UK Book News: Museum books top post-Easter sales

There  usually a slump  in bookshop sales following the Easter break but one type of book is bucking the trend this year.  Nine of the books in this week's top ten accelerators chart are guides to British museums and historical sites according to The Bookseller firstedition@bookseller.co.uk.  The top seller is the Imperial War Museum's Duxford Guidebook sales of which rocketed 342% week on week last week.

The only book to chart in the top 10 that is not a guidebook is Iain Banks' debut novel The Wasp Factory following the sad news last week that the author has been diagnosed with gall bladder cancer.  Sales of his books jumped 40% in total which is a rather sad reflection on the fact that no publicity, even impending death, is bad publicity.

Nielsen BookScan data records that The Wasp Factory has sold 216,000 copies in the UK since their official sales records began and has spent more than 17 years in its official weekly top 5,000 bestseller list which is some record.

Here is the full list of top ten accelerators for this week:

Pos 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Growth 342% 255% 216% 173% 139% 131% 126% 126% 115% 108%

Title IWM Duxford Guidebook The Wasp Factory Tintagel Castle Guidebook Osborne Guidebook Battle Abbey ... Guidebook IWM HMS Belfast Guidebook Churchill War Rooms Kids Only Hadrian's Wall Guidebook Imperial War Museum North

Author - Banks, Iain Batey, Colleen E Turner, Michael Coad, Jonathan - - MacQuitty, Dr Miranda Breeze, David J -

Imprint IWM Abacus E Heritage E Heritage E Heritage IWM IWM NHM E Heritage IWM