Northern Focus charts: Zymurgy quiz title leads the way

The Northern publishers chart, spanning 2019, is topped by an indie bookseller stalwart. Newcastle-based Zymurgy’s The Little Book of Jokes for Kids of All Ages, published in 2008, has sold over 136,000 units in the past 12 years, regularly appearing in the Independent Booksellers’ chart. In fact, for the first quarter of 2020, it hit 22nd in the indie bookshops’ Children’s Top 50, charting in 1,406th in the TCM-wide kids’ chart. For 2019, it sold 11,259 units to top the Northern publishers ranking.The publisher scored a second hit in the chart, with Martin Ellis’ The Little Book of Amazing Facts for Kids of All Ages charting 10th in the top 20.

In second place, Yu Miri’s Tokyo Ueno Station, published by Tilted Axis, sold 6,154 copies for the year. Translated from Japanese by Morgan Giles, the story of a ghost who haunts the homeless “villages” near Ueno Station in Tokyo spans the 1964 Olympics, through the 2011 tsunami to the announcement of the (now delayed) 2020 Olympic Games in the city. Ronan Hession’s Nibbies-nominated Leonard and Hungry Paul, published by Bluemoose, hit third place. The gentle story of friendship, declared “profoundly moving” by The Bookseller books editor Alice O’Keeffe, rubs shoulders with Candice Carty-Williams and Stacey Halls in the Fiction: Début Book of the Year award, but even pre-shortlist it had shifted 4,900 copies across last year, from its March 2019 publication date.

Award-winning literary fiction dominates the Northern-published chart, with the 2017 Costa Book Award winner Helen Dunmore’s Inside the Wave, published by Bloodaxe, and Graeme Macrae Burnet’s His Bloody Project, a 2016 Booker Prize shortlistee, riding high in the rankings. Crime title His Bloody Project soared in sales the moment the prize’s longlist was announced in July 2016, eventually selling over 162,000 copies across all editions. Its publisher, Salford-based Saraband, also scored a hit with Donald S Murray’s As the Women Lay Dreaming, in sixth place. Murray’s début earned the seal of approval from Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who called it “poignant”.

Another Saraband title, Jim Crumley’s The Nature of Spring, charted just below in seventh; the third title in the author’s Seasons nature writing series, it touches on the “unwanted drama” wrought by climate change on the natural world, and outlines a new vision for conservation.

Deborah Levy’s Swimming Home, short-listed for the 2012 Booker Prize; Benjamin Myers’ The Gallows Pole, winner of the 2018 Walter Scott Prize; Alia Trabucco Zeran’s The Remainder, translated by Sophie Hughes and shortlisted for the 2019 Man Booker International Prize, and Tan Twan Eng’s The Gift of Rain, a 2007 Booker Prize shortlistee, also added to the chart’s trophy cabinet.

Poetry also performed strongly, with Neil Astley’s Staying Alive and Dunmore’s Counting Backwards charting alongside their Bloodaxe stablemate Inside the Wave. Though non-fiction titles were thinner on ground, Helen and Paul Webster’s travel guide Scottish Island Bagging hit fifth and Alan Brown’s Overlander, tracking the author’s coast-to-coast cycle across the Scottish Highlands, also hit the top 20.

Date Range: 30th Dec 2018 to 28th Dec 2019 Source: Nielsen