Weekly E-Ranking: Logan’s run continues at the top

Once again, T M Logan's The Holiday cruised into the Weekly E-Book Ranking number one, for a fourth week in total. With this chart covering the week of the August bank holiday Monday, the e-book chart had a final summer hurrah, with Logan’s appropriately titled thriller cresting a top five that featured the nation’s unlikely beach read of choice for two summers running, Adam Kay’s This is Going to Hurt; the psychological thriller of the moment, Lisa Jewell’s The Family Upstairs; and Heather Morris’ unstoppable tragic romance, The Tattooist of Auschwitz.

Despite four fiction titles featuring in the top five, it was a stunning week for non-fiction in the digital charts. In the pre-This is Going to Hurt era, it was rare for a non-fiction title to regularly chart—unless it had been boosted into the public eye by, say, an Oscar-nominated film (Saroo Brierley’s Lion: A Long Way from Home) or because the President of the United States had attempted to prevent its publication entirely (Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury). However, with the junior doctor memoir now the e-book top 20’s most prolific chart-topper since its inception, narrative non-fiction is now practically a chart mainstay. Last week saw Lemn Sissay’s memoir My Name is Why début in sixth place as the highest new entry in the chart; in the same week, it rocketed into the Hardback Non-fiction top 20. Raynor Winn’s The Salt Path, Dr Amanda Brown’s The Prison Doctor and The Secret Barrister all rose, as Lisa Taddeo’s Three Women racked up an eighth straight week in the top 20. In total, seven non-fiction titles charted in the ranking.

Aside from My Name is Why, the new entries were exclusively crime fiction—Louise Penny’s A Better Man hit 10th place, with Peter May’s The Noble Path just below, in 11th. Though it is only Penny’s second appearance in the chart, May’s standalone thriller is his fourth title to hit the top 20. Val McDermid’s first Karen Pirie title, The Distant Echo, hit the chart for the first time (in 20th place), after several recent appearances from the veteran crime author’s backlist.