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Cleaning Instagrammer Sophie “Mrs Hinch” Hinchliffe’s Hinch Yourself Happy (Michael Joseph) has once again polished the UK Official Top 50 number one up to a shine, with 61,210 copies sold in its first full week on sale. With nearly a quarter of a million copies sold in a week and a half, it is already the third-bestselling book of the year to date—only Kay Featherstone and Kate Allinson’s Pinch of Nom (Bluebird) and David Walliams’ Fing (HarperCollins) have sold more.
Jeff Kinney’s Diary of an Awesome Friendly Kid: Rowley Jefferson’s Journal (Puffin)—told from the perspective of Greg Heffley’s best friend—was the highest new entry, sweeping straight into the Children’s number one spot to unseat Fing. The two most recent Wimpy Kid titles, The Getaway and The Meltdown, both rose into the Top 50 to join their spin-off series title.
The two fiction number ones remained steady on the week before, with Lee Child’s Past Tense (Bantam) selling 48,234 copies in the Mass Market Fiction number one, his biggest single week in paperback since records began, and Wilbur Smith and Imogen Robertson’s King of Kings (Zaffre) holding the Original Fiction top spot.
Original Fiction had a King and a Queen at the top: Candice Carty-Williams’ Queenie (Trapeze) stormed into second place in the chart, and also reigned atop the Fiction Heatseekers top 20, with 2,758 copies sold in its first three days on sale.
The Secret Barrister (Picador) proved supreme in Paperback Non-Fiction, selling 10,308 copies to defeat Adam Kay’s This is Going to Hurt (Picador) in the number one spot. Michael Mosley's The Fast 800 (Short) rose back into the top four, as the nation presumably realised it was nearly Easter and summer body requirements are only just around the corner.
Easter titles were abundant in the Pre-School chart, with We’re Going on an Egg Hunt (Bloomsbury Children's) in the number one for a second week, and Fiona Watt and Rachel Wells’ That’s Not My Chick (Usborne) and no less than three Peppa Pig-related Easter titles (all Ladybird) in the top 10.
The print market declined slightly week on week, but the later timing for Easter meant the year-on-year numbers remained healthy, with last week 9.7% up in value on the same week in 2018.