Sally Rooney’s Normal People back on book charts after TV show’s success

Rooney’s novel was first released in 2018

Sally Rooney’s Normal People has topped the UK book charts for the first time over a year after it was first released.

Following the success of BBC Three’s adaptation of Rooney’s coming-of-age story, the Irish author’s 2018 novel has knocked David Walliams’s children’s book Slime off the top spot, according to Nielsen BookScan.

Starring Daisy Edgar Jones and Paul Mescal as will-they-won’t-they couple Marianne and Connell, Normal People has proven to be a massive hit for BBC Three, giving the channel its best ever week after the series was requested more than 21.8 million times in its first seven days.

This more than doubled the record previously held by Killing Eve, which received 10.8 million total requests in its first week.

Despite bookshops being shut due to the coronavirus pandemic, meaning that sales figures cannot be released, Waterstones said that sales of the book had “rocketed” since the TV show was released, with Rooney’s first novel Conversations With Friends in second place.

The author’s debut, which was released in 2017, is also being adapted for the small screen by the TV behind Normal People, with producer Ed Guiney revealing that he and co-producer Lenny Abrahamson have been working on the project in lockdown.

“Obviously [it] is a cousin of Normal People in a way, but it’s also quite different,” Guiney said.

“We’re actively developing that and Lenny’s going to direct the opening episodes of that again, and that’s very exciting and a lovely thing to be working on during the lockdown.