Bestselling books in the UK - 2013

       In The Guardian they have the list of the Bestselling books of 2013 in the UK (print versions) -- though of course it is only for the: "year ending 15 December" (god forbid anyone would actually wait until the end of the year to get an accurate result ...). Still, since they actually provide units-shifted numbers (as measured by BookScan) this is considerably more useful than the American bestseller lists -- and it's always interesting to see what sells well.
       Last year I had reviewed five titles on the top-100 list, but with the eclipse of the Stieg Larsson trilogy I'm down to one this year -- a repeat from last year's list, Jonas Jonasson' The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared, at number 20 (208,403 copies sold).
       In his commentary accompanying the list John Dugdale does note:

The most striking display of indy flair, though, is the performance of The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed out of a Window and Disappeared (20). Bigger publishers were sniffy about a translated Swedish novel that wasn't crime, by an unknown author with an overlong title; but Hesperus turned it into a sleeper hit that has so far earned almost £1.5m. It even beat the One Direction annual.

       Here's a rare case where I can't complain about the bigger publishers passing this one over: I would have too. But Hesperus is certainly deserving of success and some nice cash flow, so I don't begrudge them this particular success.
       As for the other independents, Dugdale notes:

Smaller, independent houses meanwhile largely struggled, with top indies such as Bloomsbury, Canongate, Faber and Profile either managing only single entries or no-scoring.

       Quercus/Maclehose seems to have been shut out too -- and all in all I'd prefer these smaller publishers to share in some of these big successes too.