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UK consumer book sales climbed 7% to £2.1bn last year as people rediscovered their love of reading in lockdown, the industry body says.
Demand for fiction and non-fiction jumped, while audio-book sales were up 37%, the Publishers Association said.
Bestsellers included The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman, Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo and 7 Ways by Jamie Oliver.
But educational book sales slumped as schools were shut for months.
Stephen Lotinga, chief executive of the Publishers Association, said: It s clear that many people rediscovered their love of reading last year and that publishers were able to deliver the entertaining and thought-provoking books that so many of us needed.
John Boorman once said: âMovie-making is the process of turning money into light.â The publishers of Old Ireland in Colour have discovered that turning black and white photographs into colour is a surefire moneyspinner. It is the only book to have made more than â¬1 million in Ireland last year.
The practice of colourising black and white photographs may be controversial but there is no doubting its popularity. Old Ireland in Colour by John Breslin and Sarah-Anne Buckley, published by Merrion Press, sold 48,475 copies, earning almost â¬1.14 million.
Champagne Football by Mark Tighe and Paul Rowan (Sandycove) was Irelandâs best-selling Irish-published book last year with 49,307 copies sold. The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse by Charlie Mackesy (Ebury Press) was Irelandâs overall best-selling book with 67,926 copies sold in total, just ahead of Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens.
David Walliams applauded for heartwarming gesture to teachers in lockdown
The BGT star is a popular children s book author January 10, 2021 - 15:07 GMT Nichola Murphy Britain s Got Talent s David Walliams delighted fans by revealing the sweet way he is helping children learn during the third COVID-19 lockdown.
David Walliams has unveiled the heartwarming way he is helping children learn during the third coronavirus lockdown.
With more school closures, children are once again forced to learn remotely – a challenge that has been keenly felt by both parents and teachers.
But
Britain s Got Talent judge David told his Twitter followers that many teachers have reached out to him for help during this difficult time.
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image captionRichard Osman is writing two follow-ups to The Thursday Murder Club
Pointless co-host Richard Osman s debut novel The Thursday Murder Club was the UK s best-selling book in the last full week before Christmas.
The murder mystery sold 134,500 copies in the week up to Saturday.
That s more than double the next biggest seller - Barack Obama s memoir A Promised Land, which sold 66,500.
David Walliams, who has been at number one for three of the past four Christmases, is at number three with Code Name Bananas, on 55,000 sales.
Osman s book had the highest sales for a Christmas number one since Jamie Oliver a decade ago, according to The Bookseller, and is the first debut novel to be Christmas number one since current records began in the late 1990s.
Author becomes first debut novelist to score Christmas number one
(PA)
Richard Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club has become the first debut novel to score a Christmas number one.
The Pointless host’s mystery, about a group of pensioners who set about solving the murder of a property developer in a luxury Kent retirement village, beat Barack Obama to the top the festive chart.
The novel sold 134,514 copies in the week ending December 19, according to sales monitor Nielsen BookScan.
Richard Osman (Matt Crossick/PA)
This was more than twice as many as A Promised Land, the first volume of the former US president’s memoirs of his time in office, which sold 66,531.