Top 10 (early March 2007)
March 5th 2007 10:39
Here are the current Top 10 Lists for Dymocks and Angus & Robertson.
ANGUS AND ROBERTSON TOP 10
1. Step on a Crack by James Patterson
2. Paradise House by Erica James
3. From Baghdad With Love by Jay Kopelman
5. Plum Lovin' by Janet Evanovich
6. Forever in Blue by Ann Brashares
7. Eldest by Christopher Paolini
8. Infidel by Ali Ayaan Hirsi
9. The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins
10. The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards
James Patterson, as usual, dominates the Top 10 with his latest 'gripping' page-turner. James Patterson is one of the big 'blockbuster' names so he doesn't really have any trouble getting his books to sell... I wouldn't be surprised if he released a collected omnibus of his various shopping lists one day and it still went to number 1. Erica James is another big name, so her high placement isn't much of a surprise either. From Baghdad with Love is the true and apparently heartwarming tale of a grizzled American soldier on a tour of duty of Iraq who is taught to love again by a pet dog. With last year's runaway success of naughty dog-memoir Marley and Me, it was only a matter of time before the publishing companies cashed in by turning the concept into a genre... I couldn't feel more cynical about the exercise, but hey - it sells! Jillaroo is a paperback re-release currently being pushed at a budget price in anticipation of Rachael Treasure's third novel The Rouseabout, which looks set for a release sometime in the near future.
Plum Lovin' is a slim novella from Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series... Evanovich's Plum books never seem to have trouble making the Top 10. Forever in Blue is the fourth book in the teen girl-aimed series that started with Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants... Angus & Robertson gave the series a fair bit of promotion in the lead up to this latest entry in the series and, coupled with the release of the film a few years ago, it looks to have paid off. Eldest is still going strong, probably still riding on the back of the recent Eragon film - I wonder how much longer until Paolini unveils the third and final book in the Inheritance series? Infidel is the controversial biography of human rights campaigner and former muslim, Ali Ayaan Hirsi. As a highly outspoken critic of Islam she managed to get a fatwa placed on her, and this book - the story of her journey from muslim to islam-opponent - is just the sort of thing middle-class white Australian women love... hence it's big sales.
Surprisingly, Richard Dawkins' anti-religious opus 'The God Delusion' has been doing big business too. No doubt the controversy surrounding the subject has helped fuel it's sales, and Dawkins' impressive credentials have probably ensured it's success in the wake of this flurry of excitement. The Memory Keeper's Daughter has been in the Top 10 for at least three months now... it looks set to become an enduring bestseller and I predict it will subsequently turn up on Angus & Robertson's soon-to-be revised Top 100 list.
DYMOCKS
1. The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards
2. An Absolute Scandal by Penny Vincenzi
3. Step on a Crack by James Patterson
4. A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka
5. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
6. Plum Lovin' by Janet Evanovich
7. Spotless by Jennifer Fleming
8. My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult
9. Forever in Blue by Ann Brashares
10. From Baghdad With Love by Jay Kopelman
A few similarities with the A&R list here. James Patterson, Janet Evanovich, Ann Brashares and Jay Kopelman make headway on both lists, owing to their respectively big fanbases and (in the case of Kopelman) topicality. Penny Vincenzi is another big name, and her high place in the Top 10 here reflects that. A Short History fo Tractors in Ukrainian is a new-ish novel that gained some decent literary acclaim at the time of it's release - including being shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2005. It seems the publishers are pushing it at the moment, and it looks to have paid off over at Dymocks. The Kite Runner and My Sister's Keeper on the other hand... well, these are popular books, for sure, but they've been out for quite a while now - I fail to understand how they're still on the Top 10, unless maybe Dymocks have had some kind of special on these books lately. Spotless has been out for a while too, but it's been selling pretty consistently since it's release.
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