Books: Best-sellers

Deutsch is claiming Glenn Hoddle's kick-and-tell memoir as the "No 1 Bestseller". True enough, as far as hardbacks go. Our chart, however, also includes titles which first appeared as paperback originals. On this reckoning, the uncrushable John Gray still has his serene nose in front of England's coach.

David Ewing Duncan's history of The Calendar has made a timely entry, not so very far behind Hoddle, and ahead of Lenny McLean's bare-knuckle boxing biog. As for those pesky "little books", you're probably as sick of seeing them in the charts as we are. Such, alas, are the rewards of truthfulness. Some other bestseller lists set a minimum price and so massage the results in a vaguely upmarket direction. This one doesn't.

Meanwhile, fiction remains firmly under the trotter of Irvine Welsh's Filth, despite the attempt by Southampton police to rip down its porcine poster.

Compiled by Bookwatch from sales over seven days ending 23 August.

Copyright Bookwatch Ltd, 1998

ORIGINAL FICTION

TITLE AUTHOR/PUBLISHER WEEKLY SALES PRICE

1 (1) Filth Irvine Welsh (Cape) 16,198 pounds 9.99

2 (3) Jemima J Jane Green (Penguin) 9,580 5.99

3 (2) Love Song Charlotte Bingham (Bantam) 7,157 5.99

4 (-) Bag of Bones Stephen King (Hodder) 5,147 16.99

5 (4) The Klone and I Danielle Steel (Bantam) 3,684 9.99

6 (5) The Clothes They Stood Up In Alan Bennett (Profile) 3,114 3.99

7 (6) Hitched Zoe Barnes (Piatkus) 3,051 5.99

8 (-) The Trials of Tiffany Trott Isabel Wolff (HarperCollins) 2,785 6.99

9 (7) Perfect Strangers Robin Sisman (Penguin) 2,535 5.99

10 (8) Rachel's Holiday Marian Keyes (Penguin) 2,466 5.99

ORIGINAL NON-FICTION

TITLE AUTHOR/PUBLISHER WEEKLY SALES PRICE

1(1) Men are from Mars,

Women are from Venus John Gray (Thorsons) 5,926 pounds 9.99

2(-) My 1998 World Cup Story Glen Hoddle with David Davies (Deutsch) 5,782 17.99

3(2) The Little Book of Calm Paul Wilson (Penguin) 5,632 1.99

4(-) The Calendar David Ewing Duncan (Fourth Estate) 4,154 12.99

5(3) The Guv'nor Lenny McLean (Blake) 3,552 16.99

6(10) In the Footsteps of Alexander the Great Michael Wood(BBC) 2,890 17.99

7(8) The Little Book of Stress Rohan Candappa (Ebury) 2,451 1.99

8(5) Under the Tuscan Sun Frances Mayes (Bantam) 2,269 5.99

9(7) The Little Book of Chaos Craig Brown (Warner) 1,844 1.99

10(4) The Little Book of Dreams Joan Hanger (Penguin) 1,823 1.99