 in 13th place, usurping Bill Clinton and James Patterson’s The President is Missing (Century) from the Original Fiction number one spot after three weeks. How to Be Famous shifted 8,501 in its launch week, a whopping 104% up in volume on its predecessor How to Build a Girl, published in hardback in July 2014.
Ant Middleton’s First Man In (HarperCollins) spent a fifth week as Hardback Non-Fiction number one, surpassing Henry Firth & Ian Theasby’s BOSH! as longest-running debut in the category top spot for the year. It is now level with Elena Favilli and Francesca Cavallo’s Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls' (Particular) five-week run in spring 2017. Just one more week would make First Man In the longest-running non-cookbook in the category top spot since Alex Ferguson’s My Autobiography (Hodder) in 2013.
Adam Kay’s This is Going to Hurt (Picador) also notched up a 10th week in the Paperback Non-Fiction number one. Aside from its launch week, the junior doctor memoir has never dipped below 10,000 copies per week. Last week it shifted 12,798 copies.
David Baddiel’s Birthday Boy (HarperCollins) leapfrogged J-Don and Ax-Scheff’s The Ugly Five (Alison Green) in the overall Children’s chart, but David Walliams & Tony Ross’ The World’s Worst Children 3 (HarperCollins) reigned supreme for a fifth week—the longest running Children’s number one of the year so far.
Angie Thomas’ The Hate U Give (Walker) leapt 101% in volume week on week and returned to the Children and YA Fiction top 20, following the release of its film adaptation’s trailer last week.
Over the last six months, the print market has sold 80.9 million books for (hopefully not ominous) £666m—a marginal 0.7% boost in volume and a healthier 2% up in value year on year.