Brexit Island sails into top charts spot

Five on Brexit Island (Quercus) has stormed into the UK Official Top 50 number one spot, denying David Walliams’ The Midnight Gang (HarperCollins Children's) an eighth week at the top. The most 2016-appropriate book ever shifted 82,522 copies for £456,126, the highest single week for a Hardback Non-Fiction title this year—and yes, though it may seem bizarre, as a Humour title Five on Brexit Island counts as non-fiction. 

The spoof Famous Five title sold 45% extra in volume on the highest single week for any Ladybird Books for Grown-Up title, How it Works: The Husband (Michael Joseph), which hit its peak this time last year. Five on Brexit Island has now sold 345,414 copies in total, worth £1.8m. It has increased in volume week on week for every one of the eight weeks it has been on sale, climbing 7% last week. 

Combined, the Famous Five series has sold 787,787 copies since its release in November, but Five on Brexit Island is undoubtedly the jewel in its crown, shifting 44% of that total single-handedly. Not bad for a book that no one could have dreamed would exist in January 2016.

The Midnight Gang dropped to third place, declining 16,000 copies on its volume for Christmas number one a week ago. It was outsold by Guinness World Records 2017 by a scant 484 copies—and just beat fourth-placed The GCHQ Puzzle Book (Michael Joseph) by 589 copies. (Were all three lined up next to the bookshop tills for stressed-out gift shoppers to grab?) However, Walliams won’t have had a blue Christmas—his newest title is currently his seventh-bestselling ever after just two months on sale, and is closing in on the 16-month total volume of 2015 hit Grandpa’s Great Escape.

The GCHQ Puzzle Book’s rapid rise from the doldrums of the Top 50 to the top five came out of nowhere—and despite charting fourth, it was the most valuable title of last week’s chart, bringing in £646,316.

Joe Wicks’ Lean in 15: The Sustain Plan (Bluebird) may have become the first diet book ever to hit the top 10 the week before Christmas, although it was beaten by another, er, health title—Five Give up the Booze, by 600 copies.

This could also be the first year ever two playscripts have appeared in the pre-Christmas top 20—both, of course, being Harry Potter-related, with J K Rowling’s Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them shifting 48,226 copies to take fifth place, and Rowling, Jack Thorne and John Tiffany's Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (Little, Brown) in 19th, with 25,784 units shifted.

Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent (Serpent's Tail) held the Original Fiction number one for a second week, increasing 31% in volume and slithering into the overall top 20 for the first time. Paula Hawkins' The Girl on the Train (Black Swan) chugged into a 29th week as Mass Market Fiction number one, matching its total for weeks spent in the Original Fiction top spot over 2015.

In sharp contrast to the value of the pound, the integrity of the political landscape or the lives of beloved celebrities, 2016 has only been good for the print market—and last week it continued to soar, with a volume of 9.4 million books sold and £83.3m made. This is a 9.7% jump in value week on week and a dazzling 10.9% increase on 2015’s last full week of shopping before Christmas. This was the biggest two-week run-up to 25th December since pre-recession (and pre-digital revolution) 2007. 

For the year overall, value hit £1.56bn—5.1% up on the 52 weeks of 2015, with a whole week of this year still to go.