Blob bounces to third week at top of charts

David Walliams’ Blob (HarperCollins Children's) has conquered the UK Official Top 50 number one spot for a third week running, selling 56,015 copies, according to Nielsen BookScan’s Total Consumer Market. This is the comedian-turned-author's 25th overall week at number one, with 12 of those racked up over the last 52 weeks alone.

The World Book Day 2017 tranche held strong, with Peppa Loves World Book Day! (Ladybird) and Martin Hardford’s Where’s Wally? A Fantastic Journey (Walker) once again taking silver and bronze. The top five remained the same, but Enid Blyton’s Good Old Timmy and Other Stories (Hodder Children's) and Julia Donaldson & Lydia Monks’ Princess Mirror-Belle and Snow White (Macmillan Children's) leapfrogging Francesca Simon’s Horrid Henry Funny Fact Files (Orion Children's).

Only Philippa Gregory broke up the WBD party: Three Sisters, Three Queens (S&S) gatecrashed ninth place at the expense of David Almond’s Island (Hodder Children's) and Michael Grant’s Dead of Night (Electric Monkey). It also swiped the Mass Market Fiction number one for a third week, the longest run for any paperback fiction title since Jessie Burton’s The Muse (Picador) in January.

James Patterson & Maxine Paetro took the Original Fiction number one with 16th Seduction (Century), the veteran author’s 24th top spot in total and his first since, er, July 2016. Another old hand, Danielle Steel, went straight into second with Dangerous Games (Macmillan), while Walking Dead graphic novelist Robert Kirkman’s The Whisperer War (Image)—the series’ 27th title—took third place.

Another new J-Pattz entry—Never Never (Arrow), this time co-authored with Candice Fox—hit the overall chart in 15th, joining Linwood Barclay’s The Twenty-Three (Orion) in the Mass Market Fiction top 20.

Mary Berry reigned for a second week in Hardback Non-Fiction, with Mary Berry Every Day (BBC) shifting an extra thousand titles on the week before, with Joe Wicks’ Lean in 15 (Bluebird) charting top of the Paperback Non-Fiction top 20 for a 35th non-consecutive week.

After International Women’s Day took place last Wednesday, the non-fiction charts saw a sudden influx of female empowerment-related tomes, most notably Elena Favilli and Francesca Cavallo’s Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls (Particular) climbing 11 places in the Hardback Non-Fiction top 20 and increasing in volume by 332%. Gillian Anderson and Jennifer Nadel’s We: A Manifesto for Women Everywhere (HarperThorsons) entered the chart in 10th place, while Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Dear Ijeawele or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions (Fourth Estate) took 12th.

Caitlin Moran’s Moranifesto (Ebury) charted 17th in the Paperback Non-Fiction top 20, while Canadian feminist poet Rupi Kaur’s Milk and Honey (Andrews McMeel)—which has sold over 650,000 copies in the United States, of all places—hit 19th place. Children’s Non Fiction saw Kate Pankhurst’s Fantastically Great Women who Changed the World (Bloomsbury Children's) hit a high of second place, while Rachel Ignotofksy’s Women in Science (Wren & Rook) entered the chart in sixth.

After the bumper WBD sales a week ago, this week saw the print market decline 9.4% in volume—though average selling price recovered, jumping 42p to £7.57. Compared to the same week in March 2016, last week's figures looked healthy—4.7% up in volume and 6.4% up in value.