Weekly E-Ranking: Testaments is tops again in digital

Margaret Atwood scores a second chart double, with The Testaments topping both the print and e-book charts for a second week running. If the sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale can reign in the Weekly E-Book Ranking top spot for a third week, as its print edition has already achieved, it will become the longest-running number one in both charts simultaneously since Gail Honeyman’s Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, in early February 2018. Of course, Honeyman’s Costa First Novel Award-winner went on to notch up 19 weeks in the e-book top spot, the joint-record holder with Paula Hawkins’ The Girl on the Train until Adam Kay’s This is Going to Hurt racked up 20 top spots in August. With The Handmaid’s Tale spending seven weeks in the number one across summer 2017, perhaps The Testaments will go even further—and possibly even challenge Kay’s newly-minted record.

Peter Robinson’s Many Rivers to Cross was the highest new entry, surging up the top 20 to second place and displacing T M Logan’s former number one The Holiday. The crime title’s hardback hit fifth place in the Original Fiction chart in the same week, with Joe Abercrombie’s fantasy title A Little Hatred just below, in sixth—the e-book of that title bagged fifth in this week’s ranking. Both titles charted higher than Cecelia Ahern’s Postscript, which had beaten them both into the top three in Original Fiction.

David Cameron’s For the Record was the highest-charting non-fiction title, in eighth—with, awkwardly, the similarly-titled Permanent Record, the memoir of mass-surveillance whistleblower Edward Snowden, also charting, in 16th. Let’s hope no Kindle owners got those two mixed up. Douglas Murray’s The Madness of Crowds was the third non-fiction title to début in the ranking last week.

Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s Fleishman is in Trouble rebounded into the top 20 for the first time since July. Clive Cussler and Jack du Brul’s The Titanic Secret and Jessie Burton’s The Confession also débuted in the chart. Her previous book, The Muse, spent 15 weeks in the top 20 across 2016 and 2017.