UK consumer book sales were up seven per cent to £2.1bn in 2020, as people rediscovered a love of reading in lockdown, according to the Publishers Association.

Demand for both fiction and non-fiction jumped, while audio-book sales were up 37 per cent, as reported by the BBC.

Bestsellers included Richard Osman's The Thursday Murder Club, Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens and 7 Ways by Jamie Oliver.

Consumer book sales performed particularly well, with sales of fiction up 16 per cent and non-fiction up by four per cent. Print accounted for £1.7bn of sales (an increase of four percent) while digital sales were £418m, up 24 per cent.

But the growth in consumer books sales was offset by a slump in educational book sales, as schools were shut for months.

And despite an increase in books sales for some, the last year has been a challenging one for booksellers, authors and small publishers alike.

Photo credit: Penguin Books