Pinch of Nom whips up a second week at the top

Kay Featherstone and Kate Allinson’s record-breaking cookbook Pinch of Nom (Bluebird) has rustled up a second week in the UK Official Top 50 number one spot, selling 122,073 copies in its first seven days on sale. At 332,000 copies sold in total, Pinch of Nom is now easily the bestselling book of 2019 to date, beating David Walliams and Tony Ross’ Fing (HarperCollins) by nearly 48,000 copies. 

Kate Atkinson’s Transcription (Black Swan) rose to second place, leapfrogging Fing and increasing by 24% week on week. At 20,179 copies sold, the literary spy thriller scored the author’s highest single-week volume since Life After Life in 2014, racking up her 14th week in the Mass Market Fiction number one spot.

Mother’s Day certainly helped give the Mass Market Fiction chart a shot in the arm, with Katie Flynn’s A Mother’s Love (Arrow) rising and Gill Sims’ Why Mummy Swears (HarperCollins) entering the chart in 12th place. "Strictly Come Dancing"’s Anton du Beke was the highest new entry in the chart with One Enchanted Evening (Zaffre) charting ninth. 

While Pinch of Nom reigned supreme in the Hardback Non-Fiction number one—and probably will do for quite some time—Mary Berry also had a Mother’s Day bump, with Quick Cooking (BBC) jumping 31% in volume week on week. Michelle Obama’s Becoming (Viking) also leapt, improving 90% week on week and hopping up the chart to third. Gift purchases Elma van Vliet’s Mum, Tell Me (Particular) and The Wit and Wisdom of Mum (Templar) also scored top 10 places.

Ali Smith’s Spring (Hamish Hamilton), the third title in her Seasons Quarter, swiped the Original Fiction number one, with former number one Clive and Dirk Cussler’s Celtic Empire (Michael Joseph) banished to fifth place. This is Smith’s first ever category top spot and, at 4,405 copies sold, is her biggest single week for a hardback title ever. 

Ant Middleton’s First Man In (HarperCollins) boomeranged back into the Paperback Non-Fiction chart, selling 10,846 copies. While the chart returned an all-male top three, with Adam Kay and Noel Fitzpatrick joining Middleton at the summit, Christie Watson’s nursing memoir The Language of Kindness (Vintage) and Dolly Alderton’s Everything I Know About Love (Penguin) bounced back into the top five.

Onjali Q Rauf’s Waterstones Children’s Prize winner The Boy at the Back of the Class entered the Top 50, selling 6,205 copies, while Francesca Simon’s Horrid Henry: Up, Up and Away (both Orion Children's) rocketed into the Children’s top 20 in 15th.