Non-Fiction: Perry's memoir perks up Hardback Non-Fiction

Matthew Perry’s Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing (Headline) missed out on the overall number one to Colleen Hoover’s It Starts with Us (S&S). A victory for TikTok over terrestrial television? Perhaps, though of course “Friends” is reportedly wildly popular with the social media site’s key demographic Generation Z, despite them being born after the series’ run on TV screens began in the 1990s.

However, Perry’s memoir sold strongly enough to force Jamie Oliver’s One (Michael Joseph) to take a break from the Hardback Non-Fiction number one spot, with Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing selling 24,085 copies, the highest for a title débuting in the category chart top spot since One itself in early September.

Last year was a pivotal one for the celebrity memoir category, as Bob Mortimer, Billy Connolly and Miriam Margolyes launched a three-pronged attack on the non-fiction charts, shifting nearly 840,000 copies between them in hardback. The cosy, quirky, national treasure vibes have given way to exposés of beloved 90s and 00s pop culture touchstones, with Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing joining Tom Felton’s Beyond the Wand and former Nickelodeon actress Jennette McCurdy’s I’m Glad My Mom Died in the hardback charts. This confessional trend will of course reach its zenith in January, with Prince Harry’s Spare hitting the shelves.

Bono’s Surrender (Hutchinson Heinemann) was the second-highest new entry in the Top 50, charting fourth overall with 20,040 copies sold. Dr Michael Mosley’s Just One Thing (Short) and Quentin Tarantino’s Cinema Speculation (W&N) also made their débuts, as Greta Thunberg’s The Climate Book (Allen Lane) and the Private Eye Annual 2022, which somehow isn’t the size of the phone book, bounced upwards. 

Ben Macintyre’s SAS (Penguin) invaded the Paperback Non-Fiction number one, after its BBC adaptation began. The newly-released tie-in edition leapt from seventh place a week ago, rising 274% in volume week on week, while the 2017 edition re-entered the top 20, improving 336% on the week before.