Charts Global bestsellers
Three countries not wholly dominated by The Cursed Child in 2016 come under the scrutiny of Kiera O’Brien, with home-grown authors and instructional titles posting strong sales in Australia, India and South Africa
in the US, charted 28th. Despite the series’ inevitable Americanisation of the Sydney-set book, expect it to be in the Aussie top 10 for 2017. If Griffiths is the Down Under equiva- lent of Jeff Kinney, then Moriart is its Paula Hawkins: she beat The Girl on the Train author in value terms in 2016, placing third overall, with some AUD6.04m under her belt. India is the only Nielsen territory (aside the UK) topped by a home- grown author—though South Africa and Italy both have non-fiction titles with no credited authors as their number ones. Bhagat has similar sales chops to second-placed Rowling: among the biggest-selling English- language novelists in India, he appears twice in the top 10, with One Indian Girl and Half Girlfiend. The former is a feminist romance (writen by a man) about the life of a “modern Indian woman” who makes loads of money and has “had more than one boyfriend”. Maybe Bhagat is less “the Indian J K Rowling” and more “the Indian Roxane Gay”. India’s print market had a stonking 2016, climbing 37% in volume year on
Reading the patriot act
of the Anglophone Nielsen territo- ries’ bestseller lists are a litle more muted in their appreciation. While the Aussies followed suit, with Harry Potter and the Cursed Child at number one, in India it charted in second place—and generated less than half the volume of the chart- topper, Chetan Bhagat’s One Indian Girl. South Africa downright snubs it— well, sort of, with a lowly third-place ranking. Of Nielsen’s regions, only Brazil was more Poter-fatigued: therePoter-fatigued: there Cursed Child took fiſth place. As in the US, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them charts in Australia’ustralia’s e 52 weeks 2017, join- verse
A
k fiſth place. antastic to Find
top 10 titles in the 52 weeks to 11th February 2017, join- ing its Poter-universe
playscript cousin. The two Rowling titles bookend
. The two okend
wo d 08
FTER J K Rowling’s one-woman dominion of yesterday’s UK, US and Irish charts, the rest
an all-Children’s top four, with Jeff Kinney’s Double Down in third place and his Aussie counterpart Andy Griffiths’ The 78-Storey Treehouse in second place. A strong second it was, too: Griffiths’ title shiſted more than double the volume of the 11th Wimpy Kid. Kinney’s British sparring partner, David Walliams, was back in 19th. To date Griffiths has trousered over
AUD50m on home soil, but in 2016’s Author Top 10 he was crushed by Rowling, who beat him by AUD16.5m. To be fair to Griffiths, in volume there was only a 123,000-copy gap between them, but Rowling’s average selling price (AUD26+, compared to Griffiths’ AUD9.72) saw her value soar. Liane Moriart’s 2014 domestic thriller The Husband’s Secret also hit the top 10, with her latest, Truly Madly Guilt, in 13th. Big Little Lies, which has recently seen its HBO mini-series launch
them, price (
XXth Month 2017
South African book-buyers backed home- grown Trevor Noah top and Deon Meyer right, who had titles in fifth and eighth place respectively
Photography: Sofia Runarsdotter, Jason Kempin
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40