You know that school isn’t far away when the Maths Tables top the charts. Dan Brown scores another stellar week and Stieg Larsson‘s amazing performance continues. Rhonda Byrne, whose The Secret was such a phenomenal success a few years ago is back in the top ten with her new book The Power.

Emma Donoghue has sustained her incredible performance but she and  Sinead Moriarty, whose Pieces of My Heart remains in the top ten (and thus still technically number one in original fiction though Emma also sold 141 hardback copies of Room, which puts her over Moriarty’s unit sales, but who is counting!), are the only Irish writers still in the top ten.

1: Maths Tables , 1,876
2: The Lost Symbol, Dan Brown, 1,829
3: The Girl Who Played with Fire, Stieg Larsson, 1,776
4: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson, 1,689
5: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest, Stieg Larsson, 1,590
6: The Help, Kathryn Stockett, 1,492
7: Pieces of My Heart, Sinead Moriarty, 1,448
8: The Power, Rhonda Byrne, 1,445
9: Room, Emma Donoghue, 1,400
10: Don’t Blink, James Patterson, 1,336
Data Supplied by Nielsen BookScan taken from the Irish Consumer Market week ending 21st August 2010

Say whatever else you like about Dan Brown and his books, they sell. Of course that won’t have been hurt by the visible poster campaign for The Lost Symbol on public transport and further afield and the €5.95 price point in Tesco. Interestingly Kathryn Stockett is still selling well, the word of mouth for that book seems to keep it purring along.

Penguin Ireland must be enjoying the week with their brace of titles in the Top Ten, Amy Huberman holding on from last week and Sinead Moriarty moving in with the paperback of her latest. With Booker nominee Emma Donoghue’s presence and Joseph O’Connor still in the Top Ten, that puts Irish writers at 40% of the top ten.

1: The Lost Symbol, Dan Brown, 2,865
2: The Help, Kathryn Stockett, 1,939
3: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson, 1,856
4: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest, Stieg Larsson, 1,751
5: The Girl Who Played with Fire, Stieg Larsson, 1,571
6: Pieces of My Heart, Sinead Moriarty, 1,561
7: Hello, Heartbreak, Amy Huberman, 1,431
8: Picture Perfect, Jodi Picoult, 1,178
9: Room, Emma Donoghue, 1,140
10: Ghost Light, Joseph O’Connor, 1,002

Data Supplied by Nielsen BookScan taken from the Irish Consumer Market week ending 7th August 2010

Hard to fault Dan Brown’s performance this week. That kind of unit sale is just terribly impressive. Given the phenomenal sales he has been clocking up in the UK  where The Bookseller reports he has sold some ‘141,156 copies in its first full week in bookshops’ his Irish performance is not THAT impressive relatively speaking.

There is however great news for Irish authors. Alex Barclay is selling well and makes an new appearance alongside Amy Huberman whose paperback edition of Hello, Heartbreak is also in the chart. With Joseph O’Connor and Maeve Binchy hanging in there, that means the top ten is 40% Irish authored.

1: The Lost Symbol, Dan Brown, 3,685
2: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson, 1,836
3: The Help, Kathryn Stockett, 1,766
4: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest, Stieg Larsson, 1,653
5: Hello, Heartbreak, Amy Huberman, 1,576
6: The Girl Who Played with Fire, Stieg Larsson, 1,462
7: Time of Death, Alex Barclay, 1,390
8: Ghost Light, Joseph O’Connor, 1,256
9: Picture Perfect, Jodi Picoult, 1,209
10: The Return Journey, Maeve Binchy, 973

Data Supplied by Nielsen BookScan taken from the Irish Consumer Market week ending 31st July 2010

This article was written by Alison Flood, for guardian.co.uk on Wednesday 28th July 2010 13.27 UTC

The late Swedish journalist Stieg Larsson has beaten Stephenie Meyer and James Patterson to become the first author to sell more than one million ebooks on Amazon.

The online retailer said yesterday that Larsson, author of the Millennium trilogy, had become the first member of its new “Kindle Million Club”, for authors whose work has sold over a million copies in Amazon’s Kindle store in the US. The crime novelist is likely to be joined by thriller writer Patterson – Amazon said last week that it had sold over 860,000 of his ebooks – while Twilight scribe Meyer, Sookie Stackhouse creator Charlaine Harris and queen of romantic suspense Nora Roberts have each sold more than 500,000 Kindle books in the US.

“Larsson’s books have captivated millions of readers around the world and ignited a voracious interest in the lives of its main characters Lisbeth Salander and Michael Blomqvist,” said Russ Grandinetti, vice president of Kindle content. “It’s been exciting to have been a part of introducing so many people to these great books.”

The novelist’s three books – The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest – currently top Amazon’s Kindle bestseller list, and are also in the top 10 bestselling Kindle books of all time, according to the retailer.

The books have also topped Amazon’s UK Kindle chart for “a good few months”, said Iain Millar, marketing manager at Larsson’s UK publisher Quercus, and are currently at the top of Waterstone’s ebook bestseller list.

But Millar said that UK ebook sales for Larsson were “nowhere near the million mark, which is indicative of the extent to which the US ebook market is ahead of ours”.

“Broadly, the print books are equally popular in the States and in the UK, but uptake of the electronic version is much higher there, primarily because a much higher proportion of book customers in the States own ebook devices,” he said.

Quercus has sold 3.3m copies of Larsson’s books in the UK, and estimates that worldwide sales of the three novels are somewhere between 35-40m copies, “but they are literally selling too fast to count”, said Millar.

The news about Larsson’s ebook sales follows Amazon’s announcement last week that over the past three months it sold 143 Kindle books for every 100 hardback books. Kindle sales accelerated in the past month alone, when the online retailer said it sold 180 Kindle books for every 100 hardbacks. The figures cover Amazon’s US book business, include hardback sales when there is no Kindle edition and exclude free Kindle books.

The retailer made no mention of the proportion of paperback salesto Kindle sales, but founder Jeff Bezos stressed that ebooks were not cannibalising print, saying that hardback purchases at Amazon were still growing and that Kindles had overtaken them regardless.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010

Dan Brown’s paperback release and a renewed surge of summer reading seems to have drive the figures for the Top Ten this week. Kathryn Stockett is at number one by a short, short measure, but it is nice to see her book do so well still, given the enormous word of mouth support it has. Larsson of curse still dominates and the Irish contingent is still at three with Binchy, McCann and O’Connor holding in well enough.

1: The Help, Kathryn Stockett, 1,761
2: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson, 1,759
3: The Lost Symbol, Dan Brown, 1,712
4: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest, Stieg Larsson, 1,677
5: The Girl Who Played with Fire, Stieg Larsson, 1,479
6: Broken, Karin Slaughter, 1,393
7: Picture Perfect, Jodi Picoult, 1,319
8: Let the Great World Spin, Column McCann, 1,249
9: Ghost Light, Joseph O’Connor, 1,238
10: The Return Journey, Maeve Binchy, 1,186

The most notable feature of the top ten this week is its remarkable stability.

The same few titles seem to be rotate around the top slots and have done for the last few weeks. Binchy, O’Connor, Stockett, Picoult are all solid names on the list, so too the seemingly unceasingly popular Larsson.

The arrival in the top ten this week of Amanda Brunker and the return of McCann brings the Irish author contingent to 40% which is no mean feat.

1: The Help, Kathryn Stockett, 1,934
2: Ghost Light, Joseph O’Connor, 1,720
3: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson, 1,683
4: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest Stieg Larsson, 1,599
5: Picture Perfect, Jodi Picoult, 1,527
6: The Girl Who Played with Fire, Stieg Larsson, 1,421
7: Short Second Life of Bree Tanner: An Eclipse Novella, Meyer, Stephenie, 1,283
8: The Return Journey, Binchy, Maeve, 1,265
9: Champagne Secrets, Amanda Brunker, 1,195
10: Let the Great World Spin, Colum McCann, 1,050

Data Supplied by Nielsen BookScan taken from the Irish Consumer Market week ending 17th July 2010

Joseph O’Connor is still going strong with Ghost Light, I wonder how much longer he can keep that up. Kathryn Stockett’s The Help and Jod Picoult’s Picture Perfect round out the top three. Only one other Irish writer makes the Top Ten, Maeve Binchy.

1: Ghost Light, Joseph O’Connor, 1,977
2: Picture Perfect, Jodi Picoult, 1,788
3: The Help, Kathryn Stockett, 1,690
4: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest, Stieg Larsson, 1,597
5: Short Second Life of Bree Tanner: An Eclipse Novella, Meyer, Stephenie, 1,430
6: The Girl Who Played with Fire, Stieg Larsson, 1,347
7: The Return Journey, Binchy, Maeve, 1,281
8: Play Dead, Harlan Coben, 1,271
9: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson, 1,781
10: The Twin, Gerbrand Bakker, 1,190

Data Supplied by Nielsen BookScan taken from the Irish Consumer Market week ending 3rd July 2010

Another good week for Joseph O’Connor, Ghost Light seems to be striking a cord with readers. Stephanie Meyer’s success is more muted but still a very credible performance. Most impressive to me is the arrival on the top ten of The Twin, Gebrand Bakkar’s IMPAC winning novel. Perhaps the word of mouth is finally leaking through.

1: Ghost Light, Joseph O’Connor, 2,267
2: The Truth About You, Melissa Hill, 1,992
3: The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner: An Eclipse Novella, Stephenie Meyer, 1,774
4: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest, Stieg Larsson, 1,642
5: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson, 1,611
6: The Help, Kathryn Stockett, 1,516
7: The Twin, Gerbrand Bakker , 1,479
8: The Girl Who Played with Fire, Stieg Larsson, 1,439
9: The Return Journey, Maeve Binchy , 1,322
10: Picture Perfect, Jodi Picoult, 1,001

Data Supplied by Nielsen BookScan taken from the Irish Consumer Market week ending 26th June 2010

Stephanie Meyer’s sales last week were nicely impressive and were enough to overtake Joseph O’Connor and push him into second place.  A good showing for Irish authors and still that strange chunk of the top ten made up of a certain Swedish author!

1: The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner:An Eclipse Novella, Stephanie Meyer, 5,255
2: Ghost Light, Joseph O’Connor, 2,385
3: The Help, Kathryn Stockett, 1,676
4: The Truth About You, Melissa Hill, 1,668
5: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest, Stieg Larsson, 1,598
6: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson, 1,529
7: The Girl Who Played with Fire, Stieg Larsson, 1,264
8: The Perfect Man, Sheila O’Flanagan, 1,188
9: Private, James Patterson, 926
10: The Scarpetta Factor, Patricia Cornwell, 914

Data Supplied by Nielsen BookScan taken from the Irish Consumer Market week ending 12th June 2010

Smashing sales by Joseph O’Connor this week, really something you’d expect much closer to the Christmas peak, but then again he has had an incredible profile and the book has had good initial reviews. It helps that the summer reading period is just beginning. It’s doubly impressive to see that he defeated Stephanie Meyer to the top spot (though he sales are not to be sniffed at as they represent only one days sales!

1: Ghost Light, Joseph O’Connor, 3,605
2: The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner: An Eclipse Novella, Stephenie Meyer, 1,864
3: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson, 1,460
4: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest , Stieg Larsson, 1,456
5: Truth About You,The, Melissa Hill, 1,443
6: Perfect Man, Sheila O’Flanagan, 1,390
7: The Help, Kathryn Stockett, 1,185
8: The Girl Who Played with Fire, Stieg Larsson, 1,145
9: The Scarpetta Factor, Patricia Conrwell, 1,076
10: House Rules, Jodi Picoult, 998

Data Supplied by Nielsen BookScan taken from the Irish Consumer Market week ending 5th June 2010