BOOKS / In the lists

A DREADFUL stasis seems to take over the lists during the sleepy days of August, with the top sellers apparently immutably glued in place. Tom Clancy and Joanna Trollope just keep on getting richer; Wild Swans will soon be celebrating a full year in the Top 15. Among the few newcomers are two Terrys, Pratchett and Waite - both, in their very different ways, to be expected - and the redoubtable Marianne Faithfull (see the review by Paul Jones, coming shortly on these pages). Tell Me The Truth About Love, the booklet of 10 wonderful poems by W H Auden published on the freak crest of the Four Weddings and a Funeral wave, is still holding its own against the likes of Wilbur Smith and Ken Follett, but the real surprise on the paperback list is the extraordinary performance of Annie Proulx's The Shipping News and Sebastian Faulks's Birdsong. Both these are the kind of quiet, rather literary books that are not usually expected to make more than the briefest showing on a general paperback list, unless they win a prize, but Birdsong is up there for an amazing 7th week: if you haven't read it yet, do.

----------------------------------------------------------------- THE INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY BESTSELLER LIST ----------------------------------------------------------------- HARDBACKS ----------------------------------------------------------------- 1 Debt of Honour by Tom Clancy HarperCollins pounds 15.99 (1/4) 2 Magic Eye 2 by N E Thing Enterprises Michael Joseph pounds 10.99 (2/18) 3 In the Kitchen with Rosie by Rosie Daley, Ebury pounds 9.99 (3/10) 4 Magic Eye by N E Thing Enterprises Michael Joseph pounds 10.99 (4/20) 5 Delia Smith's Summer Collection BBC Books pounds 14.99 (6/44) 6 Twelve Red Herrings by Jeffrey Archer, HarperCollins pounds 14.99 (5/7) 7 The Discworld Companion by Terry Pratchett & Stephen Briggs Gollancz pounds 14.99 (-/1) 8 Made in America by Bill Bryson Secker pounds 15 (11/7) 9 Floyd on Italy by Keith Floyd Michael Joseph pounds 16.99 (7/6) 10 The Human Animal by Desmond Morris, BBC pounds 16.99 (8/4) 11 Summers Will Never be the Same ed C Martin-Jenkins & P Gibson Partridge Press pounds 12.99 (13/12) 12 Faithfull by Marianne Faithfull & David Dalton Michael Joseph pounds 15.99 (-/1) 13 The Hidden City by David Eddings HarperCollins pounds 15.99 (15/9) 14 The Chamber by John Grisham Century pounds 15.99 (10/13) 15 Bravo Two Zero by Andy McNab, Bantam pounds 14.99 (14/45) ----------------------------------------------------------------- PAPERBACKS ----------------------------------------------------------------- 1 A Spanish Lover by Joanna Trollope Black Swan pounds 5.99 (1/8) 2 The Blue Afternoon by William Boyd Penguin pounds 5.99 (2/3) 3 The Client by John Grisham Arrow pounds 5.99 (7/13) 4 Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks Vintage pounds 5.99 (3/7) 5 Vanished by Danielle Steel Corgi pounds 4.99 (-/1) 6 Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha by Roddy Doyle, Minerva pounds 5.99 (4/13) 7 Cruel and Unusual by Patricia D Cornwell, Warner pounds 4.99 (6/9) 8 Without Remorse by Tom Clancy HarperCollins pounds 5.99 (5/10) 9 The Shipping News by E Annie Proulx, 4th Estate pounds 5.99 (8/3) 10 Wild Swans by Jung Chang Flamingo pounds 7.99 (10/47) 11 An Outrageous Affair by Penny Vincenzi, Orion pounds 5.99 (12/6) 12 Taken on Trust by Terry Waite Coronet pounds 5.99 (-/1) 13 River God by Wilbur Smith Pan pounds 5.99 (14/11) 14 Tell Me the Truth about Love by W H Auden, Faber pounds 2.50 (-/2) 15 A Dangerous Fortune by Ken Follett, Pan pounds 5.99 (13/7) (The first figure shows last week's place; the second shows appearances on this list.) ----------------------------------------------------------------- HARDBACK MEMOIRS ----------------------------------------------------------------- 1 Faithfull by Marianne Faithfull & David Dalton Michael Joseph pounds 15.99 2 Bravo Two Zero by Andy McNab Bantam Press pounds 14.99 3 A Small Place in Italy by Eric Newby HarperCollins pounds 14.99 4 Diplomacy by Henry Kissinger Simon & Schuster pounds 20 5 Mandarin by Nicholas Henderson Weidenfeld pounds 20 6 My Kenya Days by Ernest Thesiger HarperCollins pounds 20 7 Major Major by Terry Major-Ball, Duckworth pounds 12.95 8 Zlata's Diary by Zlata Filipovic Viking pounds 9.99 9 Cantona - My Story by Eric Cantona Headline pounds 15.99 10 Serpent on the Rock by Alice Thomas Ellis Hodder pounds 17.99 ----------------------------------------------------------------- Compiled by Bookwatch -----------------------------------------------------------------