We will be discussing the second book in the Millennium trilogy – The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson, which in my opinion is even better than the first one! And then in the second half of the month we will be discussing Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult with the group.

In the Paranormal Social Club, we have the fourth Demonica Book – Ecstasy Unveiled by Larissa Ione, and the first book in the Vampire Files series – Bloodlist by PN Elrod.

We will also be nominating and voting for the books we want to discuss next month. One book that is already confirmed for April is To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. We will be voting on the second book for April in the next few weeks.

February Book Groups is a post from: Book Addicts Book Group

1998

3.5.98 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks

7.6.98 Beloved – Toni Morrison

5.7.98 Fatherland – Robert Harris

2.8.98 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis de Bernières

6.9.98 Wild Swans – Jung Chang

4.10.98 Angela’s Ashes – Frank McCourt

1.11.98 Vanity Fair – William Thackery

6.12.98 Possession – AS Byatt

1999

3.1.99 1,000 Acres – Jane Smiley

7.2.99 Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy / Honourable School Boy / Smiley’s People – John Le Carre

7.3.99 Brazzaville Beach – William Boyd

4.4.99 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller

2.5.99 Cat’s Eye – Margaret Atwood

6.6.99 Snow Falling on Cedars – David Gutterson

4.7.99 Behind the Scenes At the Museum – Kate Atkinson

1.8.99 Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone – JK Rowling

5.9.99 Private Papers – Margaret Forster

3.10.99 Fugitive Pieces – Anne Michaels

7.11.99 Longitude – Dava Sobel

5.12.99 Flaubert’s Parrot – Julian Barnes

2000

2.1.00 Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams

6.2.00 House of Spirits – Isabel Allende

5.3.00 Larry’s Party – Carol Shields

2.4.00 Cold Mountain – Charles Frazier

7.5.00 Northern Lights – Philip Pullman

4.6.00 In the Springtime of the Year – Susan Hill

2.7.00 Fasting, Feasting – Anita Desai

6.8.00 Stalingrad – Anthony Beevor

3.9.00 Other People’s Children – Joanna Trollope

1.10.00 Enduring Love – Ian McEwan

22.10.00 The Miller’s Tale/Prologue – Geoffrey Chaucer

3.12.00 Waterland – Graham Swift

2001

7.1.01 Man and Boy – Tony Parsons

4.2.01 Moon Tiger – Penelope Lively

4.3.01 Touching the Void – Joe Simpson

1.4.01 The Witch of Exmoor – Margaret Drabble

6.5.01 The Black Dahlia – James Ellroy

3.6.01 The Shipping News – Annie Proulx

1.7.01 The Kitchen God’s Wife – Amy Tan

5.8.01 London Fields – Martin Amis

2.9.01 The Grass is Singing – Doris Lessing

7.10.01 If I Don’t Know, Serious Concerns, Making Cocoa – Wendy Cope for Kingsley Amis

4.11.01 Talking to the Dead – Helen Dunmore

2.12.01 About a Boy – Nick Hornby

2002

6.1.02 Knots and Crosses / The Falls – Ian Rankin

3.2.02 Empire of the Sun – JG Ballard

3.3.02 Music and Silence – Rose Tremain

7.4.02 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro

5.5.02 Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter – Mario Vargas Llosa

2.6.02 Headlong – Michael Frayn

7.7.02 See Under Love – David Grossman

4.8.02 I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings – Maya Angelou

1.9.02 From the Holy Mountain – William Dalrymple

6.10.02 A Dark-Adapted Eye – Barbara Vine

3.11.02 The Illustrated Mum – Jacqueline Wilson

1.12.02 Polo – Jilly Cooper

2003

5.1.03 Writing Home – Alan Bennett

2.2.03 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie

2.3.03 After Rain – William Trevor

6.4.03 An Awfully Big Adventure – Beryl Bainbridge

4.5.03 Original Sin – PD James

1.6.03 Rebecca – Sally Beauman for Daphne du Maurier

6.7.03 The Tortilla Curtain – T Coraghessan Boyle

3.8.03 Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire – Amanda Foreman

7.9.03 Down by the River – Edna O’Brien

5.10.03 Junk – Melvin Burgess

2.11.03 Hideous Kinky – Esther Freud

7.12.03 Hawksmoor – Peter Ackroyd

2004

4.1.04 Clinging to the Wreckage and Rumpole & the Younger Generation – John Mortimer

1.2.04 True History of the Kelly Gang – Peter Carey

7.3.04 Fingersmith – Sarah Waters

4.4.04 Falling – Elizabeth Jane Howard

2.5.04 Nice Work – David Lodge

6.6.04 The Scold’s Bridle – Minette Walters

7.7.04 Mort – Terry Pratchett

1.8.04 The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie – Muriel Spark

5.9.04 The New York Trilogy – Paul Auster

3.10.04 How the Dead Live – Will Self

7.11.04 Regeneration – Pat Barker

5.12.04 The World’s Wife – Carol Ann Duffy

2005

2.1.05 White Teeth – Zadie Smith

6.2.05 A Short History of Nearly Everything – Bill Bryson

6.3.05 The Hippopotamus – Stephen Fry

3.4.05 Independence Day – Richard Ford

1.5.05 Small Island – Andrea Levy

5.6.05 The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole aged 13¾
- Sue Townsend

3.7.05 The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat
- Dr Oliver Sacks

7.8.05 Blood Rain – Michael Dibden

4.9.05 Le Grand Meaulnes – Alain-Fournier
[Michèle Roberts was our guide]

2.10.05 The Buddha of Suburbia – Hanif Kureishi

6.11.05 The Gunpowder Plot – Antonia Fraser

4.12.05 We Were the Mulvaneys – Joyce Carol Oates

2006

1.1.06 Flashman – George MacDonald Fraser

5.2.06 Holidays in Hell – P.J. O’Rourke

5.3.06 We Need to Talk About Kevin – Lionel Shriver

2.4.06 Noughts and Crosses – Malorie Blackman

7.5.06 Hotel World – Ali Smith

4.6.06 Time to Depart – Lindsey Davis

2.7.06 Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
- John Berendt

6.8.06 Rum Punch – Elmore Leonard

3.9.06 English Passengers – Matthew Kneale

1.10.06 Old Filth – Jane Gardam

5.11.06 Malignant Sadness – Lewis Wolpert

3.12.06 Miss Garnet’s Angel – Salley Vickers

2007

7.1.07 The Corrections – Jonathan Franzen

4.2.07 The Mermaids Singing – Val McDermid

4.3.07 Eleanor of Aquitaine – Alison Weir

1.4.07 What A Carve Up! – Jonathan Coe

6.5.07 My Sister’s Keeper – Jodi Picoult

3.06.07 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell

1.07.07 The Female Eunuch – Germaine Greer

5.08.07 The Remorseful Day – Colin Dexter

2.09.07 Tales of City – Armistead Maupin

7.10.07 Joseph Knight – James Robertson

4.11.07 The Poisonwood Bible – Barbara Kingsolver

2.12.07 Schindler’s Ark – Thomas Keneally

2008

6.01.08 Alice Sebold -The Lovely Bones

3.02.08 The Birth of Venus – Sarah Dunant

2.03.08 William Pitt the Younger, A Biography – William Hague

6.04.08 Simon Armitage – Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

4.05.08 Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie – Half of a Yellow Sun

8.06.08 Jan Morris – Venice

6.07.08 Ã…sneSeierstad – The Bookseller of Kabul

3.08.08 Colm Toibin – The Master

7.09.08 Gore Vidal – Point to Point Navigation

Complete list of Radio 4 book club books from 1998-2008 is a post from: Book Addicts Book Group

When talking of “the Richard & Judy effect” on book sales, one must be very careful to include the caveats. Admittedly, running the sales of the 82 books to date that have been included in the 10 “Richard & Judy” (R&J hereafter) clubs to date through Nielsen BookScan’s online database generates some impressive figures: 26.6 million books sold with a total market value of £159.2m—that’s 2.6% of all sales since the club began in 2004 in value terms and 2.1% in revenue. But, as there is no way of knowing how each of these books would have performed had they not gone under the R&J spotlight, simply quoting the end-result £159.2m figure is somewhat misleading.

However, the caveats don’t stop here. Especially given the propensity of Cactus TV m.d. and R&J Book Club creator Amanda Ross to select début authors among names familiar to the UK public, an R&J participant has the chance to remain on the public radar long after their brief spot on the R&J sofa.

As one might expect, sales figures of the books under discussion on the show are so phenomenal that it can prove an almost impossible feat for an author to match those sales with a follow-up book.

It’s been four years since the R&J club made its television début on Channel 4, so there has been little time, especially for recent picks, for a follow-up. But, of the authors who have participated in the R&J Book Club thus far and gone on to publish a comparable follow-up title, eight are currently enjoying stronger average weekly sales with their follow-up work than for their programme title.

For example, in the table (far right) that charts an author’s follow-up versus their show title, Jane Fallon sits on top. Fallon’s Getting Rid of Matthew (Penguin) was part of the 2007 Summer Read, and has sold 3,510 copies on average through the market to date. Her follow-up, Got You Back, was released earlier this month in a mass-market edition and, after only two weeks of recorded sales, has clocked up more than 13,000 copies sold—hence the inclusion of an asterisk against the younger titles in the chart.

Nigel Slater’s memoir, Toast: The Story of a Boy’s Hunger (HarperPerennial), was chosen for R&J’s first Book Club and to date has sold more than 260,846 copies through the market. Before 2004, his cookery manual, Appetite (Fourth Estate), enjoyed an average weekly sale of 707 copies through the market, whereas his more recent book, Kitchen Diaries, has enjoyed sales almost double that figure—1,372 copies on average. In fact, Slater’s average weekly sales total of his entire backlist in the years 1998–2003 was 1,901 copies. During the year Toast went under the spotlight, it jumped to 4,350 and, from 2005 to date, has enjoyed sales of 2,701 a week—a growth of 42.1%1.

Before and after
That’s an impressive statistic, but Slater does not in fact make the top 10 in a chart based on “before/after” growth. That accolade belongs to Sphere’s Dorothy Koomson, a member of the 2006 Summer Read.

Koomson’s first book hit UK shelves early in 2003 when Piatkus’ £6.99 edition of The Cupid Effect sold only 3,099 copies during its first six months on sale. The Chocolate Run followed in March 2004 and fared slightly better, selling 3,537 copies in its first six months. Joanne Coen at Time Warner bought two new novels by Koomson in the summer of 2004 with her first novel in her new home, My Best Friend’s Girl, published in May 2006. It sold 373,301 copies during its first half-year, thanks to the R&J Summer Read spotlight.

The Cupid Effect and The Chocolate Run were re-released by Sphere in August 2007 and February 2008 respectively, and they have clocked up combined sales of 174,165 in the six months during their second bite at the cherry. Before 2006, Koomson’s average weekly sale through the market was a mere 57 copies, whereas from 2007 to date, her weekly average is 6,306—a staggering growth of 10,963.2%—the highest of all of the R&J authors who have recorded sales in the year before and after their appearance on the sofa.

In strict sales terms, Martina Cole’s The Graft (Headline), which has shifted 524,126 copies through the market to date, classifies as the most popular follow-up of all R&J authors. It’s enjoyed an average weekly sale of 2,608 copies through the market since release, whereas The Know, included in the 2004 Book Club, has total sales of 492,165 and a weekly average of 1,953 to date.

It’s an interesting case. The Know was released in November 2003 in hardback, and sold 159,054 copies through the market before its appearance on R&J. By the time the book went under the spotlight, the hardback was coming to the end of its sales life and only 21,896 copies were sold during the series. It means the impact the R&J limelight made on sales was much lower than for others who appeared in the same club, notably Joseph O’Connor who enjoyed sales of 213,668 for The Star of the Sea (Vintage) over the same period, helped by the paperback release just five weeks earlier.

Jodi Picoult is an author who appears on all three charts (see right), which look at the average weekly sales of follow-ups in comparison to show titles and the average weekly sales of an author’s entire canon in the years before, during and after they’ve been featured in the Book Club or Summer Read.

Long Island-born Picoult is today one of the biggest names in contemporary fiction, having enjoyed sales worth £5.1m last year—the highest gross of any female fiction writer. But before the inclusion of My Sister’s Keeper in the Book Club in 2005, she was almost unheard of on UK shores. She’s currently an author selling around 8,000 copies a week through the market, thanks to Hodder’s strategic and extremely successful stepped backlist releases.

Plain Truth, Picoult’s seventh novel, which was first published in the US in 2000, was the first book released to the UK market in 2004. It enjoyed a peak week sale of 2,898 in November 2004. There followed Picoult’s 11th novel, My Sister’s Keeper, released straight into paperback early in 2005, in time for the Book Club, and it enjoyed a 20,482 peak week during the series. All in all, since being featured in the Book Club, 10 Picoult novels have been released to the UK market—which goes some way to account for her impressive 17,515 average weekly sale over the past two- and-a-half years.

That magic phrase
But to combine the average weekly sales of all 64 authors who have been featured in the R&J clubs between 2004 and 2007 reveals perhaps the most impressive of all of the statistics. In the years after appearing on the show, the combined average weekly sale of these authors is 126,3332, which is 490.5% up on the pre-show figure. Although part of this may be owing to a number of début works being included in the clubs (these authors will register few, if any, pre-show sales figures), consider that around a third of these 64 authors haven’t released comparable follow-ups yet and won’t be registering high year-after sales.
The opinion on the high street is that follow-ups perform best if their front cover contains the phrase “from the author of the ‘Richard & Judy’ bestseller . . .”—and it certainly seems a logical thing to do given the evidence in the data. Buyers at major high street retailers have said that when a new book by an “as seen on ‘Richard & Judy’” author arrives in store, the only difficulty is keeping it in stock. One warned, “never underestimate the power that the club currently still has and will continue to have in the future in the mindset of the British public”.

Whether or not R&J’s move to UKTV channel Watch proves a success, the achievements of their Channel 4 series will no doubt prove to have long-lasting, positive effects for the 82 authors who have appeared on the show thus far.

Richard and Judy’s first show on Watch is on 7th October.

142.1%—the growth in Nigel Slater’s backlist sales post-R&J
2126,333—average weekly sale of authors in the year(s) after appearing on R&J

Richard and Judy Follow-Ups
Pos    Author                  Follow-up                           Life sales
1        Martina Cole         The Graft 524,126
2        Cecelia Ahern       Where Rainbows End 476,380
3        Kate Mosse           Sepulchre 357,837
4        Jodi Picoult           The Pact* 304,097
5        Sam Bourne          Last Testament 256,693
6        Kate Morton          The Forgotten Garden 236,270
7        Dorothy Koomson Marshmellows for Breakfast 235,825
8        Nigel Slater           Kitchen Diaries 208,552
9        Michael Connelly  Echo Park 201,286
10      P J Tracy               Dead Run 125,565
11      David Mitchell       Black Swan Green 100,691
12      Simon Kenick       Deadline 73,872
13      William DalrympleThe Last Mughals 59,170
14      Adriana Trigiani    Queen of the Big Time 54,297
15      Anchee Min          The Last Empress 54,116
16      Victoria Hislop      The Return 46,842
17      Asne Seierstad    A Hundred and One Days 43,366
18      Alice Sebold        Almost Moon 42,204
19      Susan Fletcher    Oystercatchers 37,655
20      Joseph O’Connor Redemption Road 35,283
*Originally published in 1998 but first released to UK market in 2005

R&J Title versus the Follow-Up title
Pos Author                Show title                       Avg weekly sale to date
1    Jane Fallon          Getting Rid of Matthew 3,510
2    Kate Morton         The House at Riverton 10,912
3    Nigel Slater          Toast 1,011
4    Martina Cole        The Know 1,953
5    Simon Kenick       Relentless 2,933
6    Kate Mosse          Labyrinth 6,754
7    William Dalrymple White Mughals 529
8    Sam Bourne         The Righteous Men 4,170
9    Jodi Picoult           My Sister’s Keeper 2,486
10    Michael Connelly The Lincoln Lawyer 2,340
11    Victoria Hislop    The Island 7,227
12    Dorothy Koomson My Best Friend’s Girl 4,577
13    P J Tracy            Want to Play? 1,017
14    Cecelia Ahern    PS, I Love You 3,940
15    Anchee Min        Empress Orchid 1,282
16    George Hagen   The Laments 210
17    David Mitchell    Cloud Atlas 1,749
18    Susan Fletcher  Eve Green 992
19    Adriana Trigiani  Lucia, Lucia 586
20    Anthony Capella  Food of Love 619

Author’s follow-up title           Pub date    AWS to date    Diff
1    Got You Back*                    Jul 08          6,564                 87.0%
2    The Forgotten Garden*      May 08        19,689               80.4%
3    Kitchen Diaries Aug 05         1,372                 35.7%
4    The Graft Sep 04         2,608                33.5%
5    Deadline* Jun 08          3,888                32.6%
6    Sepulchre Sep 07          8,520                26.1%
7    The Last Mughals Sep 06         598                   13.0%
8    Last Testament Jun 07          4,351                 4.3%
9    Vanishing Acts May 02          2,287                -8.0%
10    Echo Park Aug 06          1,993                -14.8%
11    The Return*                   May 08          5,855                -19.0%
12    Marshmallows for Breakfast May 06   3,685                -19.5%
13    Dead Run Mar 05           743                   -26.9%
14    Where Rainbows End Oct 04           2,406                -38.9%
15    The Last Empress Mar 07           741                  -42.2%
16    Tom Bedlam* May 07           106                  -49.5%
17    Black Swan Green Apr 06            832                  -52.4%
18    Oystercatchers Jan 07            459                  -53.7%
19    Queen of the Big Time Sep 04           266                  -54.6%
20    The Wedding Officer Mar 06            274                 -55.7%
* Fewer than 26 weeks on sale

Average Weekly Sales on Richard & Judy
Author                     Before    During    After    Growth
1    Dorothy Koomson    57           9,027       6,306    10,963.2%
2    Simon Kenick           213         6,687       8,939    4,096.7%
3    Richard Benson       162         17,037     5,921    3,554.9%
4    Susan Fletcher        19           3,562       460        2,321.1%
5    A M Homes              20           4,303       453       2,165.0%
6    Jed Rubenfeld         115         15,779      2,090    1,717.4%
7    Bella Pollen              23           3,024       334       1,352.2%
8    Jodi Picoult              1,529      13,863      17,515  1,045.5%
9    Mark Mills                144         6,160        1,133     686.8%
10   P J Tracy                324         4,811        2,473    663.3%

Richard and Judy books – the aftermath – what happens after the successful first book is a post from: Book Addicts Book Group

1. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (Riverhead)
2. My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult (Washington Street Press)
3. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd (Viking)
4. The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffeneger (Harvest)
5. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (Penguin Books)
6. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden (Vintage)
7. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon (Viking)
8. Angry Housewifes Eating Bon Bons by Lorna Landvik (Ballantine)
9. A Million Little Pieces by James Frey (Anchor)
10. The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic and Madness and the Fair That Changed America (Illinois ) by Erik Larson (Vintage)
11. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides (Picador USA)
12. Life of Pi by Yann Martel (Harcourt)
13. Bel Canto by Ann Patchett (HarperCollins)
14. Pope Joan by Donna Woolfolk Cross (Ballantine)
15. The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory (Touchstone)
16. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See (Random House)
17. The Red Tent by Anita Diamant (Picador USA)
18. East of Eden by John Steinbeck (Penguin Books)
19. Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague by Geraldine Brooks (Penguin Books)
20. Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi (Random House)

Don’t forget to also check out the Reading Guides category for these books

Book Group Favourites 2005 is a post from: Book Addicts Book Group

BOOK LIST 2005

Cloud Atlas
David Mitchell
In his extraordinary third novel, David Mitchell erases the boundaries of language, genre and time to offer a meditation on humanity’s dangerous will to power, and where it may lead us.

The Time Traveler’s Wife
Audrey Niffenegger
The Time Traveler’s Wife depicts the effects of time travel on Henry and Clare’s passionate love for each other with grace and humour.

My Sister’s Keeper
Jodi Picoult
“A major decision about me is being made, and no one’s bothered to ask the one person who most deserves it to speak her opinion.”

Perdita: The Life of Mary Robinson
Paula Byrne
Sex, fame and scandal in the theatrical, literary and social circles of late-eighteenth century England.

The Promise of Happiness
Justin Cartwright
Charles Judd meanders round his local Cornish beach, contemplating the turns his life has taken.

The American Boy
Andrew Taylor
Interweaving real and fictional elements, The American Boy is a major new literary historical crime novel in the tradition of An Instance of the Fingerpost and Possession.

Feel: Robbie Williams
Chris Heath
This is a groundbreaking book; truly original and brilliantly written; a grippingly honest story of an extraordinary man.

The Sixth Lamentation
William Brodrick
‘Brodrick keeps the story going at a cracking pace, flitting back and forth between its various elements, characters and eras with timing so expert the reader is compelled to keep turning the pages’
Time Out

The Jane Austen Book Club
Karen Joy Fowler
A charming and intelligent bestselling novel about ordinary people who are mixed up about their lives and relationships.

The Shadow of the Wind
Carlos Ruiz Zafon
A page-turning exploration of obsession in literature and love, and the places that obsession can lead.

Richard and Judy Book List 2005 is a post from: Book Addicts Book Group