'Tattooist of Auschwitz' makes its mark on charts top spot

Heather Morris’ The Tattooist of Auschwitz (Zaffre) has swiped the UK Official Top 50 number one spot from Zoe Sugg’s Cordially Invited (Hodder & Stoughton), selling 25,567 copies through Nielsen BookScan’s Total Consumer Market. This is Zaffre’s first overall number one, and publisher Bonnier Books UK’s second title to hit the number one, following Alfie Deyes’ The Pointless Book 2 (Blink) in April 2015.

Morris’ debut has already sold a whisker under 90,000 copies in hardback since its January release, topped the Bookseller’s Weekly E-Ranking three times and has proved a runaway success in Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. The paperback’s volume jumped 32% in its first full week on sale, leapfrogging Zoella—who crashed to 31st place—and Ian Rankin’s In a House of Lies (Orion) to claim the top spot.

Rankin’s latest Inspector Rebus title held the Original Fiction number one from the previous week, with Haruki Murakami’s Killing Commendatore (Harvill Secker) the highest new entry, in fourth place. In Mass-Market Fiction, Joanna Trollope’s An Unsuitable Match (Pan) vaulted up the top 20 to claim runner-up to The Tattooist…, as Stephanie Merritt’s While You Sleep (HarperCollins) and Amy Lloyd’s The Innocent Wife (Arrow) entered the chart in 11th and 12th place. Festive fiction also decked the chart’s halls, with Carole Matthews’ Christmas Cakes and Mistletoe Nights (Sphere) in ninth place and Donna Douglas’ A Nightingale Christmas Promise (Arrow) in 15th place. 

Gary Barlow’s A Better Me (Blink) climbed to swipe the Hardback Non-Fiction number one, with Shane Warne’s No Spin (Ebury) and Romesh Ranganathan’s Straight Outta Crawley (Bantam) entering the chart, in a second Super Thursday wave. 

The Paperback Non-Fiction top 20 returned the same top two titles it has every week since July—Adam Kay’s This is Going to Hurt (Picador) and Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens (Vintage). Released in April, This is Going to Hurt is still yet to drop out of the Paperback Non-Fiction top two. It has also never sold fewer than 10,000 copies per week.

Liz Pichon’s What Monster? (Scholastic) held the Children’s number one for a second week, with Epic Adventure (Kind of), now out in paperback, debuting in the Children’s and YA Fiction chart in ninth. 

Never less than seasonally appropriate, the Pre-School top 20 number one was taken by Janet and Allan Ahlberg’s Funnybones (Puffin), as Peppa’s Pumpkin Party (Ladybird) and Little Sticker Dolly Dressing Hallowe’en (Usborne) joined it in the top three. Where’s Mr Unicorn (Nosy Crow) entered the chart in eighth place—not to be confused with the less formal Where’s the Unicorn (Michael O'Mara), in 10th. 

After the previous week's tidal rush of Super Thursday releases into the charts, the market dropped slightly in both volume and value week on week, with volume declining 4.6% to 3.4 million copies sold and value dropping 7.4%, to £32m.