1 Short History of Nearly Everything/Bill Bryson
(Doubleday £20)
Humorist confronts science in attempt to understand the weird world 10,769 (136,214)
2 The Kid: A True Story/Kevin Lewis
(M Joseph £14.99)
From neglected childhood, via care and gangland, to a new life 4,414 (24,752)
3 Schott’s Original Miscellany/Ben Schott
(Bloomsbury £9.99)
Masses of information that you are never likely to need 3,799 (367,476)
4 Busted: The Official Book/Peter Robinson
(Virgin £9.99)
Scrapbook and backstage secrets of “antidote” to boy bands 3,472 (8,420)
5 Living History/Hillary Rodham Clinton
(Headline £20)
Former First Lady on her politics, her husband and his liaisons 3,203 (38,945)
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6 Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar/Simon Sebag Montefiore
(Phoenix £25)
The rise and nightmare rule of Uncle Joe 1,954 (4,741)
7 In Search of Shakespeare/Michael Wood
(BBC £20)
How an obscure Warwickshire boy became the world’s greatest playwright 1,770 (10,367)
8 Tour de France 1903-2003: The Official Centennial L'Equipe
(Weidenfeld £25)
Sports paper’s lavishly llustrated souvenir history 1,701 (6,280)
9 Robbie Williams: Angels and Demons/Paul Scott
(Deutsch £16.99)
Continuing personal problems, but a vast recording deal 1,145 (4,452)
10 Barry Sheene: 1950-2003/Stuart Barker
(CollinsWillow £17.99)
A tribute to the British motorcycle star of the 1970s 1,035 (18,692)
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PAPERBACKS: General
1 Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self/Claire Tomalin
(Penguin £8.99)
The life and tumultuous times of Britain’s most famous diarist 10,087 (38,549)
2 Stupid White Men/Michael Moore
(Penguin £7.99)
Liberal humorist savages the American political establishment 9,440 (563,704)
3 Serious/John McEnroe
(Time Warner £6.99)
Truculent tennis genius recalls the agony and the ecstasy 9,126 (75,817)
4 The Kindness of Strangers/Kate Adie
(Headline £7.99)
Ulster, Tiananmen Square, the Gulf; a woman’s-eye-view of conflict zones 8,085 (63,605)
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5 It’s a Long Way from Penny Apples/Bill Cullen
(Coronet £6.99)
Rags-to-riches autobiography of Irish millionaire businessman 6,278 (18,138)
6 Taking on the World/Ellen MacArthur
(Penguin £7.99)
Record-breaking yachtswoman tells of her triumphant circumnavigation 6,217 (34,472)
7 The Essential Spike Milligan/Spike Milligan
(Fourth Estate £8.99)
Scripts, poems and memoirs from the restless genius 5,172 (43,473)
8 Murray Walker: Unless I’m Very Much Mistaken/Murray Walker
(CollinsWillow £7.99)
Autobiography of gaffe-prone commentator 4,854 (56,099)
9 First Light/Geoffrey Wellum
(Penguin £7.99)
The Battle of Britain recalled by one of its youngest participants 4,700 (62,396)
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10 Tragically I was an Only Twin/Peter Cook
(Arrow £7.99)
The best of the brilliant comedian, including previously unpublished material 4,289 (14,427)
HARDBACKS: Fiction
1 The Murder Room/P D James
(Faber £17.99)
Quarrel over future of grisly museum leads to bloodletting 4,694 (25,248)
2 Bare Bones/Kathy Reichs
(Heinemann £16.99)
Tempe pieces together more remains, but a stalker is watching 4,583 (26,945)
3 Emma’s Secret/Barbara Taylor Bradford
(HarperCollins £17.99)
Heir to business empire finds grandmother’s wartime diary 2,819 (10,914)
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4 The Elder Gods/David & Leigh Eddings
(Voyager £17.99)
Eight gods hatch plan to foil coup by ninth god; first of new series 2,808 (7,324)
5 The Lake House/James Patterson
(Headline £17.99)
Battle to save family of winged children from evil scientist 2,746 (17,501)
6 Elegance/Kathleen Tessaro
(HarperCollins £10)
Old book imbues woman’s life with Audrey Hepburn-style glamour 1,861 (15,050)
7 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time/Mark Haddon
(Cape/David Fickling £10.99)
Autistic boy probes murder of neighbour’s pet 1,830¹ (26,893¹)
8 Brick Lane/Monica Ali
(Doubleday £12.99)
Arranged marriage brings poor Bangladeshi woman to Tower Hamlets 1,807 (19,917)
9 Greed/Chris Ryan
(Century £16.99)
Former SAS men attempt to steal $10m from Al-Qaeda 1,786 (24,941)
10 The Da Vinci Code/Dan Brown
(Bantam Press £10.99)
Murder in the Louvre reveals shadowy, ancient conspiracy 1,628 (7,392)
PAPERBACKS: Fiction
1 The Lovely Bones/Alice Sebold
(Picador £6.99)
Murder victim recounts her death and watches her family struggle to cope 27,301 (170,292¹)
2 A Married Man/Catherine Alliott
(Headline £6.99)
Widowed mum moves into country house near “unavailable” love 26,749 (37,206)
3 Just between Us/Cathy Kelly
(HarperCollins £6.99)
Three sisters’ apparent successes under scrutiny at family reunion 22,762 (86,234)
4 Life of Pi/Yann Martel
(Canongate £7.99)
Allegorical tale of boy shipwrecked en route from India to Canada 22,615 (186,070)
5 High Society/Ben Elton
(Black Swan £6.99)
A nation — top to bottom — unified by drug dependency 22,169 (90,628)
6 The Babes in the Wood/Ruth Rendell
(Arrow £6.99)
Parents return from weekend away to find children and babysitter vanished 16,713 (67,690)
7 Fire Ice/Clive Cussler and Paul Kemprecos
(Penguin £6.99)
American agents confront mining tycoon who declares himself tsar of Russia 13,244 (35,759)
8 Man and Wife/Tony Parsons
(HarperCollins £6.99)
Television producer’s remarriage and the perils of modern parenthood 13,123 (227,187)
9 Darkest Fear/Harlan Coben
(Orion £6.99)
Race to find missing bone-marrow donor for child takes sinister turn 12,775 (19,190)
10 Chasing the Dime/Michael Connolly
(Orion £6.99)
Message on answerphone in new flat suggests former tenant is in big trouble 12,770 (87,453)
Lists prepared by The Bookseller using data supplied by and copyright to Nielsen BookScan, taken from the TCM for the week ending July 26, 2003. Figures shown are estimated sales for the seven-day period followed (in brackets) by the estimated total sale. ¹ Includes sales of more than one edition in the same format and at the same RRP