Pottering about on the beach

11 April 2012

Sex, crime and violence - for adult readers at least - seem to be the essential ingredients of holiday reading around the world this summer. Lashings of both are guaranteed in Hannibal by Thomas Harris and in Wilbur Smith's Monsoon, both selling like hot cakes in Britain.

Meanwhile in Italy and the US respectively, John Grisham and Mario Puzo (posthumously), fellow literary stalwarts of a far-from-retiring nature, are earning millions of beach-reader pounds.

It's sex all the way in Spain, where dangerous female divers and geishas feature in the literary top three, and the same perennial theme is proving popular in Japan where a tale of love across the generations is outselling all others.

Interestingly though, confirming the Japanese reputation as a nation which can never really relax, the second-best seller is a teach-yourself-English book for middle-aged people who missed out in school.

Although the three common themes dominate the summer book market there is a distinct lack of international consensus on the world's favourite author.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire tops the charts in Britain and the US, while JK Rowling's three previous Potter books dominate in Germany. How long the rest of the world can hold out remains to be seen.

1. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by JK Rowling. Hardback only, £14.99: The latest instalment in the Harry Potter series and another runaway success. Harry is pitted against other aspiring witches and wizards in a series of magic and spell-casting contests.

2. Hannibal by Thomas Harris. Paperback, £6.99: Described by Stephen King as "one of the two most frightening popular novels of our time, the other being The Exorcist". The story again features Harris's cultivated monster, Hannibal "the cannibal" Lecter. The new novel opens seven years after Lecter's escape from the authorities and brings back agent Clarice Starling, played by Jodie Foster in the film of Silence of the Lambs opposite Sir Anthony Hopkins as Lecter.

3. Monsoon by Wilbur Smith. Paperback, £3.99: Latest in the saga of the buccaneering Courteney dynasty. Hal Courteney, fresh from his adventures in South Africa, is sent by the East India Company to attack the Arab pirates who are harassing trade off the East African coast. Lots of blood.

UNITED STATES

1. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by JK Rowling. £16.22 in both hardback and paperback: The latest adventure for Harry Potter has proved as irresistible to readers across the Atlantic as it has in Britain.

2. Not A Day Goes By by E Lynn Harris. Hardback, £12.47: The story of the tumultuous romance between a football player turned sports agent and an up-and-coming Broadway star. Set in New York the novel's action has all the traditional pot-boiling hallmarks of a love story by Danielle Steel or Jackie Collins - wealth, glamour, sex and intrigue.

3. Omerta by Mario Puzo. Hardback, £16.22: The posthumously published final novel from the author of the Godfather stories is the tale of a retired Mafia don who tries to shield his three grown-up children from the family business and the investigations of a dogged FBI agent.

JAPAN

1. The Reader by Bernhard Schlink. Hardback, £11.50: The Berlin law professor's tale about sex, love, reading and shame in postwar Germany, follows an affair between 15-year-old Michael and Hanna, a woman in her mid-30s. Hanna disappears, but the two meet again years later when she appears in court, accused of war crimes.

2. English For the Over-40s by Yoko Sasano. Paperback, £8: An easy-to-use text book, designed to appeal to middle-aged Japanese who missed out on language lessons at school and now want to catch up. Sales boosted by recent proposal that English be officially designated Japan's second language.

3. The Mystery by Miyabe Miyuki. Paperback, £8: Latest offering from one of Japan's most popular novelists, this is a ghost story, set on a moonlit night in 17th century Edo, then an obscure fishing village, which 150 years later became Tokyo, the biggest city in the world.

GERMANY

1. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Paperback, £9.50: The first in the series introduces the wizarding hero, his adventures at school and the dark forces of Lord Voldemort which he must battle.

2. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Paperback, £10: Chronicles Harry's quest to find the chamber of the title, where he must battle once more with an ally of the "dark side" seeking to bring Voldemort back to life.

3. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Paperback, £10: A mass murderer escapes from Azkaban, the wizards' prison, and is on the loose in the grounds of the school. Meanwhile Harry is re-united with his godfather, Sirius, falsely imprisoned.

ITALY

1. Grotesque by Patrick McGrath. Hardback, £8.40: A slice of modern Gothic by the British author. Horror, suppressed eroticism, and pungent social comedy combine in a spooky novel, which has been made into a film starring Alan Bates, Sting and Theresa Russell.

2. The Brethren by John Grisham. Hardback, £11: Five lawyers in a minimum security prison, home to bank-robbers and Wall Street crooks, call themselves the Brethren and set up a mail scam. The money starts pouring in, but then things go awry.

3. The Distraction by Luciano de Crescenzo. Hardback, £8.40: The Italians are snapping up this book by the popular fiction writer and expert on the Greek philosophers. Little-known in this country, where he is largely out of print.

FRANCE

1. The Stream of Monkeys by Jean-Claude Brialy. Hardback, £14: The autobiography of the New Wave actor from the age of 20.

2. Before I Say Goodbye by Mary Higgins Clark. Hardback, £14: Nell McDermott is a political journalist who visits a doctor in an effort to discover the truth about the death of her husband.

3. If Only It Were True by Marc Levy. Hardback, £12. Improbable-sounding plot from first-time French writer. An architect discovers a "ghost" woman in his cupboard and, bizarrely, he is the only person to see her and hear her.

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Pottering about on the beach

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