Books: Best-sellers

It will take a heavy-hitter to dislodge Longitude from its perch at the top of the science list and David Attenborough might just be the man for the job. His new 10-week natural history series on BBC1, The Life of Birds, starting on 21 October, looks set to enthrall the nation. The accompanying book was published on 24 September and with the publicity generated by the series, plus the tyranny of Christmas present lists, I predict that it will be number one before you can say lesser black-backed gull.

Another TV tie-in, this time for Channel 4 is Niger Slater's Real Food: relaxed, unpretentious cooking with gutsy flavours. Slater's aim appears to be to give us all the confidence to enter a kitchen without a recipe and march out with something utterly delicious to eat. It's doing wonders for his book sales.

Compiled by Bookwatch from sales over seven days ending 4 October 1998

Bookwatch Ltd, 1998

ORIGINAL FICTION

TITLE AUTHOR/PUBLISHER WEEKLY SALES PRICE

1 (2) Point of Origin Patricia D Cornwell (Little, Brown) 8,238 pounds 16.99

2 (1) Tara Road Maeve Binchy (Orion) 5,674 pounds 16.99

3 (3) Net Force Tom Clancy (Headline) 4,693 pounds 6.99

4 (-) Archangel Robert Harris (Hutchinson) 4,539 pounds 16.99

5 (6) Filth Irvine Welsh (Cape) 4,403 pounds 9.99

6 (-) Ramses 4: The Lady of Abu Simbel Christian Jacq (Simon & Schuster) 3,875 pounds 9.99

7 (7) The Tesseract Alex Garland (Viking) 3,652 pounds 9.99

8 (4) Field of Thirteen Dick Francis (M Joseph) 3,645 pounds 16.99

9 (8) Rainbow Six Tom Clancy (M Joseph) 3,400 pounds 16.99

10 (5)Jemima J Jane Green (Penguin) 2,925 pounds 5.99

ORIGINAL NON-FICTION

TITLE AUTHOR/PUBLISHER WEEKLY SALES PRICE

1(2) Addicted Tony Adams (CollinsWillow) 4,653 pounds 17.99

2(1) Heaven's Mirror Graham Hancock & Santha Faiia (M Joseph) 4,406 pounds 20

3(3) Losing My Virginity Richard Branson (Virgin) 3,241 pounds 20

4(5) Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus John Gray (Thorsons) 3,075 pounds 9.99

5(4) The Little Book of Calm Paul Wilson (Penguin) 3,024 pounds 1.99

6(6) The Guv'nor Lenny McLean (Blake) 3,005 pounds 16.99

7(7) East and West Chris Patten (Macmillan) 2,369 pounds 22.50

8(-) Real Food Nigel Slater (4th Estate) 2,225 pounds 18.99

9(8) Buster's Diaries Roy Hattersley (Little, Brown) 1,871 pounds 9.99

10(9) The Little Book of Stress Rohan Candappa (Ebury) 1,868 pounds 1.99

SCIENCE

TITLE AUTHOR/PUBLISHER WEEKLY SALES PRICE

1 Longitude Dava Sobel (4th Estate) 1,872 pounds 5.99

2 The Life of Birds David Attenborough (BBC) 1,598 pounds 18.99

3 Fermat's Last Theorem Simon Singh (4th Estate) 760 pounds 5.99

4 The Calendar David Ewing Duncan (4th Estate) 610 pounds 12.99

5 Isaac Newton: the last sorcerer Michael White (4th Estate) 380 pounds 8.99

6 Poison on a Plate Richard Lacey (Metro) 269 pounds 12.99

7 The Man Who Loved Only Numbers Paul Hoffman (4th Estate) 235 pounds 12.99

8 Consilience Edmund O Wilson (Little, Brown) 177 pounds 18.99

9 The Floating Egg Roger Osborne (Cape) 168 pounds 15.99

10 Almost Everyone's Guide to Science John Gribbin (Weidenfeld) 144 pounds 9.99