First Lady places second as Walliams' Ice scores twice

David Walliams and Tony Ross’ The Ice Monster (HarperCollins) has held the UK Official Top 50 number one spot for a second week, selling 95,484 copies to beat Michelle Obama’s Becoming (Viking) to the top spot. Though the kids’ title fell from its first-week record of 111,057 copies sold, it still shifted 30,751 more than Becoming’s 64,732. 

The Ice Monster’s mammoth second-week volume brings its total up to 206,541 copies sold after less than two weeks on sale—making it the second bestselling kids’ book of the year, behind (of course) Walliams and Ross’ spring-released The World’s Worst Children 3. 

However, Becoming is the fastest-selling Hardback Non-Fiction title since Alex Ferguson’s My Autobiography (Hodder) in November 2013, beating Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury (Little, Brown)’s peak of 59,468. In value terms, Becoming’s £850,000 earned last week topped The Ice Monster’s £680,000, with Obama’s sky-high average selling price of £13.13 coming in at nearly £6 higher than Walliams’. 

The former First Lady now joins husband Barack on a personal UK highest chart position of second place—but Dreams from My Father (Canongate) still sold 711,384 copies after the former president’s inauguration in 2009. 

J K Rowling’s Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (Little, Brown) was the second-highest entry in fourth place overall, shifting 38,024 copies. This was 31% down on the first week sales of the first film’s screenplay back in 2016, but the sequel will comfortably be the bestselling playscript of the year—it’s already ahead of An Inspector Calls by 3,266 copies.

While the Christmas Number One looks destined to fall into Walliams and Ross’ hands again this year, barring an upset by Obama, the outside bet must be on Craig Smith and Katz Cowley’s The Wonky Donkey (Scholastic). The viral picture book jumped 82% in volume last week, shifting 25,576 copies and claiming sixth place. As a result, it prevented a Walliams’ children’s double, blocking new picture book Geronimo (HarperCollins) from the Pre-School number one.

Lee Child’s Past Tense (Bantam) held the Original Fiction number one, with Ben Aaronovitch’s Lies Sleeping (Gollancz) the highest new entry in fifth. At 6,252 copies sold, the seventh Rivers of London novel scored the author’s second-highest single week sales to date, beating 2017 novella The Furthest Station’s first week by 53%.

At 4.4 million books sold for £38.3m, the market was up 10.2% in volume and 9.8% in value, and even more stunningly, posted growth in both volume and value against the same week in 2017 for the first time since mid-September. Thanks, Obama.