Comfort at the top for Featherstone and Allinson

Kay Featherstone and Kate Allinson’s Pinch of Nom: Comfort Food has leapfrogged Richard Osman’s The Man Who Died Twice to reclaim the UK Official Top 50 number one spot, selling 41,132 copies in the last week of the year. This is the cookbook’s third week in the number one spot, following its blockbuster first week on the shelves, when it sold 119,400 copies, and its second week, when it clinched the Christmas number one.

Comfort Food became the first cookbook to reign in the festive top spot since Jamie Oliver’s 15-Minute Meals in 2012, and is the first Christmas number one ever with “slimming” written on the cover.

But now we enter the Pinch of Nom duo’s natural arena—the January “New Year, new you” season. Don’t expect to see any other book in the top spot until at least February. The last two years have seen the two previous titles, Pinch of Nom: Everyday Light and Pinch of Nom: Quick & Easy, spend a straight six weeks in the number one, starting with the post-Christmas week. Comfort Food, already having sold over a quarter of a million copies, looks set to do the same.   

Siobhan Wightman’s Slimming Eats debuted in second place, selling 18,205 copies, with Dr Michael Mosley’s The Fast 800 Keto charting fifth and topping the Paperback Non-Fiction top 20. The previous Pinch of Nom cookbook, Quick & Easy, rebounded into the Top 50, as did the Pinch of Nom Food Planner: Quick & Easy.

At this point “New Year, new you” is still getting warmed up—next week, covering the first full week of January, will see its running shoes on. In the meantime, James Nestor’s Breath, Rhiannon Lambert’s The Science of Nutrition and Dr Megan Rossi’s Eat More, Live Well made their debuts in the Top 50, with Vex King’s Good Vibes, Good Life and James Clear’s Atomic Habits returning after performing stunningly in January 2021.