Weekly E-Ranking: Blue Moon grabs third number one

Lee Child’s Blue Moon has boomeranged back into the Weekly E-Book Ranking top spot, a week after Philip Pullman’s collected His Dark Materials sensationally knocked the 24th Jack Reacher title from the number one. However, a week on and you would need an amber spyglass to find His Dark Materials in the top 20, after a drop to 16th place. Pullman still featured thrice in the e-book chart, with Northern Lights re-entering in 18th and the second Book of Dust title, The Secret Commonwealth, in 10th.

Child secures his ninth number one in the e-book chart. Blue Moon has defied its rarely-seen namesake by hitting the top spot for a third time—the best performance for a Reacher title. Night School racked up four number ones in total, but took until the spring after its autumn 2016 release to achieve it (helped by the publication of the paperback).

After a blitz of new entries a week ago—when 10 of the top 20 were chart first-timers—the autumn’s stalwarts zipped back up the chart. Adam Kay and Heather Morris, who have dominated the e-book charts throughout 2018 and 2019, appeared twice each. Kay’s This is Going to Hurt and festive follow-up Twas the Nightshift Before Christmas both hit the top five, while Morris’ 12-week number one The Tattooist of Auschwitz beat its own sequel Cilka’s Journey to the top six.

Tellingly, the chart was entirely free of what, in recent years, has been e-book’s winter-time stalwart: Christmas-themed romance. This chart covers the week in which the Mass-Market Fiction top 20 featured nine festive-themed titles, with a further two in the Original Fiction chart. Perhaps this e-book-born trend has finally flown the nest to print entirely. Instead, the books hyped as the Christmas gifts of the season performed strongly in "e", with Kay and Morris’ festive offerings, The Secret Commonwealth, Jojo Moyes’ The Giver of Stars and Margaret Atwood’s The Testaments all rising. While each book’s sales in print are strong, e-book buyers’ tendency to self-gift this year may see a lot of receipt-swapping on Christmas Day.

Week ending 23rd November 2019. Titles with a selling price below £2 are excluded, as are titles priced £4.50 or below with any print versions priced above £17.99. Participating publishers: PRH UK, Hachette, HarperCollins, Pan Macmillan, Bloomsbury, Simon & Schuster, Bonnier Zaffre & Canongate.