`Devil May Care` narrowly misses highest new entry in UK chart

03-Jun-2009 • Literary

The rise in temperatures across the UK has brought to an end the recent market resilience. Over past five weeks year-on-year spending on books has been in the black, but the latest sales figures from Nielsen BookScan show that last week the market fell 8.2% when compared with the same week in 2008 - reports The Bookseller.

In total Â£25.4m was spent through Nielsen BookScan's Total Consumer Market in the week ending 31st May, down 5.4% week-on-week, and down 8.2% year-on-year when Â£462,000 was spent on the hardback edition of Sebastian Faulks' Devil May Care (Penguin 007) alone. Stripping this title out from the data would see spending down 5.4% year-on-year.

The mass-market edition of Faulks' James Bond novel joins the Official UK Top 50 in 14th position this week, with a 12,609 part-week sale, 2,636 copies short of this week's highest new entry, Sheila O'Flanagan's Someone Special (Headline Review), which dÃ©buts in 6th place. Patricia Cornwell's Scarpetta (Sphere) and Dan Brown's Angels and Demons (Corgi) stay rooted to the top of the charts, despite week-on-week sales declines for both of 28%.