Books: Best-sellers

The value of TV tie-ins to book sales is underlined this week by the arrival in the non-fiction top 10 of Making Friends in the UK. Published in November, its sales figures soared (from number 38 to number 10) after the much-hyped wedding episode of this US sitcom screened on 11 December. Similarly, the sales of Bill Bryson's Notes From a Big Country and Notes From a Small Island will doubtless be boosted by a six-part ITV series, Bill Bryson's Notes From a Small Island, starting tomorrow. In the history and current affairs chart, the dominance of Dava Sobel's Longitude looks unshakeable but, with Millennium fever in the air, perhaps another chronicle of timekeeping, David Ewing Duncan's The Calendar, will knock it off the top spot.

Compiled by data supplied on sales over seven days ending 3 January 1999

Bookwatch Ltd, 1999

ORIGINAL FICTION

TITLE AUTHOR/PUBLISHER WEEKLY SALES PRICE

1 (9) Tom Clancy's Powerplays Tom Clancy (Penguin) 4,522 pounds 5.99

2 (-) Churchill's People Mary Jane Staples (Corgi) 3,997 pounds 5.99

3 (-) Miracle Cure Michael Palmer (Arrow) 2,924 pounds 5.99

4 (-) This United State Colin Forbes (Macmillan) 2,088 pounds 5.99

5 (3) City Girl Patricia Scanlan (Bantam) 1,553 pounds 16.99

6 (-) Ramses 5 Christian Jacq (Simon & Schuster) 1,523 pounds 9.99

7 (2) Carpe Jugulum Terry Pratchett (Doubleday) 1,417 pounds 16.99

8 (5) Archangel Robert Harris (Hutchinson) 1,362 pounds 16.99

9 (8) Rainbow Six Tom Clancy (M Joseph) 1,336 pounds 16.99

10 (7)Charlotte Gray Sebastian Faulks (Hutchinson) 1,281 pounds 16.99

ORIGINAL NON-FICTION

TITLE AUTHOR/PUBLISHER WEEKLY SALES PRICE

1(1) Delia's How to Cook Delia Smith (BBC) 12,460 pounds 16.99

2(4) Little Book of Feng Shui Lillian Too (Element) 4,279 pounds 1.99

3(5) The Little Book of Calm Paul Wilson (Penguin) 3,537 pounds 1.99

4(-) Men are From Mars... John Gray (Thorsons) 3,421 pounds 8.99

5(2) Notes From a Big Country Bill Bryson (Doubleday) 2,264 pounds 16.99

6(3) The Life of Birds David Attenborough (BBC) 1,888 pounds 18.99

7(-) Birthday Letters Ted Hughes (Faber) 1,694 pounds 14.99

8(9) Real Food Nigel Slater (Fourth Estate) 1,555 pounds 18.99

9(10) Ethel and Ernest Raymond Briggs (Cape) 1,537 pounds 14.99

10(-) Making Friends in the UK Penny Stallings (Channel 4) 1,507 pounds 9.99

HISTORY, POLITICS, CURRENT AFFAIRS

TITLE AUTHOR/PUBLISHER WEEKLY SALES PRICE

1 Longitude Dava Sobel (Fourth Estate) 2,095 pounds 5.99

2 The English Jeremy Paxman (M Joseph) 822 pounds 20

3 Heaven's Mirror Graham Hancock & Santha Faiia (M Joseph) 804 pounds 20

4 The Calendar David Ewing Duncan (Fourth Estate) 726 pounds 12.99

5 Stalingrad Antony Beevor (Viking) 709 pounds 25

6 Endurance Caroline Alexander (Bloomsbury) 612 pounds 20

7 Over Here Raymond Seitz (Phoenix) 504 pounds 7.99

8 East and West Chris Patten (Macmillan) 490 pounds 22.50

9 Like the Roman: Enoch Powell Simon Heffer (Weidenfeld) 404 pounds 25

10 To the Last Man: spring 1918 Lyn Macdonald (Viking) 399 pounds 25