Richard Osman is Oxfam’s most donated author of 2024 – as its book sales raise over £21mn
Melanie May | 31 December 2024 | News
Oxfam is celebrating a record year for book sales, up by £1mn for a second year in a row and making over £21 million for the charity.
Richard Osman was the most donated author in 2024 – and one of Oxfam’s most sold.
Other books in Oxfam’s most-donated hall of fame of 2024 include Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series, Victoria Hislop’s The Island, Yann Martel’s Life of Pi and Jessie Burton’s The Miniaturist.
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The most-donated non-fiction books to Oxfam in 2024 are Adam Kay’s This is Going to Hurt and Jamie Oliver’s cookbook Veg, followed closely by Matt Haig’s Reasons to Stay Alive and Michelle Obama’s memoir Becoming.
In children’s fiction, the most popular donated authors include Roald Dahl and Michael Morpurgo, while there was a also ‘a surge’ of donations of Jacqueline Wilson books.
Ian Falkingham, Oxfam’s Donated Goods Strategy Lead, said:
“The joy of second-hand books is that they have their own story to tell. Once a book is donated, it opens the door for someone else to discover a new world, meet a new character or fall in love with a recipe. Clearly, from Oxfam’s book sales this year, people are falling in love with second-hand books more than ever.
“It is no surprise authors like Richard Osman, Terry Pratchett and Jacqueline Wilson are some of Oxfam’s most donated this year, when they are also some of the most loved and sold authors too.
“Every time any of their books, or any other wonderful book we are donated, is sold by Oxfam, they help raise vital funds to help tackle poverty and inequality across the globe – and for that, we are immensely grateful.”
An Oxfam survey found that nearly half of Brits who consider gifting second hand (49%) said books were the gift they were most likely to buy for others at Christmas.
About Melanie May
Melanie May is a journalist and copywriter specialising in writing both for and about the charity and marketing services sectors since 2001. She can be reached via thepurplepim.com.