More Harry Potter magic as 'Cursed Child' repeats at No. 1

J.K. Rowling and Harry Potter once again reign over a familiar kingdom: Paste BN’s Best-Selling Books list.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Parts One and Two, the script of the new play now drawing crowds to London’s West End, is No. 1 for the second week in a row.

Cursed Child, which went on sale July 31, landed at No. 1 last week after only one day of sales; the new list reflects a full week of sales. (The full list will publish on Thursday.) Publisher Scholastic says Cursed Child has sold more than 3.3 million copies in North America so far. (It sold 2 million copies its first two days, helped by hordes of fans who went to bookstore parties the night the book went on sale.)

The blockbuster summer hit, an international phenomenon, is selling so well that it’s completely dominating this week’s top 10; for every 10 copies of Cursed Child sold, the No. 2 book, Bullseye by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge, sold 0.5 copies, according to data reported to Paste BN’s best-seller list.

Cursed Child is being billed as the “eighth” Harry Potter book; the boy wizard is now all grown up with kids of his own. Sharing a “byline” with Rowling on the script are Jack Thorne and John Tiffany.

Every Potter title in the original series hit No. 1 on Paste BN’s list. There obviously is still a tremendous appetite for the Potter tales, and Cursed Child is helping move copies of the original series. This week Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, the first book, will be No. 14, while Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets will be No. 33.

“We are absolutely thrilled to see continued strong sales for the new script book as well as the original Harry Potter series as fans of all ages are immersed in J.K. Rowling's wizarding world,” says Ellie Berger, president of Scholastic’s trade division.

Rowling’s return to Potter may be creating magic, but she has hardly rested on her laurels since ending the series. Her adult novel The Casual Vacancy hit No. 1 in 2012; and she writes a successful mystery series under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. One of her Galbraith novels, The Cuckoo’s Calling, also hit No. 1.

While Cursed Child would seem to be review-proof, Paste BN’s Kelly Lawler weighed in with a 3 (out of four) star review, writing: “While reading the script is an incomplete experience — noticeably lacking the richness that acting and staging would add to a realized production and the familiar Rowling prose a novel would have contained — it may capture just enough of the old Potter magic to please even the most skeptical fans.”