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Patricia stays put in busy week

07.05.08 Philip Stone

Patricia Cornwell has held on to top spot for the third consecutive week, with a weekly sale of 34,876, according to Nielsen BookScan data. The 15th Kay Scarpetta thriller, Book of the Dead (Sphere) has more than 124,000 copies in 17 days since its official release.

It was a busier week for booksellers and bookbuyers in general, after hitting a 12-month low the previous week. £27.7m was spent through BookScan's Total Consumer Market during the seven days ending 3rd May - up 4.7% week-on-week, and up 3.4% year-on-year.

Three new entries made the top ten, led by Kathy Reichs Bones to Ashes (Arrow), which sold just under 27,000 copies thanks to half-price book-of-the-week spots in both W H Smith and Sainsbury's. As a consequence, Joanne Harris' The Lollipop Shoes (Black Swan) slipped to third position with a 25,291 seven-day sale.

Book sales were also helped by the launch of the fourth instalment of the computer game "Grand Theft Auto". According to Chart-Track, an estimated £39.9m was spent in just 5 days on the  - £11.6m more than was spent on books last week. The BradyGames tie-in strategy guide sold 18,188 through the book trade last week, more than double the peak week sales of the previous edition (San Andreas). It débuts straight into pole position in The Bookseller's Paperback Non-Fiction charts.

Meanwhile, there were also new number ones in Original Fiction for Marian Keyes' This Charming Man (Michael Joseph) and in Children's for Darren Shan's seventh Demonata story, Death's Shadow (HarperCollins).

With a half-price offer at all the major high street chains, as well as cheaper-than-half-price offers at UK supermarkets, Gordon Ramsay's Healthy Appetite (Quadrille) sold 9,496 copies in just three days last week, narrowly failing to oust celeb-chef rival Delia Smith from her 12-week reign atop the Hardback Non-Fiction chart.

Retail Bestseller News Patricia Cornwell Philip Stone

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