Potter playscript pips rivals to the post

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (Sphere) has bewitched the UK Official Top 50 for a second week, holding the number one spot with 23,711 copies sold, according to Nielsen BookScan’s Total Consumer Market. This is an 18% leap in volume week on week, and gifts J K Rowling her 80th week in the overall top spot.

Exactly a year ago, the hardback edition of …Cursed Child shifted 847,886 copies in its first week on sale to become the fastest-selling title in nine years. As a result, the market took a bit of a battering in comparison to the same week in 2016. At £26.7m, value was down £8m and 23% year on year, while volume plummeted 18%. However, on 2017 terms, the market is still looking strong, and last week's volume and value were higher than any week in the first six months of the year.

Shari Lapena’s irrepressible The Couple Next Door (Corgi) bounced back up the chart to claim second—its sixth time in the runner-up position—and steal back it Mass Market Fiction number one from John Grisham’s The Whistler (Hodder). Peter May’s Cast Iron (Riverrun) rose three places to join it in third, while Lucinda Riley’s The Olive Tree (Pan), Tim Weaver’s I Am Missing (Penguin) and Chris Carter’s The Caller (Simon & Schuster) all entered the top 10 for the first time.

The Handmaid’s Tale’s television adaptation came to an end, giving both editions (2017 and 1996) a boost up the Top 50 and back into the Mass Market Fiction top 20.

Helen Dunmore’s Birdcage Walk (Windmill) shot into 24th place, after being picked as a Waterstones’ Book of the Month for August.

Lisa Jewell’s Then She Was Gone (Century) swiped the Original Fiction number one from Santa Montefiore’s The Last Secret of the Deverills (Simon & Schuster), with 3,378 copies sold. This is Jewell’s first ever category number one, and she becomes the eighth author to crest the Original Fiction chart for the first time so far in 2017.

Both non-fiction number ones held on for another week—Nadiya Hussain’s Nadiya’s British Food Adventure (Michael Joseph) scored a third consecutive week as Hardback Non-Fiction number one, while Joshua Levine's Dunkirk (William Collins) thundered into the Paperback Non-Fiction number one for the third time.

The Children’s charts have seen a mini-Potter resurgence, with four of the original series’ titles appearing in the Children’s and YA Fiction top 20. Helena Duggan’s A Place Called Perfect (Usborne)—Waterstones Children’s Book of the Month— and Rachel Renee Russell’s Dork Diaries: Frenemies Forever (Simon & Schuster) the only new entries. Fiona Watt and Rachel Wells’ That’s Not My Unicorn (Usborne) held the Pre-School number one for a third week running.