Charlie Mackie’s Always Remember Christmas is #1 in the UK bestseller chart | books

Charlie Mackey scores a No. 1 Christmas hit in the literary world with Always Remember, the follow-up to his 2019 bestseller The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse.

Always Remember sold 43,825 copies in the seven days through December 20, roughly the equivalent of a sale every 14 seconds, according to NielsenIQ BookData. The illustrated tale—subtitled The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, the Horse, and the Storm—follows the four unlikely friends as they navigate metaphorical and meteorological dark clouds.

This marks the first British artist to take the top spot, “after coming very close in 2019, when David Walliams and the Monster of Buckingham Palace overtook The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse,” NielsenIQ analyst Philip Stone said. Last week, Williams was fired by his publisher, HarperCollins, following allegations of inappropriate behavior, which he denies.

Mackey’s book has sold 365,000 copies since publication day in October — “about one copy sold every 17 seconds,” Stone said.

Behind Mackesy is Richard Osman’s The Impossible Fortune – the fifth title in his much-loved Thursday Murder Club series, which has also claimed the year’s best-selling status, with 457,000 sales, and 35,271 in the past week alone.

The middle section of the top 10 list is dominated by gift books: Guinness World Records 2026 (30,229 copies), The Official 1% Club Test Book 1 and 2 (28,656 and 24,226 copies respectively), and Private Eye Annual 2025 (20,875 copies).

In seventh place was “Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Partypooper” by Jeff Kinney (20,193 copies), followed by “Exit Strategy” by Lee and Andrew Child (17,924 copies), “The Secret of Secrets” by Dan Brown (16,985 copies), and “The Boots” by comedian Bob Mortimer (16,106 copies).

Consumers spent £85.1 million on print books in the UK last week. This represents an increase of 18.1% from the previous week but a decrease of 4.4% compared to the same week last year.

Always Remember is also the best-selling book in Ireland this week, taking second place in the Guinness Book of World Records 2026. In third place is Eimear Ní Bhraonáin’s The Dodger, about superstar DJ Carey’s fall from grace.