Five thrives: Jamie Oliver makes it six weeks at the top

Jamie Oliver’s 5 Ingredients—Quick & Easy Food (Michael Joseph) has breezed into a sixth week as the UK Official Top 50 number one. The cookbook sold 39,914 copies according to Nielsen BookScan’s TCM, and becomes the first adult title to reign atop the chart for six weeks since Joe Wicks’ Lean in 15 (Bluebird) back in early 2016.

After last year saw four separate titles top the chart for six weeks or more apiece, 5 Ingredients becomes the first title of 2017 to rack up more than four—in fact, only Oliver and David Walliams have spent longer than two weeks in the top spot.

Father-and-son author duo Stephen and Owen King swiped the Original Fiction number one from Ken Follett’s A Column of Fire (Macmillan), with Sleeping Beauties (Hodder & Stoughton) shifting 15,609 copies. King Sr scored a double with It (Hodder) also charting in the top 10, selling 10,147 copies.

Joanna Trollope’s A City of Friends (Pan) leapfrogged Sarah Pinborough’s Behind Her Eyes (Harper) to take the Mass Market Fiction number one—the author’s first since 2011 and her 13th overall.

Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens (Vintage) crested the Paperback Non-Fiction chart for a 12th non-consecutive week, bumped up 15% in volume week on week, and was joined by its follow-up Homo Deus in second—the third time this year that Harari has taken both first and second place in the category chart.

Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler boomeranged back into the Children’s number one spot, unseating Cressida Cowell’s The Wizards of Once (Hodder Children's). Only the Don could pull this off: she has gone to number one for the second time in three weeks with two different books. Last month The Ugly Five (Scholastic) yanked the top spot from J K Rowling for Donaldson’s first number one in five years; just 21 days later, Zog and the Flying Doctors (Alison Green) has flapped into the top spot.

Leigh Bardugo’s The Language of Thorns (Orion Children's) stole away with the Children’s and YA Fiction top 20 number one, the second YA fantasy title to take the pole after Sarah J Maas’ Tower of Dawn (Bloomsbury Children's) in the first week of September.

Somehow it’s that time of year again, already: 12 annuals thundered into the Children’s Non-Fiction chart last week, with the Beano Annual 2018 (D C Thomson) taking an early lead. Last year’s bestselling annual, Pokemon, fell from fourth place a week ago to 16th, blowing this competition wide open.

The print market jumped 5.4% in value to £32.1m, surpassing £1bn earned for the year to date. It kept pace with 2016, and for the first nine months of the year, has just nosed ahead in value, by 0.49%. However, volume is lagging behind (down 1.8% year on year), and as a result, average selling price is spiralling upwards: last week's a.s.p of £9.53 is the highest on record.