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Transworld titles earn pride of place in both the Mass-market and Original Fiction charts this week, becoming the first publisher to achieve double fiction number ones in eight months.
Richard and Judy Spring 2012 Book Club pick S J Watson’s Before I Go to Sleep (Black Swan) sold 20,076 copies at UK booksellers last week, taking pole position in the Official UK Top 50 and Mass-market Fiction charts. Transworld stablemate Joanna Trollope, meanwhile, scores a number one in the Original Fiction list with her new novel, The Soldier's Wife (Doubleday).
It is the first time since June last year, when James Patterson and John Grisham topped the charts simultaneously for Cornerstone, that one publisher has earned double number ones in the fiction sector.
The mass-market edition of Watson's Before I Go to Sleep was the bestselling single edition book in the UK for the fifth consecutive week last week. It is feat that has only been matched twice in the past two years—by David Nicholls’ One Day (Hodder) last year and Jamie Oliver’s Jamie’s 30-minute Meals (Michael Joseph) in the run-up to Christmas 2010.
However, two titles technically outsold Before I Go to Sleep last week, once additional print editions are taken into consideration: Jennifer Worth's Call the Midwife (Phoenix) and Michael Morpurgo's War Horse (Egmont), which enjoyed sales of 20,469 copies and 26,521 copies across all print editions respectively.
With a sale of 17,678 copies, the TV tie-in edition of Call the Midwife takes second position in this week's Official UK Top 50, with the film tie-in edition of War Horse securing third position with a 16,209 seven-day sale.
Peter Robinson’s standalone thriller, Before the Poison (Hodder), is this week’s highest new entry. The book sold 12,105 copies in its first week on bookshop shelves, helped by a spot in W H Smith’s half-price “book of the week” promotion. It takes seventh position in the Official UK Top 50 and débuts in fifth position in this week's Top 20 Mass-market Fiction chart.
Jacqueline Wilson returns to the Official UK Top 50 for the first time since November. Her new novel, The Worst Thing About My Sister (Doubleday), sold 10,871 copies last week, and hits the Official UK Top 50 in 10th position. Her February release last year, Lily Alone, sold 155,000 copies in hardback in 2010, making it the fifth bestselling hardback children’s novel of the year.
Like The Soldier’s Wife (Doubleday) and Matthew Reilly’s new novel, Scarecrow and the Army of Theives (Orion, 50th position) sales of The Worst Thing About My Sister were helped by a spot in Amazon.co.uk’s better-than-half-price “deal of the week” promotion.
Bradshaw’s Handbook was once again the bestselling hardback fiction book in the UK, but Heston Blumenthal’s At Home (Bloomsbury) was a big mover. Sales of the cookbook soared 330% week on week, to 4,501 copies sold, helped by the inclusion of a 52-page booklet of recipes from the cookbook in the Saturday edition of the Telegraph.
Andrea McLean, meanwhile, becomes the latest member of the “Loose Women” panel to earn bestseller status. Her memoir, Confessions of a Good Girl (Sidgwick & Jackson), takes eighth place in this week’s Hardback Non-fiction chart.
In total, £25m was spent on printed books at UK book retail outlets last week, up 2.3% (£0.6m) on the previous week but down 10.4% (£2.9m) on the same week last year—due principally to the continued slumps within the paperback fiction and hardback non-fiction sectors.