Rowling keeps rolling: Cursed Child claims third straight number one

J K Rowling, Jack Thorne and John Tiffany’s Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (Little, Brown) once again easily triumphed at the top of the charts, shifting 86,525 units last week through Nielsen BookScan’s Total Consumer Market. It is the title’s third consecutive week at the summit of the UK’s Official Top 50, the first time a children’s book has accomplished that feat this year.

The playscript’s 86,525-unit haul does represent a 49% decline week on week, yet …the Cursed Child sold a whopping 57,000 more copies than Paula Hawkins’ second-placed The Girl on the Train (Black Swan).

In the very likely event that …the Cursed Child retains its crown next week, it will be the first time since BookScan records began that a Little, Brown author had held the overall number one for four consecutive weeks. Patricia Cornwell with Book of the Dead in 2008 and Stephenie Meyer with The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner in 2010 held the number one slot for three weeks on the trot for L,B, while Rowling herself has also scored the weekly hat trick twice with both the hardback and mass market editions of The Casual Vacancy in 2012 and 2013 respectively.

There was no change atop the rest of the charts, either. The Cursed Child, of course, retained its Children’s pole position, while The Girl on the Train earned a 13th non-consecutive Mass Market Fiction number one, its fifth in a row. Joe Wicks retained his usual Paperback Non-Fiction top spot with Lean in 15: The Shape Plan (Bluebird) shifting 8,520 copies. A Wicks title has held the PB NF top spot for 30 of the 33 weeks in 2016.

Jamie Oliver’s Super Food Family Classics (Michael Joseph) sold 3,590 copies to grab its sixth straight Hardback Non-Fiction number one. Oliver’s Michael Joseph stablemates Jason Hazeley’s and Joel Morris’ Ladybird for Grown-Ups range did claim eight of the HB NF Top 20 slots, including positions two through four. The duo’s new title, How it Works: The Student shifted 1,181 copies in its first week of sale and should be a massive Back to University hit.

Philippa Gregory’s Three Sisters, Three Queens (Simon & Schuster) sold 10,512 copies, ruling the Original Fiction chart for the second consecutive week. It’s an impressive total for Gregory given that the second placed Clare Mackinstosh’s I See You (Sphere) shifted 3,119 copies—and half of the Original Fiction top 20 failed to sell more than 1,000 units last week. It is the second straight 10,000-plus seven-day total for Three Sisters, Three Queens, the first time an Original Fiction title has had a back-to-back five-figure weekly volume sales in 2016.

The overall market the last few weeks has been given a boost by ...the Cursed Child's roaring start. The inevitable falling off of the playscript's sales, combined perhaps with distractions from the weather and Team GB's success in Rio saw a slight decline week on week of 6.1% to just under £24.8m. That is, however, a 3% rise on the same week in 2015.