Galbraith keeps on rolling: Lethal White strikes number one for a second week

Robert Galbraith has held the Official Top 50 number one spot for a second week running, with Lethal White (Sphere) selling 15,244 copies through Nielsen BookScan’s Total Consumer Market. While J K Rowling is accustomed to months-long streaks in the top spot, this is the first time a Galbraith title has spent longer than one week in the number one—and it’s “his” first number one hardback to do it.

However, the fourth Cormoran Strike title’s weekly volume plummeted 56% on the week before, dropping to the lowest seven-day sale for a number one since in 2018 so far. At 15,244 copies sold, it was in fact the lowest volume for a top spot-holder since Val McDermid’s Out of Bounds in January 2017, during a record string of low-selling number ones. But Lethal White is the first hardback fiction title to top the chart this year, with five of the last six weeks returning a hardback in the top spot.

Gail Honeyman’s Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine (HarperCollins) and Adam Kay’s This is Going to Hurt (Picador) fell out of the top three—the first time one or the other hasn’t been in the chart’s podium position since the end of June. In their wake, Jo Nesbo’s Macbeth (Vintage), Grenfell charity cookbook Together (Ebury) and Adele Parks’ I Invited Her In (HQ) leapt upwards. Macbeth claimed the Mass Market Fiction number one spot, Nesbo’s fifth, and Parks hit her highest chart ranking to date in fourth place. 

Together increased 18% week on week to hold the Hardback Non-Fiction number one for a second week, with Lily Allen’s memoir My Thoughts Exactly (Blink) bouncing 112% up in volume on its launch week, climbing nine places in the non-fiction chart to hit second. 

Luke Jennings’ Codename Villenelle (John Murray), which debuted in the Fiction Heatseekers top 20 a week ago, was spurred on enough by its BBC adaptation "Killing Eve" to swipe the Heatseekers top spot. Anna Burns’ Milkman (Faber) also made its debut in the chart, becoming the first Man Booker 2018 shortlistee to top 1,000 copies in one week. Daisy Johnson’s Everything Under (Jonathan Cape) also charted in Heatseekers, in 16th place.

Philip Pullman’s La Belle Sauvage (Penguin and David Fickling) dusted off the Children’s number one for a fourth week running, though he’s got a way to go to beat his own record—Northern Lights (Scholastic) charted top of the kids’ chart for nine consecutive weeks in early 2004. 

The quirky stocking filler of choice over Christmas 2017, Where’s the Unicorn (Michael O'Mara), is gearing up for another season—it knocked Tom Fletcher, Dougie Poynter and Garry Parsons’ The Dinosaur That Pooped a Princess (Red Fox) from the top of the Pre-School top 20, its 14th number one in the chart.

For a third week running, weekly value nudged upwards (to £31.6m) and volume fell (to 3.3 million books sold). Average selling price was 3p off the market's record, set last October at £9.56. Year on year, value is a healthy 1.95% up on 2017, with volume posting a much narrower margin of growth at 0.5%.