JK Rowling and Bill Bryson top the charts, while film tie-ins give Paula Hawkins and Jojo Moyes a second bite of the cherry – but this unpredictable year has also seen a welcome revival of humorous writingIt was a year when the No 1 book was a play script. When hyper-prolific James Patterson, dubbed the “library king” as Britain’s long-reigning most-borrowed author, could manage no higher than 60th place. When the anonymous, insanely difficult GCHQ Puzzle Book was 43rd, and so beat super-sellers like Patterson and Ian Rankin, not to mention all those much-hyped hygge books.The all-year sales rankings for 2016 are full of such surprises, as befits an unpredictable year, but also contain much that is comfortingly recognisable, such as the ghosts of Christmas charts past at the top. With Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, JK Rowling reclaims the No 1 spot that used to be reserved for her in the noughties, and her versatility is underlined by four other entries in various genres (12, 28, 64, 95). Bill Bryson reprised the round-Britain trip behind his mid-90s hit, Notes from a Small Island, in The Road to Little Dribbling (13) and the result is the list’s highest placed non-fiction title. Mary Berry (17), easily this year’s leading conventional cookery writer, was penning bestselling festive gifts long before either of them emerged. Continue reading... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2016-12-31 00:00:00 UTC ]
Bookshops around the country are unveiling a host of magical events — including Quidditch Pong, Harry Potter Bingo and Horcrux hunts—to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the publication of J K Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Bloomsbury). Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2017-06-26 00:00:00 UTC ]
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We dug into the archives to find the first Kiwi review of Harry Potter, but the earliest seems to be from 1999. Continue reading at Stuff
[ Stuff | 2017-06-26 00:00:00 UTC ]
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A proof of the first Harry Potter novel, which got the author’s name wrong, is only the latest example of an ungainly tradition stretching back centuriesProofreaders may be worth their weight in gold to authors, but their oversights have proved lucrative for some lucky readers of JK Rowling. On... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2017-06-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Driven by sales of general merchandise and 'Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,' the Canadian bookstore chain reported record revenue growth for fiscal 2017. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2017-05-31 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Star Wars, Harry Potter or indeed the almost century-old comic book legends Batman and Superman may have sprung from a rich creative well, but in a stunning twist all of them have been banished to the box office naughty step. Continue reading at Stuff
[ Stuff | 2017-04-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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After a big song and dance was made about a non-fiction title to topping the Weekly E-Book Ranking, another has only gone and replicated the feat. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2017-03-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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A Soho awards night with David Nicholls and a "very special" Harry Potter screening at the St. Pancras Renaissance Hotel London lead the "eclectic" line-up of this year’s London Book & Screen Week. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2017-02-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
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North London retailer the Big Green Bookshop is tweeting out every word of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Bloomsbury) to broadcaster Piers Morgan following his Twitter spat with its author J K Rowling. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2017-02-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Helped by Harry Potter and the hit fitness guru, year on year takings to December rose sharply to £1.59bnRetail sales struggled in 2016, but JK Rowling cast a spell strong enough to power sales towards a magical £1.6bn during the year, a rise of almost 5% on 2015, according to the latest annual... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2017-01-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Dan Brown is back. Tolkien is back. Tony Abbott is back. Harry Potter is back (well, recycled in four new editions). Continue reading at Stuff
[ Stuff | 2017-01-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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JK Rowling and Bill Bryson top the charts, while film tie-ins give Paula Hawkins and Jojo Moyes a second bite of the cherry – but this unpredictable year has also seen a welcome revival of humorous writingIt was a year when the No 1 book was a play script. When hyper-prolific James Patterson,... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2016-12-31 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The release of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child helped lift sales in the children’s/YA category 31.1% in July over the same month in 2015, according to figures released by the Association of American Publishers as part of its StatShot program. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2016-12-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The bestselling books over the holidays at the e-tailer were 'Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Double Down,' 'Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,' and a children's backlist book. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2016-12-27 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The July publication of 'Harry Potter and the Cursed Child' helped raise sales in the children's/young adult segment 31.1% in July over a year ago. July sales of adult books fell. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2016-12-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
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'Harry Potter and the Cursed Child: Parts 1 and 2' was Amazon's best-selling book of 2016 and was also the year's "most wished for" and "most gifted" book at the e-tailer. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2016-12-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Sarah Perry's novel The Essex Serpent is named Waterstones Book of the Year ahead of a Beatrix Potter manuscript and a Harry Potter playscript. Continue reading at BBC News
[ BBC News | 2016-12-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The top of France’s nonfiction list took on a political bent in October, with an exposé of French president François Hollande penned by investigative journalists Fabrice Lhomme and Gérard Davet after five years of research. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2016-11-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Warner Bros. has signed a deal to buy the gamer-focused YouTube network Machinima in order to expand the movie and TV studio’s digital video business, the company said Thursday. Burbank-based Warner Bros., the studio behind film franchises like Harry Potter and DC Entertainment, was already a... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2016-11-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The release of the Harry Potter and the Cursed Child playscript, published by Little, Brown, has helped Hachette UK to grow its sales by 30.1% in the third quarter, according to results issued by its parent company Lagardere. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2016-11-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent is the only novel on the six-book shortlist, up against JK Rowling’s play script for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and a long-lost Beatrix Potter storySarah Perry’s novel The Essex Serpent might have missed out on the big literary prizes this year, but her... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2016-11-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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