Lucky seven for Lean in 15 as The Martian ascends

Joe “the Body Coach” Wicks is number one for the seventh week running, according to Nielsen BookScan’s Total Consumer Market. His seemingly unstoppable début Lean in 15 (Bluebird) sold 30,117 copies for £246,957, dropping only 15.6% in volume week on week.

This is the longest run at number one for any title since John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars (Penguin) spent eight weeks in the top spot during the summer of 2014. It is also the longest consecutive run for a non-fiction title since Jamie Oliver’s 30-Minute Meals (Michael Joseph) reigned supreme for 13 weeks over Christmas 2010.

Speaking of Oliver, Lean in 15 has now sold 432,788 copies to date, surpassing the celebrity chef’s own healthy eating title Everyday Super Food (Michael Joseph) in volume, which has sold 409,420 copies to date. Considering Everyday Super Food was the biggest-selling Food & Drink title of 2015, had a companion Channel 4 TV series and was published 17 weeks before Lean in 15, Wicks’ run is pretty impressive.

Lean in 15 also entered the top 20 bestselling cookery titles since records began, leapfrogging Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s River Cottage Veg Every Day! (Bloomsbury) to join only four other authors in the chart. Eleven out of the top 20 are by Oliver, with Delia Smith racking up five, Nigella two and the Hairy Bikers in fifth place with The Hairy Dieters: How to Love Food and Lose Weight (Weidenfeld & Nicolson).

Andy Weir’s The Martian (Del Rey) was in second place. The DVD of the film adaptation was released last week and Sainsbury’s offered the title as part of a buy one get one free deal. Only two weeks ago, John Pearson’s The Profession of Violence (William Collins) was boosted to second place by the same Sainsbury’s offer. Weir’s SFF novel shifted 24,338 copies to take the Mass Market Fiction number one from Kate Atkinson’s A God in Ruins (Black Swan), after a four-week run for the Costa Novel Award winner. It also represents a personal best for Weir, whose highest chart position has previously been 28th.

The Martian’s entry in the Top 50 makes three source titles of Oscar-nominated films in the chart. Michael Punke’s The Revenant (The Borough Press), whose film adaptation is favourite to win Best Picture, is in 19th place and Emma Donoghue’s Room (Picador) took 46th. On the small screen, War and Peace (BBC), which made its début in the Top 50 a week ago, saw a volume boost of 25.5% as the BBC costume drama came to a close. The tie-in title has increased its sales almost every week since the series began, hitting a peak of 4,497 copies sold last week. A further seven versions of Leo Tolstoy’s classic hit the TCM top 5,000 and collectively all eight editions shifted 8,708 units.  

The newest Ladybird Book for Grown-Ups title, How it Works: The Mum (Michael Joseph), charted eighth in its first week, shifting 11,112 copies, with three weeks still to go before Mother’s Day. However, it was beaten by the series’ top-selling title and 2015 Christmas number one, How it Works: The Husband, which rose to sixth place on sales of 11,452. How it Works: The Wife was also not far below in 13th place, in what was most likely a Valentine’s Day gift boost for the two titles.

The Top 50 saw a sudden influx of new Romance & Saga releases, possibly with an eye on both Valentine’s and Mother’s Day gift markets— Katie Fforde’s A Vintage Wedding (Arrow) charted in ninth place, shifting 10,283 copies, Dilly Court’s Ragged Rose (Harper) finished 12th and Jenny Colgan’s The Little Shop of Happy-Ever-After (Sphere) sold 8,337 copies to take 16th place. Other Mother’s Day buys entering the chart included The Unmumsy Mum (Bantam), written by parenting blogger Sarah Turner, and Millie Marotta’s Wild Savannah (Batsford), which sold 4,669 copies. Although, it was beaten by the bestselling illustrator’s original two colouring books, Millie Marotta’s Animal Kingdom, which has now surpassed the half a million copies sold mark, and Millie Marotta’s Tropical Wonderland.

Kimberley Chambers’ Tainted Love (HarperCollins) took the Original Fiction number one from Julian Barnes’ The Noise of Time (Jonathan Cape), with Paula Hawkins’ The Girl on the Train (Doubleday) maintaining second place. The Costa Book of the Year, Frances Hardinge’s The Lie Tree (Macmillan Children’s), held the Children’s number one for a second week, denying David Walliams his 57th week in the chart’s top spot with the paperback of 2014 bestseller Awful Auntie (HarperCollins Children’s Books).