Walliams versus Pinch of Nom in the race to Christmas number one

David Walliams look set to achieve a third Christmas number one with The Beast of Buckingham Palace (HarperCollins) racking up three straight weeks of sales above 100,000 copies—yet Pinch of Nom sequel Everyday Light could potentially cause an upset.

Last year, Walliams and illustrator Tony Ross' The Ice Monster notched up the duo's biggest launch-week sales upon release, but by December Michelle Obama's Becoming had claimed the overall top spot, and the former First Lady went on to sell 116,920 copies the week ahead of Christmas. Not only was Obama the first author of colour to claim the festive top spot, she was also the first woman of colour to ever top the UK chart. This ended a two-year streak of Christmas number ones for Walliams, after 2016's The Midnight Gang and 2017's Bad Dad rode to victory.

In any normal year, The Beast of Buckingham Palace's spot on the top of the tree would be assured. Released a few weeks later than Walliams' usual autumn publication, it is already 17% ahead of Bad Dad and 16.5% ahead of The Ice Monster in volume after three weeks on the shelves. Generally, the author's Christmas-number-ones-to-be drop off in sales around early December before returning greater and more terrible than ever before towards the end of the month—but The Beast of Buckingham Palace, its title riding on a wave of unfortunate topicality, is still posting sky-high weekly sales.

However, this is famously not a normal year and it's perfectly likely that 2019 could be rounded off with a diet book as the nation's Christmas book of choice. Kay Featherstone and Kate Allinson's Pinch of Nom (Bluebird) became the fastest-selling non-fiction title upon its release in March and its sequel, Everyday Light, is published this week—and will be in its first full week of sales the week the Christmas number one is announced. Everyday Light is odds-on to post an eye-watering first week of sales, after its predecessor notched up 210,506 copies in its own launch week, and having already spent 14 weeks in the Amazon Charts' Most-Sold: Non-Fiction top 20, its pre-orders are guaranteed to be gargantuan. The first Pinch of Nom sold 122,573 copies in its second week, a figure that could easily gift Everyday Light the Christmas number one—but will potential buyers be too distracted by the festive season to pick up a copy? Will gift-shoppers baulk at wrapping a diet book to put under the tree? If yes, Walliams' path may still be clear.

However, for those looking to back a really dark horse, Charlie Mackesy's The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse (Ebury) has cantered upwards 110% in volume over the past two weeks, following its Waterstones Book of the Year win. With 53,925 copies sold, it shifted more than a quarter of its total sales to date last week alone. It may still be a rank outsider, but if the illustrated title did pull off the impossible, it would be the second year in a row that a plucky début leapfrogged a Walliams behemoth to achieve a Christmas miracle.