Lean in 15 chart hat-trick for The Body Coach

Joe Wicks has pulled off a clean sweep of the top three chart spots, as Lean in 15: The Sustain Plan (Bluebird) clinched the number one for a second week running with 25,442 copies sold. Original blockbuster Lean in 15 held second, and Lean in 15: The Shape Plan rose into third place. Combined, Wicks’ trifecta of clean-eating cookbooks sold 62,125 copies last week.

The Body Coach becomes the first author to hit the top three places simultaneously since E L James’ Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy in September 2012 and he is the first non-fiction author ever to do so since records began. And for a second year in a row, Wicks has swiped the first number one of the year—although, as Lean in 15 shifted a blistering 111,830 copies in the first week of 2016, 2017’s inaugural number one was 77% down in volume.

Due to Wicks’ hat-trick and Jessie Burton’s The Muse (Picador) rising into fourth place, Pan Macmillan took the top four places in the Top 50, securing both the Paperback Non-Fiction number one and the Mass Market Fiction top spot. The publisher can claim the bestselling fiction and non-fiction titles of the year already.

The only other titles to shift north of 10,000 copies were Joanna Cannon’s The Trouble with Goats and Sheep (The Borough Press), which hit fifth place, and Samuel Bjork’s I’m Travelling Alone (Corgi), which rose to sixth. Along with Hollie Overton’s Baby Doll (Arrow), four of the latest Richard and Judy Book Club picks hit the top 10.

James Swallow’s Nomad (Zaffre) sold 9,992 copies to become the only non-Richard and Judy fiction title in the top 10. This is Zaffre’s highest ranking in the Top 50 to date, after 2016’s "most shocking thriller" Maestra peaked at 12th.

Fiction aside, New Year, New You has exploded into the January charts with a bang. Including Wicks, a total of 10 diet/fitness books charted inside the Top 50 last week, with Tom Daley’s Tom’s Daily Plan (HQ) debuting in 27th place, Davina McCall’s Sugar-Free in a Hurry (Orion) hitting 33rd and The Louise Parker Method: Lean for Life The Cookbook (Mitchell Beazley) charted 43rd. Aside from Parker and Daley, all the chart’s fitness gurus—Wicks, Kayla Itsines and Alice Liveing—started out on Instagram. In contrast, the purely diet guides such as The 8-Week Blood Sugar Diet (Short), by BBC doctor Michael Mosley, and the aforementioned Davina McCall are fronted by the more traditional medium of television.

New Year, New You has evolved to be as much about mental health as physical—Ruby Wax’s A Mindfulness Guide for the Frazzled (Penguin) charted 10th, with Meik Wiking’s The Little Book of Hygge (Penguin) just below it in 13th. The hygge guide seems to have seamlessly made the transition from autumn 2016 Christmas gift purchase to winter 2017 self-gift purchase, snuggling into the Hardback Non-Fiction number one for the first time.