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M O N D AY, J A N U A RY 0 9 , 2 0 0 6UK Bestsellers of 2005 -- Harry PotterMagical...But By How Much?The Times of London published the top 50 bestsellers of 2005. Here'sthe link, then click on the chart image to make it bigger. (If you don'twant to register for the Times of London (or any newspaper site) go towww.bugmenot.com for info on how to easily get around that.) What Ilove about the British book charts -- and what I hope BookSense adoptsfor America -- is the fact that every week, they list EXACTLY how manycopies a book has sold. Some weeks, you can see a book made the Top15 by selling, oh, 1,200 copies. Imagine if the Movie Box Office chartsjust listed what film was Number One, Number Two and so on, ratherthan telling you exactly what they grossed.So looking at the British charts, a few things jump out. Harry Potter isnumber one, with 3,538,482 copies sold. Dan Brown has the next fourslots, beginning of course with "The Da Vinci Code" at 2.2 millioncopies sold. Another quirk of the UK booksellers is that they oftenrelease mass market paperbacks at the same time as the hardcover. SoBrown sold 2.2 mil copies of the paperback at 7 pounds. Meanwhile,here in the US, the mass market paperback finally comes out March 28,a mere three years (almost to the day) after the hardcover first cameout. (The movie hits theaters May 19.) And the publishing industrywonders why it's in a slump.Su Doku also owns a couple of slots, along with actor Ewan McGregor'stravelogue and a clutch of books by gentle mystery author AlexanderMcCall Smith.And the brilliant playwright Alan Bennett -- as beloved in the UK asperhaps Neil Simon is, in his way, here -- has already sold 300,000copies of "Untold Stories," his second collection of autobiographicalpieces, reviews, articles, diary entries and other miscellany. It just cameout in October, so clearly it was found wrapped under a lot ofChristmas trees. I'm halfway through the book and finding itdisarmingly frank. Bennett was told by doctors he probably wouldn'tmake it when diagnosed with a terrible disease and he threw caution tothe wind when writing. Once he kept on living, Bennett said oh well,and published the unusually frank (for him) material anyway. HenceNext Blog»sal1mineo@hotmail.comSEARCH BLOG FLAG BLOGFOLLOW BLOGP O P S U R F I N G . C O MS U R F I N G T H E WAV E S O F P O P U L A R C U LT U R EB Y M I C H A E L G I LT Z & F R I E N D SPOPSURFING.COM: UK Bestsellers of 2005 -- Harry Potter ...http://popsurfing.blogspot.com/2006/01/uk-bestsellers-of-2005-...
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FAV O R I T E L I N K SAmericablogFive O'Clock Lightning baseball blogDeep Pop -- Lori Lakin's BlogThe Back Page -- Jason Page on ESPNRadioCine-Blog -- George Robinson's BlogDocuments On Art & Cinema - DarylChin's BlogBrucie G's Wondrous Blog OfAdventure and Mystery -- BruceGreenspan's BlogB L O G A R C H I V E▼ 2009 (17)▼ July (3)1939 -- The Greatest Year ForMoviesSwimming Bans Those Hi-TechSuits!Best Movies Of The Year -- TheMaster List► June (3)► May (1)► March (2)► February (1)► January (7)► 2008 (86)► 2007 (781)► 2006 (2412)► 2005 (5)C O N T R I B U TO R SMichael in New YorkAaronBiboy POPSURFING.COM: UK Bestsellers of 2005 -- Harry Potter ...http://popsurfing.blogspot.com/2006/01/uk-bestsellers-of-2005-...
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POPSURFING.COM: UK Bestsellers of 2005 -- Harry Potter ...http://popsurfing.blogspot.com/2006/01/uk-bestsellers-of-2005-...
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