Just how influential are Richard Madeley and Judy Finnegan, the married couple whose daily afternoon show has galvanized the UK book market like nothing seen before? According to the Times, extremely influential. Not quite Oprah-level but pretty damn close:
This month a novel by Kate Mosse, Labyrinth, entered its sixth week as a No 1 bestseller for paperback fiction. The day after it was lauded on the book club by guest reviewers Carol Thatcher and Bettany Hughes, its publisher received more than 50,000 orders. According to figures released by The Bookseller, sales of the titles featured in the first year were worth £25m. The next year it was £18m.
Alice Sebold, whose novel The Lovely Bones was featured early on, sold 1m copies of her book. Before Bob Geldof sat on the sofa and compared Joseph O’Connor’s Star of the Sea with Charles Dickens, it had sold only 3,500 copies.
It, too, has now shifted more than a million. A recent survey revealed that some 1.8m people said that they had bought a title because of its R&J recommendation.
And much of that success is due to the show’s booker, Amanda Ross, who is ultimately responsible for picking the featured books R&J will discuss, argue about and fete. The breadth and depth of Ross’s knowledge is why, after the show, Richard and Judy shoot off home sharpish. “We have supper and then we read. We sit up in bed side by side trying to finish the books,” says Madeley. “It’s like having homework.”