After a 2014 in which children’s books (led by novels by John Green and David Walliams) dominated the annual sales chart, 2015 was the year of women. Authors including Harper Lee and Judith Kerr took seven of the top 10 spots, leaving room only for Guinness World Records and two of the Three Kings of Christmas, Walliams and Jeff Kinney, with third, Jamie Oliver, just outside in number 11.
the last time this happened was in 2012, and then the dominance of the spinning wheel was exaggerated by the fact that two of that year’s elite, the james and suzanne collins, had produced trilogies and all three titles of their Fifty Shades and The Hunger Games were highly placed. here, by contrast, the works of the women at the top of the chart are unique and remarkably varied: bdsm porn, a coloring book, the reanimation of a cat that died in 2002, the goodbye mog, the return of a lawyer from Alabama and her daughter who last appeared 55 years ago, and the stories of a permanently gawking unemployed commuter (the girl on the train), a demented storyteller (elizabeth is missing), and a fed up wife in 17th century Amsterdam ( the miniaturist).
You are reading: Top best selling books 2015
Equally diverse are the authors who produced them, from Kerr and Lee, aged 92 and 89, respectively, to award-winning newcomers Emma Healey and Jessie Burton and Paula Hawkins, penning their first thriller after the others. production of romantic comedies; and from el james, who was ranked 12th (with estimated annual earnings of $12 million) in the latest forbes ranking of the world’s highest-earning authors, even though these numbers relate to a year before gray in which she published nothing, to millie marotta, queen of colouring, who describes herself as a “freelance illustrator [with a] studio by the sea in a little corner of west wales”, and a year ago she was almost a unknown.
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Although male authors staged something of a comeback in the bottom half of the table, overall 45 women featured this year (compared to 47 men), a significant advance over 31 in 2014. Their progress reflects the rise of genres whose main exponents are usually women: the psychological thrillers exemplified by the girl on the train and her model, lost girl (17); the phenomenon of coloring books for adults (or for all ages) represented by marotta and johanna basford (15, 16); and the healthy eating trend behind Ella Woodward’s rise as the second most popular cookery writer with Deliciously Ella (18).
By contrast, book categories that can be viewed as masculine were in retreat, particularly minecraft titles that held four spots in the top 10 in 2014 (minecraft blockopedia, at number 96, is the only short video game manuals reminder). lived the glory) and were replaced by coloring as the fashion that saved bacon from booksellers. aside from oliver, male-written cooking titles have disappeared from the top 100, as the cult of the arrogant, wisecracking celebrity chef gives way to sensible, gushing ella-style diets and suggestions from tv home cooks mary berry ( 24) and Nigella Lawson (84), whose subtitle “feel good food” was slyly trendy.
Also nearing extinction are memoirs of actors, musicians or comedians, a genre traditionally dominated by men as they do in show business, with much-touted fall offerings from the likes of brian blessed, steve coogan and tom jones who are nowhere to be found; although this clarification means that the few remaining mostly sports-related mainstream autobiographies may be dumber: chris kyle’s american sniper (23), guy martin’s when you’re dead you’re dead (35) and my story by Steven Gerrard (50). only the fun adult ladybug books penguin (65, 87), written by jason hazeley and joel morris, were a new hit in 2015 powered by male authors.
Putting together the stark lack of TV spin-off titles (where has the annual British Big Book gone?) in the top 10 it owes its surprising numbers to exposure on the big or small screen; You might be wondering if movies and TV have suddenly lost much of their sales-boosting magic.
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only if the same unusual pattern repeats itself next year will that start to look plausible; What can be said is that the online celebrity can now match the traditional variety in book sales, particularly to younger buyers. woodward owes its top 20 spot to youtube, not a bbc2 or channel 4 series, zoe sugg (20, 34) and alfie deyes (39, 58) proved their high rankings last year were no fluke , and vlogger newcomers dan and phil (70) beat heavy hitters like jo nesbø, nick hornby and jodi picoult.
If you’re puzzled by the almost total disconnect between the top 100 and the titles that did well in last month’s Book of the Year roundups, the reason is that the latter are mostly new releases from 2015, while The early ones (with the phenomenal exceptions of Go Set a Watchman and The Girl on the Train, the latter published in January and still in hardcover) tend to be paperbacks of books that first appeared last year. That’s true of Healey and Burton’s novels, which did very well challenging James and Walliams, assisted respectively by the Costa and Waterstones awards. Last year’s top-ranked literary fiction, Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life and Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch, only made 11th and 14th places.
Other literary or literary-commercial novels that kept publishers happy: by david nicholls (14), victoria hislop (25), ian mcewan (51), sarah waters (82), karen joy fowler (85), and anthony doerr (99) – were also from last year, apart from terry pratchett’s farewell, shepherd’s crown (36) and a spool of blue thread, by anne tyler (60), the only 2015 man booker nominee listed in the list.
Serious nonfiction, another failed male-dominated field, regressed even further, with no (adult) history or popular science titles and no full biographies exceeding the 95,000-copy threshold. Still, it wasn’t all doom and gloom: Bill Bryson’s Travelogue (26) lived up to booksellers’ expectations, while The Guardian’s (32) Owen Jones controversy exceeded them, and Helen Macdonald (43) She turned her Samuel Johnson-Costa Book of the Year into a double from 2014-15 in sales that put her just ahead of Alex Ferguson.
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