IN DEPTH


Category Spotlight Translated work


JO NESBO CONTINUES TO REPRESENT THE SCANDI CRIME SECTOR


Translated Top 20


Iturbe tops the pile with Harari, Rosling and Slimani prominent


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Perhaps the much-heralded ‘up-lit’ trend actually side-stepped fiction to land solidly in non-fiction instead


01 The Librarian of Auschwitz Antonio Iturbe Trans: Lilit Zekulin Thwaites, Ebury, 9781529104776


02 Sapiens Yuval Noah Harari Trans: Harari, J Purcell, H Waltzman, Vintage, 9780099590088


its axis: Chris Evans’ BBC Radio 2 show interviewed Harari, and he became the only Israeli academic in history to get name-checked by ITV2’s “Love Island”. Sapiens has since become a mainstay of the Paperback Non-fiction chart, its paperback sales soaring to nearly


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a million copies sold in total. This year alone, the paperback has sold another 103,237 copies. Harari’s follow-ups to Sapiens, Homo Deus and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, have also sold stunningly, with Homo Deus in fourth, and 21 Lessons’ paperback in fiſth, with its 2018-published hardback in ninth in the translated chart. In total, Harari has shiſted more than 1.5 million books in the UK, earning £12.5m. As current political events seem to spiral out of control—or rather, continue to spiral out of control as part of a trend over the past few years—Harari’s titles seem to have met a need to atempt to understand the changing global climate among the British (and worldwide) book-buying public. Perhaps the much-heralded “up-lit” trend actually


side-stepped fiction to land solidly in non-fiction instead. Another slightly-more-positive viewpoint of the world was put forward in Rutger Bregman’s Utopia for Realists. A collection of the Dutch author’s articles for online journal De Correspondent, the title has sold 19,143 copies to date.


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Sparking joy Marie Kondo is another non-fiction author to feature multiple times in the translated chart, with The Life- Changing Magic of Tidying and Spark Joy hiting third and eighth place respectively. Kondo’s tidying guide sold more than 200,000 copies on its release in 2015, coinciding with the mindfulness trend that helped colouring books and hygge titles climb the charts. But it got a new lease of life this year with the start of Kondo’s Netflix show. In total, the Japanese folding guru has sold nearly 400,000 books in the UK alone—no doubt that’ll spark joy. Though children’s books are thin on ground in the


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translated charts, the one that does make it is a sales behemoth: Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl is, of course, one of the bestselling books of the 20th century, and its 2007 edition charted 12th in the chart.


TheBookseller.com


03 The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Marie Kondo Trans: Cathy Hirano, Vermilion, 9780091955106


04 Homo Deus Yuval Noah Harari Vintage, 9781784703936


05 21 Lessons for the 21st Century Yuval Noah Harari Trans: Harari, J Purcell, H Waltzman, Cape, 9781787330870


06 The Alchemist Paulo Coelho Trans: Alan R Clarke, Thorsons, 9780722532935


07 Utopia for Realists Rutger Bregman Trans: Elizabeth Manton, Bloomsbury, 9781408893210


08 Spark Joy Marie Kondo Trans: Cathy Hirano, Vermilion, 9781785041020


09 21 Lessons for the 21st Century Yuval Noah Harari Trans: Harari, J Purcell, H Waltzman, Cape, 9781787330672


10 Norwegian Wood Haruki Murakami Trans: Jay Rubin, Vintage, 9780099448822


11 Macbeth Jo Nesbo Trans: Don Bartlett, Vintage, 9780099598060


12 The Diary of a Young Girl Anne Frank Trans: Susan Massotty, Puffin, 9780141315188


13 The Things You Can See... Slow Down Haemin Sunim Trans: Chi-Young Kim, Penguin Life, 9780241340660


14 Love for Imperfect Things Haemin Sunim Trans: Deborah Smith, Penguin Life, 9780241331125


15 Adele Leila Slimani Trans: Sam Taylor, Faber & Faber, 9780571331956


16 Lullaby Leila Slimani Trans: Sam Taylor, Faber & Faber, 9780571337545


17 Gut Giulia Enders Trans: David Shaw, Scribe, 9781911344773


18 Birthday Girl Haruki Murakami Trans: Jay Rubin, Harvill Secker, 97817873012525


19 If Cats Disappeared From The World Genki Kawamura Trans: Eric Selland, Picador, 9781509889174


20 The Hundred-Year-Old Man... Jonas Jonasson Trans: Rod Bradbury, Abacus, 9780349141800


Source Nielsen BookScan. Calendar year to 21st September 2019. The chart uses data from Nielsen BookScan Total Consumer Market, representing print book sales through around 6,500 retailers.


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