“Potter” Books Still Casting a Spell Over Most Popular and Best-Seller Lists

The year is slowly drawing to a close, and with it comes a flurry of lists of the books people were reading in 2019.

After all seven installments in the Harry Potter series made it into the top 50 most-read books in the United Kingdom earlier this year, it’s no surprise that titles from the series have been featured on the 2019 most-read and best-seller lists from two of the giants in the e-book and audiobook market.

Apple Books recently released its list of the top ten most popular fiction audiobooks of 2019, which features the first three books in the Harry Potter series narrated by Stephen Fry. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone is the highest-ranked Potter title at number two on the list, with Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (both narrated by Fry) reaching sixth and eighth place, respectively.

Amazon has also revealed its collection of Most Read and Most Sold lists for 2019. According to the Daily Mail, it is the first time these lists, which showcase the most popular fiction and non-fiction books of the year, have been collated for the UK book market. The Most Read: Fiction category is dominated by J.K. Rowling’s work, with Potter stories making up four of the top five most-read books read this year.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix takes the title of the most-read fiction book of 2019, followed by Philip Pullman’s The Book of Dust: The Secret Commonwealth, which was released in October this year. The top-five list is rounded out by Philosopher’s Stone in third place, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire in fourth, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in fifth place.

Despite it being over 20 years since the first book in the series was published, it seems as though Potter is continuing to enchant readers across the UK.