IN BRIEF Top 10 Ireland


Fiction proves a favourite for the Emerald Isle, performing strongly in the top 10, save for one notable non-fiction exception


Text Kiera O’Brien 3


Walliams posts Monster sales


David Walliams’ UK stats are frankly ridiculous—he earned more than £17m last year to become the country’s bestselling author for the second year in a row, and The Ice Monster notched up the biggest first week of sales since Harry Potter and the Cursed Child in 2016. Ireland was similarly enamoured—the mammoth bestseller was easily the territory’s biggest kids’ book, and he has nine titles in the overall top 100.


6


Tattooist makes an indelible impression


Heather Morris’ blockbuster début may be the current UK bestseller for 2019, but it was topping Irish fiction charts throughout last year. While the first edition of the title sold 37,363 copies to claim sixth place in Ireland’s chart for 2018, a second edition of the book proved almost as popular, charting just outside the Irish top 10. If the volumes of those two editions were to be combined, The Tattooist of Auschwitz could have been able to topple even chart- topper Eleanor Oliphant.


9


Obama’s memoir becomes bestseller


During her tenure as US First Lady, Michelle Obama—or should that be O’bama?—started the tradition of dying the White House fountain green on St Patrick’s Day, and the Irish seemed to have repaid the tribute. Her memoir, Becoming, was the territory’s highest-selling non-fiction book of the year, and by far the most expensive—with an average selling price just €2.20 shy of its r.r.p of €25, it was barely discounted.


16 12th March 2019


Bestseller Lists Ireland Top 10


1


Oliphantine figures


of the charts


All hail Gail—Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine charted in four of the Nielsen BookScan territories’ top 10 bestseller charts across 2018, swiping the number one spot in two of them. Alongside her eye-watering UK sales, author Honeyman conquered Ireland too, selling almost 15,000 units more than any other title.


4


Oh My God What a Complete Aisling


is nothing short of a sensation—the book which grew from a Facebook group sold 43,725 copies in 2018. A film adaptation is, of course, in the works


7 Finn mirrors Morris’ sales


A J Finn’s The Woman in the Window sold just 111 copies fewer than The Tattooist of Auschwitz in Ireland, to claim seventh place.


10 Irelan


Top


2 A complete success


Emer McLysaght and Sarah Breen’s sequel to Oh My God What a Complete Aisling is the highest-chart- ing title by a home-grown author (duo)—with The Importance of Being Aisling shifting 47,191 copies.


5


Irish readers have been Holding out for A Keeper


Graham Norton’s second fiction title, A Keeper, only came out in October 2018, and yet sold a whisker under 40,000 copies to rocket into fifth place f


d fiction e out in old a opies


year. His fiction début, Holding, swiped the Popular Fiction Book of the Year award at the Irish Book Awards in 2016—adding of


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to the Non-Fiction Book of the Year prize he won a few years earlier, for his memoir The Lives and Loves of a He-Devil.


8


Jeff Kinney’s The Meltdown, the 13th


title in the author’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, scored eighth place, with 36,671 copies sold. The kids’ book market is booming in Ireland, with value up nearly 6% in 2018


Booker trailblazer Burns delivers commercial success


Ireland, as a literary nation, punches above its weight—the Irish


Irish have more Man Booker Prize winners per capita than any o Ir


y ther nation. Yet Anna Burns became the first ever Northern Irish author to swipe the prize last October, with Milkman—which, to even the judges’ surprise, went on to be a hit commercially. No Booker winner has posted a better seven-day volume in the wake of its win since Nielsen records began in 1998. It’s clear that Ireland has embraced Belfast-born Burns as one of its own—Milkman even beat home-grown national treasure Sally Rooney’s Normal People into the top 10.


Booker winner


2018


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