Scotland's bestsellers: Pinch beats Connolly to the punch

Kay Featherstone and Kate Allinson’s Pinch of Nom easily topped the Scotland chart for 2019, with 108,536 copies sold from late March onwards. With the Scottish population around 8% of the UK’s as a whole, this volume marginally over-indexes for the 1.2 million copies of the blockbuster diet book sold across the UK in 2019. Regional charts for 2019 showed Pinch of Nom’s muscle across the country, with London the only region not to crown it the number one. (That accolade went to Adam Kay’s junior doctor memoir This is Going to Hurt.) 

Pinch of Nom is the only cookbook in Scotland’s top 10, with Jamie Oliver’s Veg underperforming against its UK-wide total, scoring 15th in the Scotland chart, as opposed to eighth in the UK ranking. Dare we say it, but it seems that the nation that invented the deep-fried Creme Egg may not have wholeheartedly taken to the vegetarian cookery trend sweeping the book charts. Aside from Veg, Joe Wicks’ Veggie Lean in 15 was the only other vegetarian cookbook to hit the top 100 north of the border.

Billy Connolly wields a great bookselling power, not only in Scotland, but in the UK in general. Early in 2019, John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces bounced into the Official UK Top 50 purely because Connolly had mentioned it in a BBC interview. His newest title, Tall Tales and Wee Stories, sold a whopping 25% of its 265,959-unit UK-wide total in Scotland, and it rose from 19th in the UK chart to second in the Scottish list.

While Connolly’s memoir Made in Scotland sold a solid 86,143 copies in hardback in the run-up to Christmas 2018, Tall Tales and Wee Stories, a collection of Connolly’s stories and stand-up routines over the years, far surpassed it last autumn. It’s by far the comedian’s bestseller, though still has a way to go to beat Billy, the biography written by his wife Pamela Stephenson.

The Broons Annual is a perennial bestseller north of Hadrian’s Wall and, given that it is released in early July each year (how early do Scottish book-buyers do their Christmas shopping?), it has an incredible run-up to the Christmas season. The 2020 instalment’s volume of 36,780 copies in Scotland accounted for 61% of its entire total in 2019. Interestingly, despite The Broons Annual’s dominance, Guinness World Records doesn’t seem to suffer particularly—its 2020 edition shifted 27,801 copies to score 17th place, shifting a bang-on 8% of its UK total in Scotland.

Scotland’s 2019-published fiction bestseller came from an unsurprising source. Ian Rankin’s In a House of Lies sold 38,884 copies in the author’s homeland, a hefty 18% of its UK-wide total. However, Heather Morris’ 2018-published The Tattooist of Auschwitz swiped the fiction top spot, selling 50,255 copies to land in third in the overall chart, below Pinch of Nom and Tall Tales and Wee Stories. Morris’ title marginally over- indexed, with 9% of its total sold in Scotland.

Cleaning influencer Mrs Hinch might hail from Essex, but Scotland has certainly embraced her. Both of her 2019 titles appear higher in the Scottish rankings than in the UK-wide chart, with Hinch Yourself Happy selling 11% of its UK total in the region. It hit fourth place overall, with follow- up Mrs Hinch: The Activity Journal charting 16th. 

Date Range 30th December 2018 to 28th December 2019 Source Nielsen