The Official UK Top 50 best-selling books of 2009

[wellinghall]

1 New Moon Meyer, Stephenie 1,298,477
2 The Lost Symbol Brown, Dan 1,278,014
3 Twilight Meyer, Stephenie 1,267,496
4 Eclipse Meyer, Stephenie 1,161,815
5 Breaking Dawn Meyer, Stephenie 903,262
6 Guinness World Records 2010 - 610,886
7 This Charming Man Keyes, Marian 500,289
8 The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Larsson, Stieg 462,988
9 When Will There be Good News? Atkinson, Kate 457,761
10 My Sister's Keeper Picoult, Jodi 427,460
11 The Associate Grisham, John 408,655
12 Dreams from My Father Obama, Barack 371,517
13 The Host Meyer, Stephenie 365,754
14 Angels and Demons Brown, Dan 361,654
15 The Girl Who Played with Fire Larsson, Stieg 359,935
16 The Return Hislop, Victoria 356,368
17 The Time Traveler's Wife Niffenegger, Audrey 353,528
18 The White Tiger Adiga, Aravind 351,845
19 The Other Hand Cleave, Chris 348,940
20 The Suspicions of Mr Whicher Summerscale, Kate 335,721
21 Scarpetta Cornwell, Patricia 321,785
22 Heart and Soul Binchy, Maeve 318,518
23 The Secret Scripture Barry, Sebastian 318,298
24 Ooh! What a Lovely Pair Ant & Dec 316,242
25 Dear Fatty French, Dawn 310,394
26 Doors Open Rankin, Ian 292,702
27 Jade: Fighting to the End Goody, Jade 273,509
28 The Reader Schlink, Bernhard 267,709
29 A Most Wanted Man Le Carre, John 262,649
30 Saturday Night Peter Kay, Peter 258,750
31 Sail Patterson, James 256,564
32 Delia's Happy Christmas Smith, Delia 254,427
33 The Very Hungry Caterpillar Carle, Eric 250,688
34 The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas Boyne, John 250,283
35 Where's Stig? - 250,214
36 Hard Girls Cole, Martina 245,974
37 Driven to Distraction Clarkson, Jeremy 245,794
38 Fractured Slaughter, Karin 244,550
39 The Official Highway Code - 241,619
40 Once in a Lifetime Kelly, Cathy 241,327
41 Too Close to Home Barclay, Linwood 240,893
42 Unseen Academicals Pratchett, Terry 240,450
43 That's Another Story Walters, Julie 239,755
44 Jamie's America Oliver, Jamie 239,623
45 The Gift Ahern, Cecelia 229,968
46 Beano Annual 2010 - 227,949
47 Jamie's Red Nose Recipes Oliver, Jamie 226,810
48 Remember Me? Kinsella, Sophie 226,580
49 Cross Country Patterson, James 225,057
50 Rumour Has it Mansell, Jill 225,056

I have highlighted the ones I have read in bold.

http://www.thebookseller.com/news/108435-book-sales-suffer-marginal-decline-in-2009.html

Comments

[clarienne.livejournal.com]

I must have been living in a cave, because this is the first I've heared of Stephenie Meyer.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Crikey that was quick!

[sally_maria]

If we mentioned Twilight - or Bella and Edward - would you be any the wiser?

I don't know anybody on our mutual flists who's a fan, but my circle of acquaintance does seem to spend a lot of time discussing how bad it is.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

See sammee42 below ...

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

See sammee42 below ...

[fallingtowers.livejournal.com]

One I've actually liked; two I might really want to read; and numerous ones that I love to hate. God, I'm becoming such a literary snob. ;)

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Which ones are they?

[fallingtowers.livejournal.com]

I did quite enjoy Kate Atkinson's When will there be good news?, even though it was a bit too sentimental for my taste. And it certainly didn't live up to her wonderful debut novel Behind the Scenes at the Museum.

There are actually three, not two other books I might show some serious interest in: The Whie Tiger, Obama's autobiography and, of course, Pterry's latest.

Dan Brown and S. Meyer are the obvious ones to loathe; I once wanted to read Stieg Larson because I thought he wrote good thrillers with a heavy sprinkling of social criticism. But judging from descriptions I've come across, it's more "fauxgressive protagonist who gets laid a lot" meets up with extra-tough orphaned heroine, with a few gratuitous rapes thrown in for good measures.

And don't get me started on Schlink and Boyne: I hate hate HATE that sort of Nazi kitsch literature.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Thanks for that.

[malaheed.livejournal.com]

Oh I read one whole book on the best seller list this year. Darn. That usual means there has been a Pratchett

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

There usually is ...

[gayalondiel.livejournal.com]

What's the Very Hungry Caterpillar doing there? Not that I object, mind you.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

I think I've seen some sort of anniversary edition out there.

*checks Wikipedia*

Yes, 2009 was its 40th anniversary.

[tovaglia.livejournal.com]

Most of them sound awful! (I haven't read them though so maybe that is just snobbishness). Apart maybe from the cookery books and The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

I was delighted to find that prince_eldarion has a "Very Hungry Caterpillar" game.

[sammee42.livejournal.com]

I've read seven... mostly because I was sucked into the stupid Twilight series for a while, and then a few others...

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

It looks like you're in the lead!

[el-staplador.livejournal.com]

I read one of those in 2008, and bought another in an Oxfam shop, read half of it, and gave it to my ma for Christmas. (She does approve of this kind of behaviour, I hasten to add!)

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Which ones are they?

[el-staplador.livejournal.com]

The Time Traveller's Wife was the one I read in 2008 (I'm pretty sure it was before last year, anyway), and Rumour Has It was the one I gave my ma for Christmas. Jill Mansell is about the only chicklit either o f us reads.

Dear God.

[wemyss.livejournal.com]

Sinking giggling into the sea.

How utterly appalling a list, with but a few worthy exceptions.

Re: Dear God.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Which do you think the worthy ones are?

Ah.

[wemyss.livejournal.com]

Summerscale - excellent book - Rankin, as always, and Sir Pterry, also as always. I suppose the cookery books to be worthy as well in their sphere.

Others may be, I can't say, but certainly the rubbish is self-evidently rubbish (Brown, Smeyer, Grish, Obambi, and All That) and depressingly popular (in both senses).

Mind, with this weather and the England collapse in the Test, one may soon be reduced to reading even these in desperation, whilst weather-bound.

Re: Ah.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

with this weather and the England collapse in the Test

grumblegrumblegrumble

Simply appalling, isn't it.

[wemyss.livejournal.com]

Bloody Smith is being made to look godlike. What in buggery has gone wrong with the England bowling?

Re: Ah.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

And yes, that looks like a reasonable summary of the books.

[bookwormsarah.livejournal.com]

I've read six - 10, 12, 17, 33, 34 and 39. The only one I read in 2009 was 10 (my housemate has the full set of Jodi Picoult books).

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

And you're number two! :-)

[apademek.livejournal.com]

Read 9, OK-ish, might read others by the same author if from a charity shop, and 20, bought from Oxfam, tedious, given to the village fete.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

I moderately enjoyed 20, but I didn't think it was the masterpiece that some others seem to think it was.