Boris Johnson's Unleashed enters second term at the top of the charts… just

Boris Johnson’s Unleashed (William Collins) has managed to cling on to prime position in the Official UK Top 50 for a second week selling just 133 copies more than Tim Spector’s The Food for Life Cookbook (Jonathan Cape). Johnson’s majority reduced by 62%, while Spector sees a decline of 47% – but both books managed to retain the top two positions according to data from Nielsen Bookscan’s Total Consumer Market (TCM).

 

After the deluge of new releases on Super Thursday there is relative calm this week with just seven new entries into the Top 50. Three of these – Heir by Sabaa Tahir (ATOM); Sorcery and Small Magics by Maiga Doocy (Orbit); and Until We Shatter by Kate Dylan (Hodderscape) – owe their positions to inclusion in popular subscription boxes from Fairyloot and Illumicrate.

 

Fairyloot’s subscription box isn’t quite enough for Tahir to take the top spot in the Original Fiction chart, instead having to settle for second place while Richard Osman returns to the top spot with We Solve Murders (Viking) bringing in sales of 12,885. Ian Rankin’s Midnight and Blue (Orion) drops from first position to fifth, reflective of the rest of the top 20 which – subscription boxes aside – sees existing titles shuffling around as they settle into position after the rush of Super Thursday.

 

Things are a little bit more stable in the Hardback Non Fiction top 20 with the highest new entry – Al Pacino’s Sonny Boy (Century) – only making it as up to ninth place, selling 5,642 copies. None of the top five titles budge week-on-week, although Miranda Hart and Jamie Oliver both move up in the overall top 50 with Hart’s I Haven’t Been Entirely Honest With You (Michael Joseph) taking third place and Simply Jamie (Michael Joseph) moving back into the top 10 at eight.

 

It’s a similar story in the Mass Market Fiction chart with Cathy Bramley’s A Merry Little Christmas (Orion) taking 12th place. It’s one of 129 books in the TCM’s top 5,000 which features the word "Christmas" in its title, slightly up on last week’s 124, but the top of the MMF chart is slightly less festive this week with Dilly Court’s The Snow Angel (HarperCollins) ousting Laurie Gilmore’s The Christmas Tree Farm (One More Chapter) from the top spot.

 

While Christmas-themed books are starting to creep their way into the adult charts, it’s still more of a time for goblins and ghouls rather than tinsel in the Children’s charts with six Hallowe’en-themed books inside the top 10, four of these in the top five. The Garry Parsons illustrated The Dinosaur that Pooped Halloween! (Puffin) by McFly bandmates Tom Fletcher and Dougie Poynter is the highest of these, but has to settle for second place with Jamie Smart’s Bunny vs Monkey: The Big Glitch extending its reign at the top for a second week with 9,875 copies sold.

 

While Hallowe’en remains the priority for our youngest customers, the biggest new release this week is a festive-themed one with Bloomsbury releasing Christmas at Hogwarts by J K Rowling. Chapter 12 of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone is given new illustrations by Ziyi Gao as the boy wizard celebrates his first Christmas at the magical school.

 

In total, the TCM this week was worth £35m down 12.3% versus last week, but up 5.4% against the same week in 2023. Volume saw a similar story, down 11.7% week-on-week, but up 1.9% against last year.