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Jamie Oliver fries to the top of the charts
Following phenomenal first-week sales – the biggest original fiction number one in nearly a decade – Rebecca Yarros’ Onyx Storm (Piatkus) experienced an 87.5% drop in sales, pushing it to third place in the official UK Top 50 in the latest data from Nielsen Bookscan’s Total Consumer Market.
Yarros is replaced at the summit of the charts by Jamie Oliver, as he jumps on the air-fryer bandwagon with Easy Air Fryer (Michael Joseph). Oliver’s latest offering has sold 35,784 copies, 82.1% up on the first week of his previous offering, Simply Jamie, which was released just a few months ago in September 2024 – albeit with a higher RRP of £30 compared with Easy Air Fryer’s £26.
Easy Air Fryer marks the chef’s return to the top, having been absent since 2022 when One fittingly made it to number one upon its launch in September of that year. It’s the 21st of Oliver’s books to make it to number one and gives him his 71st week occupying the top of the Official Top 50.
In a week dominated by new releases – there are 13 in the Top 50 alone – Oliver’s is the only new title to hit the Hardback Non-Fiction chart (HBNF), selling more than the rest of the top 10 combined. Last week’s HBNF number one, Simon Squibb’s What’s Your Dream? (Century), has dropped 45.4% to third place, while The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins (Hay House UK) holds firm in second, with a slight drop of 5.3%.
The second biggest release of the week is Freida McFadden’s The Crash (Poisoned Pen Press), which debuts with 21,705 copies, giving the prolific author not only her biggest single week’s sales to date, but also her first Mass Market Fiction (MMF) number one.
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The Official Top 10 is somewhat of a fiction paperback affair, with the format taking seven of the available slots. Jennie Godfrey’s The List of Suspicious Things (Cornerstone) and Samantha Harvey’s Orbital (Vintage) continue to perform strongly, while Bal Khabra snags eighth place with Spiral (Bloomsbury), the second book in the Off the Ice series.
Dilly Court’s Poppy’s Choice (HarperCollins), the eighth outing in the Rookwood Chronicles, has interested 10,413 people in its first three days on sale, placing it at position five in the overall top 10.
Court is sandwiched between Yarros on the MMF chart, and while both Fourth Wing and Iron Flame have dropped down the chart, they haven’t experienced the same week-on-week decline as the third book in the series. In fact, while Fourth Wing has seen a 0.6% drop, Iron Flame’s sales have risen 0.1%, suggesting a halo effect from the recent displays of Onyx Storm in bookshops across the country.
And despite a big week-on-week drop in sales, Onyx Storm keeps hold of the Original Fiction number one spot, selling nearly four times as much as its nearest rival: the ever-popular Butter by Asako Yuzuki, translated by Polly Barton (Fourth Estate).
A rare Non-Fiction entry in this week’s Top 10 is Gary Stevenson’s The Trading Game (Penguin), a new entry picked by Waterstones as its Non-Fiction book of the month. It tops the Paperback Non-Fiction, shifting 7,056 copies and relegating James Clear’s Atomic Habits (Random House Business) into the second spot on the chart.
While the past seven days have seen a glut of fiction new releases, it’s a different story in the Children’s chart, with just one new title troubling the top 20. MG Leonard’s Hunt for the Golden Scarab has sold 2,202 copies, making it the 16th-bestselling children’s title of the week. Dav Pilkey’s Big Jim Begins (Scholastic) leads the chart, selling 5,201 units – 10.2% more than the previous week – and returning to the top spot.
A total of 3.3 million books were sold across the TCM this week, a rise of 4.2% compared with the previous week, delivering £30.2m through the nation’s tills, up 0.6% week-on-week. Compared with the same week in 2024, volume sales have risen 0.8% while value is up 0.6%.
