0 Authors graduated from Heatseekers to the Top 50 in lockdown


Fiction Heatseekers Ashley gives readers the perfect escape


in print, while Beth O’Leary’s The Flatshare, Delia Owens’ Where the Crawdads Sing and Dean Koontz’s achingly topical The Eyes of Darkness spiked in digital. However, the fiction charts had a distinct lack of new releases. The effect of closed bookshops on quirky literary bestsellers was clear: a market fed by Amazon and supermarkets alone was a play- ground for established authors. No writers graduated from Fiction Heatseekers into the Top 50 across lockdown, as the unique word- of-mouth effect of open, physical bookshops was missing. But like the rest of


the market, Fiction has bounced back stunningly since the high street’s doors were once again flung open. Over the four weeks since bookshops in England reopened on 15th June, volume is up 6.8% and value nearly 9%—with the category’s two biggest sellers, Girl, Woman, Other


Title


1 A Perfect Cornish Escape 2 The Vanishing Half 3 Nineteen Eighty-Four 4 A Sister’s Song 5 The Truants


7 The Half Sister


8 The Court of Miracles 9 Found


10 Platform Seven 11 Holy Island


12 A Gentleman in Moscow 13 A Forget-Me-Not Summer 14 One Summer in Crete 15 The Cleaner


16 Lord of the Flies


17 The Devil You Know 18 Exciting Times


19 Dirty Little Secrets 20 American Dirt


TheBookseller.com


In the spotlight


BRIT BENNETT AND LEFT PHILLIPA ASHLEY ARE ON THE CUSP OF THE OVERALL TOP 50


This stolen summer has helped fuel escapist fiction, with holiday- themed titles performing strongly


and Where the Crawdads Sing, selling at £7.25 and £6.69 on aver- age respectively. (The 2019 top two each had an a.s.p. under £5.) Most encouragingly, books that missed out on sales over lockdown boomeranged back up the charts. Maggie O’Farrell’s March-published literary heavyweight Hamnet returned to the Original Fiction chart for multiple weeks, as did Naoise Dolan’s April-released Exciting Times—which hit 18th in the Fiction Heatseekers chart for the past four weeks. Kate Weinberg’s The Truants,


Author Imprint


Phillipa Ashley Avon Brit Bennett Dialogue George Orwell Penguin Molly Green Avon


Kate Weinberg Bloomsbury


Kester Grant HarperVoyager Erin Kinsley Headline Louise Doughty Faber & Faber L J Ross


Dark Skies


Amor Towles Windmill Sophie Claire Hodder


ISBN (+978) Volume 0008371579 0349701462 0141187761 0008332471 1526600134


6 The Photographer of the Lost Caroline Scott Simon & Schuster 1471183119 Sandie Jones Pan


1529033014 0008254773 1472260772 0571321964 1912310012 0099558781 1529392814


Nadia Marks Pan 1509889747 Mark Dawson Welbeck William Golding Faber & Faber Emma Kavanagh Orion Naoise Dolan W&N Jo Spain Quercus Jeanine Cummins Tinder Press


1787394629 0571191475 1409175032 1474613446 1787474338 1472261397


11,489 8,290 8,031 7,478 7,458 7,329 6,371 6,192 5,872 5,240 5,151 4,871 4,273 4,254 4,070 3,975 3,970 3,892 3,889 3,732


in fifth, marked the return of the heft of the Waterstones Books of the Month, after the retailer’s monthly picks struggled to make their presence felt in April and May. Brit Bennett’s The Vanishing Half, having sold 8,290 copies since bookshops reopened, may be the first breakout hit since lockdown began. Of course, this stolen summer


has helped fuel escapist fiction too, with holiday-themed titles performing strongly—Sophia Claire’s A Forget-Me-Not Summer, Nadia Marks’ One Summer in Crete and Jo Spain’s Dirty Little Secrets hit the chart. Though Brits didn’t want to dream too big—Philippa Ashley’s staycation-friendly The Perfect Cornish Escape was number one for the period.


Date Range 14th June–11th July 2020 Source Nielsen


Nineteen Eighty-four George Orwell Penguin, £8.99, 9780141187761 Nineteen Eighty- four always bounces in sales when the nation is in crisis. Or indeed, another nation: it came closest to gradu- ating into the Top 50 in the week Donald Trump was elected. The last few months, and recent government regu- lations to restrict the spread of Covid-19, seem to have once again brought it to book buyers’ minds— the dystopia hit third place.


Holy Island L J Ross


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Self-published crime author L J Ross is practically a Bookstat ever- green in e-book format, but she’s sold well in print too—Holy Island hit 11th place in the top 20.


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