Normal People knocks Slime from the charts top spot

Sally Rooney's Normal People (Faber) has leapfrogged David Walliams' Slime (HarperCollins) for the UK Official Top 50 number one spot, over a year after the paperback edition's publication. Boosted back into the Top 50 by its much-acclaimed BBC adaptation, which dropped last month, the book has now vaulted into the top spot, for Rooney's first ever overall pole placing.

Following its Waterstones Book of the Year win in late 2018, Normal People racked up a six-week stretch in the Original Fiction number one spot in hardback, with the paperback claiming the Mass Market Fiction top spot twice in May 2019. It now swipes a third, leapfrogging Lee Child's Blue Moon (Bantam) after four weeks atop the chart.

Rooney's Conversations with Friends also bounded back up the chart, hitting 13th in Mass Market Fiction.

Meanwhile as much of May's planned publications have been moved to later in the year, the chart was light on new entries—only Matt Lucas' Thank You, Baked Potato (Egmont) entered the Top 50, in 44th place.

Stephen King's If It Bleeds (Hodder) and Hilary Mantel's The Mirror and the Light (Fourth Estate) held the Original Fiction top two for a third week running, with Marian Keyes' Grown Ups (Michael Joseph) rising back into the top three.

Charlie Mackesy's The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse (Ebury) cantered into the Hardback Non-Fiction top spot once again, as Rukmini Iyer swiped three spots in the top 20, for The Roasting Tin, The Green Roasting Tin and The Roasting Tin Around the World (Square Peg).

Adam Kay's This is Going to Hurt (Picador) re-claimed the Paperback Non-Fiction number one from Daisy Upton's Five Minute Mum (Penguin), for the junior doctor memoir's 57th week at the top.

Once again, Nielsen BookScan was unable to provide sales figures or market data, owing to the reduction in the number of retailers remaining open during the pandemic lockdown.