Episode #9 – April 2025 Bestsellers + Books and Consumers discussion feat. Steve Bohme

This episode’s Spotlight segment features a special guest, NielsenIQ BookData’s expert on Books and Consumers research, Steve Bohme. Steve sits down with Belle to discuss book purchasing behaviour in the UK and the various interconnected factors behind individual purchases. 

Prior to that, Philip and Belle count down the UK’s top 20 bestselling books in the month of April (01.45) and reveal their “Beyond the Bestsellers” picks (10.31). Along the way they discuss the surge in paperback fiction sales brought in by warmer weather, how the passing of Pope Francis influenced the book charts, and how two former members of pop band McFly are now bestselling children’s authors. Belle also receives a rude awakening that she has worked in the book industry for a decade.

Books featured in this episode that can be purchased from all good booksellers include:

– Tim Marshall’s Prisoners of Geography
– Robert Harris’ Conclave 
– Pope Francis’ Hope
– Gary Stevenson’s The Trading Game
– Martha Mumford’s Little Easter Bunnies 
– Sosuke Nagawe’s The Cat Who Saved The Library
– Sarah Wynn-Williams’ Careless People
– BBC Proms Guide 2025

Episode #8 – March 2025 bestsellers + international book sales

Philip and Belle count down the UK’s top 20 bestselling books in the month of March (01.40), reveal their “Beyond the Bestsellers” picks (10.27), and discuss international markets and bestsellers in “Under the Spotlight” (23.14). Along the way they discuss the huge sales of the fifth Hunger Games novel, how TV adaptations impact book sales, the global popularity of puzzle books, and bookshelf aesthetics. Belle also ranks her favourite Beatles and Philip finally pronounces Dav Pilkey’s first name correctly (as in “Dave”).

Link to Ash Sarkar’s “I’m a communist” moment
Link to The Bookseller’s article about books’ exclusions from Trump’s tariffs
Link to The Bookseller’s article on “sporror”
Link to The Sunday Times bestseller lists

Books featured in this episode that can be purchased from all good booksellers include:

– Donna Ashworth’s To the Women
– Morgan Housel’s The Psychology of Money
– Joël Dicker’s Wild Animal
– James Clear’s Atomic Habits
– Ian Leslie’s John and Paul: A Love Story in Songs

#7 — February 2025 bestsellers + World Book Day

Philip and Belle count down the UK’s top 20 bestselling books in the month of February (04.03), reveal their “Beyond the Bestsellers” picks (13.18), and discuss World Book Day in “Under the Spotlight” (23.34). Along the way they discuss the huge popularity of Bluey, World Book Day costumes, the enduring success of Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and get all nostalgic reminiscing about Choose Your Own Adventure books, the life of Steve Irwin, and a Chinese restaurant in Chesterfield.

Link to Bluey: Rug Island episode page
Link to World Book Day website
Link to BBC article: World Book Day: How to make a last-minute costume

Books featured in this episode that can be purchased from all good booksellers include:
— Julia Donaldson’s Tales from Acorn Wood: Who’s in Acord Wood?
— Jon Klassen’s I Want My Hat Back
— Tom Fletcher’s There’s a Bunny in Your Book
— Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
— Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight

#6 — January 2025 bestsellers + New Year, New You

Philip and Belle count down the UK’s top 20 bestselling books in the month of January (02.21), reveal their “Beyond the Bestsellers” picks (11.24), and discuss New Year, New You season in “Under the Spotlight” (24.39). Along the way they discuss the record-breaking sales of a new fantasy novel, the dramatic rise in sales of personal development titles over the past decade, books that change your life, Plato, Stoicism, linocut Christmas cards, and get all nostalgic looking back at diet fads in years gone by (The Dukan Diet! Dr Atkins! GI Hip and Thigh!).
 
Link to The Guardian’s article on the rise in childhood anxiety
Link to The Bookseller’s article on sales of Rebecca Yarros’s Onyx Storm
Link to Knowledge at Wharton: Life Hacks from Marcus Aurelius
Link to Exupery Design’s New Year’s Resolutions Generator
 
Books featured in this episode that can be purchased from all good booksellers include:
– Jamie Oliver’s Easy Air Fryer
– Jennie Godfrey’s The List of Suspicious Things
– Coco Wyo’s Girl Moments
– Daniel Levitin’s Music as Medicine
– Anthony Kessel’s American Mystery

#5 — December 2024 bestsellers + 2024 in review

Philip and Belle count down the UK’s top 20 bestselling books in the month of December (02.48), reveal their “Beyond the Bestsellers” picks (11.10), and review book sales in 2024 in “Under the Spotlight” (19.41). Along the way they discuss the bestselling books of the year, two writers that dared to sell more books that Richard Osman, why books are great value for money, and which of us was on Santa’s Naughty List (as they didn’t receive any books this Christmas).
 
Link to The Bookseller’s article on predictions for 2025
Link to Brandon Sanderson’s $40M Kickstarter
Link to Nielsen BookData book market overview blog for the UK and Ireland in 2024
Link to Nielsen BookData blog about audiobook listening in 2024 
 
Books featured in this episode that can be purchased from all good booksellers include:
– Asako Yuzuki’s Butter (translated by Polly Barton)
– Richard Osman’s We Solve Murders
– Viktor E. Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning
– Brandon Sanderson’s Wind and Truth
– Freida McFadden’s The Housemaid

#4 — November 2024 bestsellers + genres that spike at Christmas

Philip and Belle count down the UK’s top 20 bestselling books in the month of November (03.02), reveal their “Beyond the Bestsellers” picks (14.45), and chat about genres that enjoy sales spikes at Christmas in “Under the Spotlight” (26.14). Along the way they discuss the stonking sales of the latest Booker Prize winner, non-fiction books currently selling for under £10 that could be good options for listeners participating in office Secret Santas, “achievable” world records, and  colouring in.
 
Link to the recent Booker Prize announcement
Link to the Guinness World Records page: “most piercings in a lifetime (female)”
Link to The Bookseller’s article about Vietnamese artists’ collective Coco Wyo’s deal with Penguin Random House
Link to a Telegraph article on “French flaps” (SFW)
 
Books featured in this episode that can be purchased from all good booksellers include:
– Jeremy Clarkson’s Diddly Squat: Home to Roost
– The Night Before Christmas
– Asako Yuzuki’s Butter 
– George R R Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series
– Samantha Harvey’s Orbital

#3 — October 2024 bestsellers + the race for the Christmas Number One

Philip and Belle count down the UK’s top 20 bestselling books in the month of October (02:20), reveal their “Beyond the Bestsellers” picks (11:53), and chat about books gunning for the Christmas number one spot (26:30). Along they way they discuss a cookbook that sold like hot cakes in Australia, why Barack Obama will forever be linked with the UK book trade’s “Super Thursday”, how nice Rick Astley and Stanley Tucci are, and Pokémon hunting in a posh hotel.

 Books featured in this episode that can be purchased from all good booksellers include:
 – Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga’s The Courage to Be Disliked
– Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Hot Mess
– Guinness World Records 2025
– Vex King’s One Day One Moment
– Lee and Andrew Child’s In Too Deep

Link to Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up
Link to The Bookseller’s story about Boris’s memoir hitting the charts
Link to interview with Nobel Prize in Literature 2024 winner Han Kang
Philip’s Pokémon Go trainer code: 2058-8321-0182

#2 — September 2024 bestsellers + “evergreen” books

Philip and Belle count down the UK’s top 20 bestselling books in the month of September (02.08), reveal their “Beyond the Bestsellers” picks (10.55), and chat about book trade “evergreens” (19.09) — old books that continue to fly off the shelves to this day. Along they way they discuss folding over the corner of pages instead of using a bookmark, Philip’s book-related tattoo, and celebrities writing books for children that involve poop.

Books featured in this episode that can be purchased from all good booksellers include:
– Rebecca Kuang’s Yellowface
– Richard Osman’s We Solve Murders
– Sally Rooney’s Intermezzo
– Janet and Allan Ahlberg’s Funnybones
– Rhonda Byrne’s The Secret

Link to Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience
Link to Nielsen BookData’s The Bestseller Awards

#1 — August 2024 bestsellers + the Sunday Times top 100 of the past 50 years

Philip and Belle count down the UK’s top 20 bestselling books in the month of August (02.00), reveal their “Beyond the Bestsellers” picks (11.28), and chat about The Sunday Times’s recently-published top 100 of the past 50 years (19.30). Along they way they discuss TikTok’s influence on the UK book market, judging a book by its cover, a book often bought but rarely read, the fact that UFOs are now called UAPs, and that you can cook gnocchi in an air fryer.

Books featured in this episode that can be purchased from all good booksellers include:
– Fiona Watt’s That’s Not My… Witch
– James Clear’s Atomic Habits
– Bob Mortimer’s The Hotel Avocado
– Colleen Hoover’s It Ends With Us
– Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series

Link to It Ends With Us trailer
Link to Mark Owen’s pronunciation of “Clementine”
Link to Joe Rogan’s chat with Luis Elizondo
Link to The Sunday Times’s Top 100 bestsellers of the past 50 years
Link to Nielsen Book blog on judging books by their covers