Wicks’ Lean patch rolls on with third number one

Joe Wicks has held on to the number one with a muscular grip for a third consecutive week. According to Nielsen BookScan’s Total Consumer Market, Lean in 15 (Bluebird) sold 71,452 copies for £538,302. This puts Wicks’ total over three weeks at 260,834 copies sold and just a whisker under £2m, at £1.95m.

Though Lean in 15’s volume has declined by 36% on the week before, it still counts as one of the biggest weekly sales for a book in January since records began—beaten only by itself, a week ago, when it shifted 111,830 units. Last week’s volume still tops the previous record-holder, Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code (Corgi) in January 2005, by 7,500 copies.

Wicks’ début has also held the number one spot for longer than any other Paperback Non-Fiction title since Michael Mosley and Mimi Spencer’s The Fast Diet (Short) topped the chart for five weeks at the start of 2013. Although, Lean in 15 has already surpassed The Fast Diet’s volume for those five weeks combined— the guide to fasting shifted 150,000 copies while at number one, which the Instagram star has already beaten by over 100,000 units.

Lean in 15 has now climbed to sixth in the Health, Dieting and Wholefood Cookery category’s all-time bestsellers, just 10,000 copies below last year’s Deliciously Ella (Yellow Kite). With Ella Woodward’s follow-up, Deliciously Ella Every Day, released on 21st January, next week’s chart will see the internet-born, chart-topping healthy eating sensations go head-to-head.

Speaking of wellness bloggers, Amelia Freer’s Cook. Nourish. Glow. (Michael Joseph) rose to fourth place, holding the Hardback Non-Fiction title for a second week running. The cookbook shifted an extra 164 copies week on week, coming in just five copies below the 10,000-unit mark. Cook. Nourish. Glow. has now sold 782% more copies than Freer’s original Eat. Nourish. Glow. (HarperCollins) had by the second week of January 2015, when just 3,079 units had sold—in the days before the wellness blogger fad really took off and Freer was endorsed on Twitter by singer Sam Smith. Eat. Nourish. Glow. has now joined its sequel in the Top 50, shifting a much healthier 4,003 copies last week.

Kate Atkinson’s Costa Novel Award-winning God in Ruins (Black Swan) leap-frogged stablemate Renee Knight’s Disclaimer to take both second place and the Mass-Market Fiction number one, increasing its volume by 19% week on week (though still 55,098 below Lean in 15).

The Girl on the Train (Doubleday) was derailed from its 27 (non-consecutive)-week hold on the Original Fiction number one spot. Stuart MacBride’s In the Cold Dark Ground (HarperCollins) outsold Paula Hawkins’ phenomenon by 273 copies. This is an impressive sixth year in row that MacBride has had an Original Fiction number one in January.

Fiona Barton’s The Widow (Bantam) had a strong first week in hardback, charting in 43rd place. This brings the total of titles-tipped-to-be-the-next-The Girl on the Train in the Top 50 up to five, alongside the original.

The announcement of the Oscar nominations last week, combined with its haul of Golden Globes, helped Michael Punke’s The Revenant (The Borough Press) to shift 7,937 copies and climb 245 places to sixth. Emma Donoghue’s Room (Picador), in 33rd place, saw a similar boost, and David Ebershoff’s The Danish Girl (Weidenfeld), a new entry into the Top 50 a week ago, slipped two places to 49th.

In a week when the Top 50 was overwhelmingly dominated by newly-released paperback fiction and “new year, new you” titles, colouring books held their own. Six titles— including two by Millie Marotta and three by Johanna Basford— shifted a combined 34,214 copies.