Walliams holds off Wicks, Rowling and Zoella for third week at the top

David Walliams has clinched the UK Official Top 50 number one spot for a third week running, as The Midnight Gang (HarperCollins Children's) sold 78,950 copies for £449,629 through Nielsen BookScan. The new book is by far Walliams’ fastest-selling title to date, and has shifted 39% more copies than spring release The World’s Worst Children over a similar three week period.

At just a whisker short of quarter of a million units sold, The Midnight Gang is already the 10th bestselling book of the year, and has earned £1.3m. After surpassing the £10m mark for the first time in 2015, Walliams is already less than £500k away from the milestone with six weeks to go until New Year’s Day—and his hefty December 2015 total of £2.6m is likely to be bested this year.

Joe Wicks lunged into second place with his third Lean in 15 title, The Sustain Plan (Bluebird), which sold 68,548 copies and gifted the Body Coach his 41st Paperback Non-Fiction number one—which means Wicks has accounted for 89% of the top spots in that chart this year. 

Though The Sustain Plan was marginally down on the first-week totals of predecessors Lean in 15 and Lean in 15: The Shape Plan, Wicks may still be cracking open the low-sugar champagne tonight, as his debut cookbook sold 9,154 units this week and surpassed one million copies sold after 11 months on sale. However, it was just pipped to the post by that other 2016 debut blockbuster, the mass market paperback of Paula Hawkins’ The Girl on the Train (Black Swan), which shifted 13,586 copies last week to hit 1.007m copies sold—just 856 copies more than Lean in 15. The psychological thriller and the healthy eating cookbook become the second and third titles of the year to reach the magic seven-figure mark—after Harry Potter and the Cursed Child crested a million after less than two weeks on sale in August.

Speaking of Harry Potter, J K Rowling’s Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Little, Brown)—the screenplay of the first film of the spin-off series—ferreted out third place, shifting 55,377 copies to beat Zoella’s Girl Online: Going Solo (Penguin) by just 2,543 units. Going Solo’s first-week total was only 4,204 copies short of Girl Online: On Tour’s launch week in 2015, when it went straight into the number one spot— but this was a particularly competitive week for new entries.

With Jeff Kinney’s Double Down (Puffin) in fifth place still pulling in north of 40,000 copies, the top five collectively shifted almost 300,000 units last week, a 26% jump on last week—and more than a third of the entire Top 50’s total volume.

Another new entry, Tim Peake’s Hello, is this Planet Earth? (Century)—you can understand his confusion, what with President Trump and all— rocketed into sixth place and ended Guinness World Records 2017’s three-week run as Hardback Non Fiction number one. The category chart is now inundated with retro spoof novelty titles, with 11 of the top 20 being either Ladybird Books for Grown Ups or the Famous Five pastiche series. The Famous Five are really giving the Ladybirds a run for their money—new title Five Give up the Booze (Quercus) charted above the new Ladybirds in 15th, but Five on Brexit Island is still the jewel in the series’ crown, increasing by 30% in volume week on week. Though its momentum probably won’t help it outsell Walliams, it would make an interesting (and fitting) 2016 Christmas number one.

Lee Child’s Night School (Bantam) held the Original Fiction number one, while million-copy-bestseller The Girl on the Train returned to the top of the Mass Market Fiction top 20 after a brief stopover a week ago, for its 25th week.

The print market is booming, hitting its highest volume and value for the year to date—even surpassing the week Cursed Child sold 850,000 copies. It was up 17.6% in value on the week before, and 13.5% up on the same week in 2015. In fact, it was the highest mid-November weekly total for both volume and value since 2008.