Reni Eddo-Lodge has become the first black British author to take the overall No 1 spot in the UK’s official book charts. Eddo-Lodge's Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race topped Nielsen BookScan's UK top 50 in the week to 13 June, making her the first black British author to take the top slot since Nielsen began recording book sales in 2001. The only black author to have taken the No 1 spot on the overall charts is the former US first lady Michelle Obama in 2018, with her memoir Becoming. In 2016, analysis from the Bookseller found that a writer was more likely to make it into the bestseller charts if their name was David than if they were from an ethnic minority.

Eddo-Lodge responded to news of her achievement on Twitter. "Feels absolutely wild to have broken this record," she wrote. "My work stands on the shoulders of so many black British literary giants - Bernadine Evaristo, Benjamin Zephaniah, Zadie Smith, Andrea Levy, Stella Dadzie, Stuart Hall, Linton K Johnson, Jackie Kay, Gary Younge - to name a few." Last week, Eddo-Lodge became the first black British author to be No 1 on the non-fiction paperback charts, which she called "a horrible indictment of the publishing industry". "Can't help but be dismayed by this - the tragic circumstances in which this achievement came about,” she wrote. "The fact that it's 2020 and I'm the first."