From tales of alienation to comforting novels set in bookshops, Japanese authors have written nearly half of this year’s bestselling translated novels in the UK. What’s their secret?• Read an an exclusive Q&A with Haruki MurakamiAnyone who has been in a bookshop in the last few years will have noticed that Japanese fiction is experiencing an extraordinary boom. In 2022, figures from Nielsen BookScan showed that Japanese fiction represented 25% of all translated fiction sales in the UK. The dominance is even more striking this year: figures obtained by the Guardian show that, of the top 40 translated fiction titles for 2024 so far, 43% are Japanese, with Asako Yuzuki’s satirical, socially conscious crime novel Butter topping the list. Butter also won the breakthrough author award at this year’s Books Are My Bag readers awards, which are curated by booksellers and voted for by the public.The popularity of modern Japanese fiction is not a new phenomenon in the UK, of course. In the 1990s, two writers broke through and became cult hits in this country. Haruki Murakami, a worldwide literary phenomenon, took off in Britain when Harvill Press published The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle in 1998. Scott Pack, who ran Waterstones’ buying team in the early 2000s, is a big Murakami fan and remembers giving him “lots of attention. Whatever books of his came out, we got massively behind.” This week, Murakami publishes his 15th novel The City and Its Uncertain Walls, about a man who travels... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2024-11-23 09:00:37 UTC ]
David Walliams’ The World’s Worst Children 3 (HarperCollins) has held the UK Official Top 50 number one spot for a second week, selling 46,930 copies for £336,714 through Nielsen BookScan, for his 38th overall number one in total. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2018-06-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Gail Honeyman's Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine (Harper) has returned to the UK Official Top 50 number one spot with 22,040 copies sold through Nielsen BookScan's Total Consumer Market, ousting Lee Child's The Midnight Line (Bantam). Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2018-05-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Michael Kogge’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Dean & Son) has ascended into the UK Official Top 50 number one spot, selling 62,104 copies through Nielsen BookScan’s TCM. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2018-04-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Gail Honeyman's Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine (Harper) has once again held the UK Official Top 50 number one, with 24,729 copies through Nielsen BookScan's Total Consumer Market. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2018-04-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Tom Fletcher and Shane Devries’s World Book Day title Brain Freeze (Puffin) has nipped into the UK Official Top 50 number one spot, leapfrogging three-week wonder Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine (Harper), with 37,879 copies sold through Nielsen BookScan’s Total Consumer Market. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2018-03-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury (Little, Brown) has blazed into the UK Official Top 50 number one spot, ousting Tom Kerridge’s Lose Weight for Good (Absolute) and selling 41,202 copies for £620,851, according to Nielsen BookScan's Total Consumer Market. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2018-01-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Booksellers hail strong sales for Donald Trump exposé, but Tom Kerridge’s diet book sets the most British tills ringingAlmost 60,000 print copies of Michael Wolff’s Donald Trump exposé Fire and Fury were sold in the UK last week, but the British public’s New Year’s resolutions meant the... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2018-01-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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E L James’ Darker (Arrow) has shackled the UK Official Top 50 number one spot, selling 85,532 copies for £346,838, according to Nielsen BookScan’s Total Consumer Market. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2017-12-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Bonnier Publishing imprint Studio Press has acquired three illustrated children’s fiction titles from TV presenter and Paralympian, Ade Adepitan. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2017-11-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
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David Walliams’ Bad Dad (HarperCollins) has accelerated by 21% in volume week-on-week for its second week in the Official UK Top 50 number one spot, selling 112,672 copies through Nielsen BookScan’s Total Consumer Market. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2017-11-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Philip Pullman’s La Belle Sauvage (Penguin and David Fickling), the first title in his His Dark Materials “equel” The Book of Dust, has crashed into the UK Official Top 50 number one spot, according to Nielsen BookScan’s Total Consumer Market. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2017-10-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Although not quite the sensation of previous Robert Langdon thrillers, The Da Vinci Code author’s latest mystery sold 100,000 copies in its first week Dan Brown’s mastery of something like a code for bestsellers has returned to cheer UK booksellers, with more than 100,000 copies of his latest... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2017-10-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Dan Brown’s Origin (Bantam) has cracked the code to the UK Official Top 50 number one spot, selling 100,095 copies for £1m according to Nielsen BookScan’s Total Consumer Market. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2017-10-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Jamie Oliver’s 5 Ingredients (Michael Joseph) has once again claimed the UK Official Top 50 number one spot, selling 54,605 copies for £648,673, according to Nielsen BookScan’s Total Consumer Market. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2017-09-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Jamie Oliver’s 5 Ingredients: Quick & Easy Food (Michael Joseph) has rustled up another week in the UK Official Top 50 number one spot, selling 56,966 copies for £675,321 according to Nielsen BookScan’s Total Consumer Market. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2017-09-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Jamie Oliver has continued his blistering return to form, shifting 52,211 copies of 5 Ingredients: Quick and Easy Food (Michael Joseph) last week through Nielsen BookScan's Total Consumer Market to take the Official UK number one by almost 40,000 units. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2017-09-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The starting pistol for the race to Christmas number one has sounded and Jamie Oliver is out of the blocks early, with his 5 Ingredients: Quick and Easy Food (Michael Joseph) shifting just under 37,000 units through Nielsen BookScan's Total Consumer Market in its first two days on sale. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2017-08-31 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (Sphere) has bewitched the UK Official Top 50 for a second week, holding the number one spot with 23,711 copies sold, according to Nielsen BookScan’s Total Consumer Market. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2017-08-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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A rise in selling prices has seen Nielsen BookScan's Total Consumer Market grow again in the first half of 2017, underpinned by strength in depth. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2017-07-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Rightwinger said his book – self-published after he was dropped by Simon & Schuster – had sold 100,000 copies, but data shows fewer than 20,000 salesRightwing controversialist Milo Yiannopoulos has branded reported low sales of his new book “fake news” after official figures revealed the... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2017-07-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
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