Pullman's The Secret Commonwealth tops chart of Super Thursday successes

Philip Pullman’s The Secret Commonwealth (Penguin/David Fickling) has knocked Margaret Atwood’s The Testaments (Chatto & Windus) from the UK Official Top 50 number one spot, selling 54,301 copies in its first three days on sale. The sequel to La Belle Sauvage, the second in Pullman's The Book of Dust series, notched up the author’s second-highest single week of sales after its predecessor’s launch week in 2017, when it shifted 71,568 units, and scored his third week in the overall top spot—and his 27th in the Children’s number one.

The Secret Commonwealth’s average selling price of £13.52 also meant a fourth consecutive week for a number one title selling at above £13. The last time the Top 50’s number one title dropped below £12 was Harlan Coben’s Run Away (Arrow) in mid-August.

The myriad of big new releases on sale from last week's Super Thursday pushed the print market to its highest volume and value for the year to date, at 3.7 million books sold for £35.6m. This was a jump of 4.5% in volume and 2.9% in value compared to the week of Super Thursday 2018. Last year, the £35m-mark wasn't surpassed by a single week until mid-November.

Bill Bryson’s The Body (Doubleday) legged it into the Hardback Non-Fiction number one, selling 26,707 copies—a hefty 22% up on his last hardback release, 2015’s The Road to Little Dribbling. That title went on to sell 300,184 copies in hardback total.

Eighties pop stars moonwalked into the category top 20 en masse, with Andrew Ridgeley's Wham! George & Me (Michael Joseph) in third place in Hardback Non-Fiction and Debbie Harry's Face It (HarperCollins) scoring fifth.

In total, there were seven new entries in the overall top 10, with seventeen titles debuting in the Top 50 as a whole. Though Atwood’s The Testaments held the Original Fiction number one for a fourth week, competition was rife in the chart, with Bernard Cornwell’s Sword of Kings (HarperCollins), Heather Morris’ Tattooist of Auschwitz sequel Cilka’s Journey (Zaffre) and Jojo Moyes’ The Giver of Stars (Michael Joseph) all thundering into the top four.

Lucinda Riley’s The Butterfly Room (Pan) leapfrogged its Pan Mac stablemate C J Sansom’s Tombland to claim the Mass Market Fiction number one—the author’s first week in the pole. James Patterson and Maxine Paetro’s 18th Abduction (Arrow) joined in the runner-up position. Oyinkan Braithwaite’s My Sister the Serial Killer (Atlantic), former Booker and Women’s Prize contender and current Richard and Judy Book Club title, zipped into the Mass Market Fiction top 20 for the first time, joining its Book Club compatriot Stacey Halls’ The Familiars (Zaffre), which remained steady in third place.

In the Children’s chart, the Christmas gifts were jockeying for space. Tom Fletcher’s The Christmasaurus and the Winter Witch (Puffin) skied into second place below The Secret Commonwealth, as Liz Pichon’s Spectacular School Trip (Really.) (Scholastic), Kes Gray and Jim Field’s Oi Puppies! (Hodder Children's) and Jamie Littler’s Frostheart (Puffin) all made their debuts. However, it was the spiderweb decorations decking the halls, with October stalwarts Peppa’s Pumpkin Party (Ladybird) and Janet and Allen Ahlberg’s Funnybones (Puffin) returning to the chart and new blood Sue Hendra and Paul Linnet’s Christopher Pumpkin (Hodder Children's) entering in 15th place.

Only the Paperback Non-Fiction top 20 proved resistant to change: Adam Kay’s This is Going to Hurt (Picador) re-claimed the number one for a 46th week.