The new Normal: Rooney grabs first Mass Market number one as Pinch of Nom rolls on

A day after winning two British Book Awards for Fiction Book of the Year and the overall Book of the Year, Sally Rooney has claimed her first Mass Market Fiction number one. Normal People (Faber) shifted 18,668 copies through Nielsen BookScan's Total Consumer Market and was the second bestselling book overall last week. Somewhat surprisingly, this is just the second time Faber has ever held the Mass Market Fiction top spot, after Louise Doughty's Apple Tree Yard accomplished that feat for one week in February 2017. 

Rooney knocked E L James' The Mister (Arrow) off the Mass Market Fiction perch after three weeks. James' latest slipped to fourth in the chart on 14,522 copies with Jeffrey Archer's Heads You Win (Pan, 15,879 copies) and Stephen King's The Outsider (Hodder, 14,693) both having strong outings in their first full week on sale.     

Yet, Rooney could not derail the Pinch of Nom (Bluebird) express. Kay Featherstone and Kate Allinson's slimming title sold 39,444 units last week to claim its fifth non-consecutive pole position on the UK's Official Top 50.  The next book to dethrone the duo from the top spot might be another Pinch of Nom title: Pinch of Nom Food Planner which will be released on 13th June and has been in the Amazon top 20 bestsellers for about a month on pre-orders alone. 

Jordan B Peterson's 12 Rules for Life (Penguin)—with a 33% jump in volume to shift 9,771 copies in its second week on sale—ended the two-week run for First Man In by Ant Middleton's (HarperCollins) atop Paperback Non-Fiction. Peterson's book was, of course, one of 2018's huge non-fiction hits in hardback, selling nearly 185,000 copies for £2.6m. 

In the Children's chart, Jeff Kinney enjoyed his fifth consecutive number one with Diary of an Awesome Friendly Kid (Puffin). The Wimpy Kid story from Greg Heffley's best friend Rowley's point of view sold 10,550 copies last week, the only children's title to exceed the five-figure volume mark.    

At the summit of Original Fiction was the adult/Young Adult fantasy crossover Finale (Hodder, 4,548 copies), the third book (and, yes, last) in Stephanie Garber's Caraval series. This is Garber's first ever UK number one and the highest-charting new title in the week's Top 50, in 31st place. Hitting 45th place was the previous week's Fiction Heatseekers number one, The Way of All Flesh (Canongate, 3,589 copies), giving the first Top 50 listing for Ambrose Parry, the pseudonym of husband and wife writing team, Christopher Brookmyre and Marisa Haetzman.

After a strong sales over the bank holiday the previous week, the overall TCM dropped 7.1% to £25.3m—but that represents a 12.2% jump on the same week in 2018.