Yes she can: Michelle Obama hits the charts top spot

Michelle Obama’s Becoming (Viking) has leapfrogged The Ice Monster (HarperCollins) by David Walliams and Tony Ross to swipe the UK Official Top 50 number one. At 95,447 copies sold, the former First Lady’s memoir has chalked up the second-biggest week of sales this year in volume terms, and with £1.36m earned, the most valuable week for any one title in 2018—beating Michael Wolff’s Trump expose Fire and Fury (Little, Brown), which brought in just over £1m in the second week of January. 

Becoming—which leapt 57% week on week during Obama’s visit to London, when she appeared at a sold-out Southbank Centre event—had the bestselling week for any Hardback Non-Fiction title since Alex Ferguson’s My Autobiography (Hodder & Stoughton) claimed the Christmas number one in 2013, with 103,378 copies sold. 

With Becoming outselling The Ice Monster by over 20,000 units last week, surely now Obama's path to the 2018 Christmas number one is assured? (Although, let’s not forget what happened the last time a former First Lady was odds-on to win a historic achievement). She could be about to become the first female author to top the festive charts in a decade—J K Rowling’s The Tales of Beedle the Bard (Bloomsbury) swiped the Christmas number one in 2008—and the first non-white author to do so… ever.

Amazingly, Michelle is also the first Obama to top the UK charts—Barack’s Dreams from My Father (Canongate) peaked in second place in 2009. 

The Ice Monster still logged a mammoth volume last week—with 74,779 copies sold, its total sales are at 439,077 copies sold. No other kids’ book, save The World’s Worst Children 3, has topped 300,000 copies sold yet this year.

Guinness World Records 2019 (GWR) leapfrogged Jeff Kinney’s The Meltdown (Puffin) to claim third place, jumping 23% in volume week on week. 

Adam Kay’s This is Going to Hurt (Picador) re-claimed its Paperback Non-Fiction number one, for a 32nd non-consecutive week, and Heather Morris’ The Tattooist of Auschwitz (Zaffre) proved indelible in the Mass Market Fiction top 20 top spot, racking up a 10th week in the category chart and leaping back into the overall top five. 

While Lee Child’s Past Tense (Bantam) held the Original Fiction number one, Sally Rooney’s Waterstones Book of the Year Normal People (Faber) climbed to third place. With 14,608 copies sold last week, the title has increased nearly 700% in volume over the last fortnight. Her debut, Conversations with Friends, boomeranged back into the Mass Market Fiction top 20 in 17th place, leaping 63% week on week. 

The 2018 Man Booker Prize winner, Anna Burns’ Milkman (Faber), also floated up the charts, jumping 43% week on week and claiming 22nd place in the Top 50.

Recent UK political turmoil seems to be infecting the nation’s Christmas gift buys—The Private Eye Annual 2018 increased 88% in volume and hit the top 10 last week, shifting 21,565 copies, and Jason Hazeley and Joel Morris’ The Story of Brexit (Michael Joseph) saw a sterling rise of 57% in volume, charting 17th. 

The print market shot up by 21% in value and 18% in volume week on week, to 7.12 million books sold for £63m. Against the same week in 2017, it was up 2.9% in value—and squeaked upwards 0.2% in volume.