Sales for Christos Tsiolkas’ The Slap are well ahead of the rest of the Booker Longlisted titles with 7,151 paperbacks sold up to 7th August.

The Australian born author has sold more than twice as many books as his closest rival Irishman Paul Murrary whose book, Skippy Dies, has sold some 3,025 units in paperback in the same period.

David Mitchell’s The Thosand Summers Of Jacob De Zoet is running third with some 2,744 paperback sales.

The other Irish contender, Emma Donoghue has sold only 1,608 copies in paperback but her book, Room, has only been on release for three weeks and a whopping 1,140 of those sales came in the week up to 7th August when she also outsold Tsiolkas, suggesting that her star is on the ascent.

The drop after Donoghue’s fourth is to Rose Tremain’s Trespass which has sold only 838 paperbacks up to 7th August.

The results echo the success of Tsiolkas has achieved in the UK where his book is also the most popular of the Booker nominated titles.

Between the 13 authors on the long list there are 24 editions in print and those currently account for sales of €270,485.24 in value and 18,733 in volume.