Cookbook phenomenon Nagi Maehashi has topped Nielsen BookData’s Christmas bestseller list for the second time.
Maehashi’s RecipeTin Eats: Tonight topped the 2024 Australian Christmas bestsellers list on Thursday after selling more than 28,000 copies in Australia over the past week, according to data from Nielsen BookScan’s Australian Book Market.
Released in mid-October, RecipeTin Eats: Tonight sold more than 77,000 copies in its first week and went on to stay in the top seller position for seven weeks. The cookbook topped the charts as the most-bought book nationwide during the Black Friday sales in November.
Maehashi’s debut cookbook, RecipeTin Eats: Dinner, also topped the Christmas bestseller list in 2022 and has since sold more than half a million copies.
That year saw the highest recorded sales of books in Australia, which has since declined marginally. 2024 was down 3.8% from last year in revenue, but Nielsen BookData said the market was still performing higher than 2021, 2020 and pre-pandemic 2019 levels.
Another cookbook, Bake with Brooki by Brooke Bellamy, came in at #2 on the Christmas bestseller list, followed by John Farnham’s memoir The Voice Inside.
The 13th instalment of Dav Pilkey’s Dog Man series, Big Jim Begins, made it into the top five, along with Liane Moriarty’s novel Here One Moment, the highest-selling adult fiction title in this week’s charts.
Adult fiction performed strongly in 2024, with Australians purchasing 18.5m books to the value of $380m this year to date, up 7.3% in value.
About 14% of annual book sales take place in the four weeks leading up to Christmas.
Australia’s official Nielsen BookScan top 10 Christmas bestsellers list for 2024
1. RecipeTin Eats: Tonight, Nagi Maehashi (27,900 copies)
2. Bake with Brooki, Brooke Bellamy (14,585 copies)
3. The Voice Inside, John Farnham & Poppy Stockell (11,316 copies)
4. Big Jim Begins (Dog Man 13), Dav Pilkey (11,306 copies)
5. Here One Moment, Liane Moriarty (10,448 copies)
6. In Too Deep (Jack Reacher 29), Lee Child & Andrew Child (9,352 copies)
7. RecipeTin Eats: Dinner, Nagi Maehashi (8,748 copies)
8. Quicksilver, Callie Hart (7,798 copies)
9. Guinness World Records 2025, (7,501 copies)
10. Hot Mess (Diary of a Wimpy Kid 19), Jeff Kinney (6,269 copies)
