Books: Bestsellers

After one week in the best-seller list, Nigella Lawson's How to Eat has dropped out, her succulent prose replaced by two much more prosaic diet and health books: Rosemary Conley's Low Fat Cookbook and the more robust Fighting Fat, Fighting Fit, linked to the BBC series of the same name. But hedonists are holding their own against this annual reaction to the season of gluttony. Rick Stein's Seafood Odyssey has also entered the list and Nigel Slater's Real Food returns. In fiction, the first appearance of Bret Easton Ellis's widely-panned, name-dropping fantasy about terrorist supermodels, Glamorama, tends to confirm the old adage that authors should never read their reviews but simply measure them.

Compiled from data supplied on sales over seven days ending 18 January 1999

Bookwatch Ltd, 1999

ORIGINAL FICTION

TITLE AUTHOR/PUBLISHER WEEKLY SALES PRICE

1 (- ) Tiffany's Secret Diary Kate Lock (BBC) 2,361 pounds 4.99

2 (- ) City Girl Patricia Scanlan (Bantam) 2,052 pounds 5.99

3 (1) Tom Clancy's Powerplays ... Tom Clancy (Penguin) 2,046 pounds 5.99

4 (3) Ramses 5: Under Western ... Christian Jacq (Simon & Schuster) 1,376 pounds 9.99

5 (2) Churchill's People Mary Jane Staples (Corgi) 1,344 pounds 5.99

6 (8) Archangel Robert Harris (Hutchinson) 1,118 pounds 16.99

7 (7) Charlotte Gray Sebastian Faulks (Hutchinson) 1,067 pounds 16.99

8 (5) This United State Colin Forbes (Macmillan) 1,039 pounds 16.99

9 (9) Carpe Jugulum Terry Pratchett (Doubleday) 924 pounds 16.99

10 (-) Glamorama Bret Easton Ellis (Picador) 921 pounds 16

ORIGINAL NON-FICTION

TITLE AUTHOR/PUBLISHER WEEKLY SALES PRICE

1(1) Delia's How to Cook, Book 1 Delia Smith (BBC) 4,433 pounds 16.99

2(5) Little Book of Feng Shui Lillian Too (Element) 3,924 pounds 1.99

3(3) Men are from Mars ... John Gray (Thorsons) 3,863 pounds 8.99

4(2) Little Book of Calm Paul Wilson (Penguin) 2,863 pounds 1.99

5(4) Notes From a Big Country Bill Bryson (Doubleday) 2,484 pounds 16.99

6(-) Fighting Fat, Fighting Fit Janette Marshall (BBC) 1,847 pounds 4.99

7(-) Rick Stein's Seafood Odyssey Rick Stein (BBC) 1,810 pounds 18.99

8(-) Low Fat Cookbook Rosemary Conley (Century) 1,745 pounds 16.99

9(6) Birthday Letters Ted Hughes (Faber) 1,378 pounds 14.99

10(-) Real Food Nigel Slater (Fourth Estate) 1,064 pounds 18.99