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 ]
This week saw an unexpected new title shoot to the top of the U.K's official book charts: "Mog's Christmas Calamity," by children's author Judith Kerr. Aged 92, Kerr has penned a new book featuring "Mog," a cat beloved to generations of British kids but what's really unusual is that she wrote... Continue reading at Advertising Age
[ Advertising Age | 2015-11-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Titles set to follow former rivals Loaded and Nuts in folding as young men turn to mobile phones, social media and free magazinesFHM and Zoo are to close by the end of the year, marking the end of the lads’ mag era that dominated UK magazine publishing in the late 90s and early 2000s.Publisher... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2015-11-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The ability of YouTube personalities to capture readers is writ large if you look at this week’s bestseller list. Three books by YouTube dynamos landed in the top 20 on Publishers Weekly's current overall bestseller list, powered by Nielsen BookScan. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2015-10-29 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Vlogger Zoe “Zoella” Sugg’s second novel Girl Online: On Tour (Penguin) has taken the Official Top 50 number one spot from David Walliams, in a week that saw YouTubers dominate the top of the charts. The sequel to 2014’s Girl Online (Penguin) sold 56,038 copies for £377,813 last week, according... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-10-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Random House Children’s Books’ edition of 'The Rabbit Who Wants to Fall Asleep' sold just over 10,000 copies in its first two days on sale, according to data from Nielsen BookScan which tracks about 85% of all print sales. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2015-10-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Unit sales of print books rose 2% in the first nine months of 2015, compared to the similar period in 2014, at outlets that report to Nielsen BookScan, which records about 80%–85% of all print sales. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2015-10-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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'The Rabbit Who Wants to Fall Asleep' sold about 35,000 copies in outlets that report to Nielsen BookScan last week, a 20% increase over the week that ended August 23. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2015-09-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Last year was the best year for sales of graphic novels in the UK since BookScan records began in 1998, with the genre bringing in almost £20.5m worth of print sales. Publishers and retailers are crediting the boom to a broadening of range and a diversification of characters and writers within... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-08-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Swedish literary agency Salomonsson has signed Carl-Johan Forssén Ehrlin, the author of the chart-topping self-published picture book The Rabbit Who Wants to Fall Asleep. The book, which Ehrlin created to help parents lull their children to sleep, is currently the second biggest-selling title... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-08-27 00:00:00 UTC ]
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James Patterson has jumped to the top of the UK Top 50 chart this week with 14th Deadly Sin (Arrow)—his 21st individual title to reach the summit since Nielsen BookScan’s records began. However, Swedish author Carl-Johan Forssen Ehrlin has scored a surprise hit with his picture book The Rabbit... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-08-26 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Headline has signed two more books by author and Daily Telegraph columnist Bryony Gordon, including one looking at mental illness. Gordon is the author of The Wrong Knickers, also from Headline and about Gordon’s 20s, which has sold 45,225 copies through Nielsen BookScan to date. Her first new... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-08-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Sphere is to release a new book by Kevin Pietersen this autumn, focussing “squarely” on events on the pitch. Pietersen’s KP: The Autobiography, released last year, has sold 106,654 copies through Nielsen BookScan to date. In the book Pietersen criticised a number of his former England cricket... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-08-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
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E L James has retaken the Official Top 50 number one from Harper Lee, as Grey (Arrow) sold 17,171 copies to Go Set a Watchman's (William Heinemann) 15,476 in the chart this week. Grey’s sales were down 25.8% week on week, but Watchman dropped further, with a 42% decrease in volume. Despite... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-08-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Waterstones is set to open a new three storey bookshop on London’s Tottenham Court Road in October. At 7,000 sq foot, the shop will be the largest Waterstones to open in the capital since the Oxford Street Plaza branch in 2009 and will stock the largest selection of new fiction titles in London... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-08-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
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After its historic first week of sales last week, Harper Lee's 'Go Set a Watchman' sold roughly 220,000 print copies for the week ended July 29, according to the outlets that report to Nielsen Bookscan Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2015-07-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Boris Johnson is to write a biography of William Shakespeare for Hodder & Stoughton for October 2016. The publisher has confirmed the deal, which was reported in the Sunday Times to have been done for £500,000. The newspaper reported that Johnson’s advance was almost seven times his salary... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-07-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
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'Go Set a Watchman' sold over 746,000 copies in its first week on sale at outlets that report to Nielsen BookScan. The numbers easily made the Harper Lee novel the #1 title on PW’s bestseller list, topping 'Grey' by E.L. James. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2015-07-22 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Paula Hawkins’s novel has now been top of the UK hardback book chart for 20 weeks, outlasting even Dan Brown’s Lost Symbol• How Paula Hawkins wrote ‘the new Gone Girl’A record set six years ago by Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol was broken this week by Paula Hawkins’s dark thriller The Girl on the... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2015-07-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Sales of print books for the first six months of 2015 were running just about even with the same period in 2014 at outlets that report to Nielsen BookScan. Units inched up 0.3% in the period, to more than 286 million. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2015-07-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The book sold more than 350,000 copies in just three days on sale, according to Nielsen BookScan, which records roughly 80% of print units. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2015-06-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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