Cursed Child waits in the wings as The Girl on the Train thunders on

The Girl on the Train (Black Swan) has held the UK Official number one spot for a fifth non-consecutive week, the longest-running fiction number one since E L James’ Grey (Arrow).

Harry Potter fans will have to wait until next week to see Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (Little, Brown) hit the top spot, as the title’s 31st July release makes it ineligible for last week’s chart, which ran from Sunday 24th July to Saturday 30th July. Booksellers are clearly an honest bunch, as any Cursed Child copies sold before the midnight embargo would have charted in last week’s top 5,000—but none did.

However, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Bloomsbury) charted in the Top 50 for a second consecutive week, selling 5,533 copies through Nielsen BookScan. In total, the seven original Potter titles, re-released in 2014, shifted a combined 21,195 copies last week, a 33.8% jump on the week before. Even the Harry Potter Colouring Book (Studio Press) sold an extra 800 copies week on week.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Bloomsbury) still holds the record for the single biggest one-week volume of all time—shifting 1.84 million copies in mid-July 2007, and a further 790,622 copies of the adult edition. Though the eighth Harry Potter book may not be able to match the seventh in volume, in order to become the biggest-selling number one of this decade so far it has to sell “only” 663,500 units to beat Fifty Shades of Grey (Arrow)'s bestselling week in July 2012.  

Meanwhile, The Girl on the Train continues to rack up the sales, selling 37,650 copies for £199,936 and jumping 15% in volume on the previous week. If it manages to conjure up another week at number one down the line, post-Potter onslaught, another Fifty Shades record will tumble (Grey’s five weeks at number one) and Paula Hawkins' psychological thriller will be the longest-running fiction number one since John Green’s 2014 mega-hit The Fault in Our Stars (Penguin). Hawkins’ 10 weeks as Mass Market Fiction number one already beat Green’s eight, although it still has a way to go to beat (again) Fifty Shades of Grey’s 19.

James Patterson claimed his 23rd week as Original Fiction number one, with the latest Michael Bennett title Bullseye (Century) shifting 3,397 copies. Elsewhere, the category chart number ones will sound familiar to any ardent chart followers. David Walliams racked up an 11th week as Children’s number one with The World’s Worst Children (HarperCollins Children's), while Joe Wicks settled in for a 28th week as Paperback Non-Fiction number one since the start of the year (and a 10th consecutively). Seven of those number ones have been with Lean in 15: The Shape Plan, the rest with the original Lean in 15 (both Bluebird).  

Jamie Oliver’s Super Food Family Classics (Michael Joseph) held the Hardback Non-Fiction number one for a third week, its volume rising for the second week in a row. Its predecessor Everyday Super Food (Michael Joseph) leapt nearly 100 places in the top 5,000 and re-entered the Hardback Non-Fiction top 20.