BBC’s Normal People sends novel back to top of charts

IT IS the coming-of-age show that everyone is talking about.

And now the huge success of the BBC’s adaptation of Normal People has driven Irish writer Sally Rooney’s novel back to the number one spot.

The best-selling book has jumped past David Walliams’ children’s tale Slime to take the top position on the UK Official Top 50 book chart.

Normal People follows the onand-off relationship of two Irish teenagers from different backgrounds as they move to Dublin and into adulthood.

Following its Waterstones Book of the Year win in late 2018, Normal People held the Original Fiction number one spot in hardback for six weeks, according to The Bookseller.

In May 2019, the paperback claimed the Mass Market Fiction top spot twice and now it has done it for a third time, passing Lee Child’s Blue Moon.

Miss Rooney’s 2017 debut novel, Conversations with Friends, has moved up to 13th in the Mass Market Fiction chart.

The BBC revealed the 12-part adaptation of Normal People, available on iPlayer, got 16.2million views in its first week.