St Ives Clays printed three of the final top five titles: The Lord of the Rings, Jane Austens Pride & Prejudice (Penguin Classics edition) and JK Rowlings Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

Its delightful that people are reading lots of books theyre very good value, said St Ives chairman Miles Emley.

The paperback version of Douglas Adams Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy
was printed by Mackays, while Denmarks Nrhaven Paperback printed His Dark Materials series by Philip Pullman.

Since the project began in May more than 2.8m copies of the original list of 100 titles have been sold, and that figure only includes sales up to 11 October.

According to Nielsen BookScan, in the week to 6 December the final five titles alone sold more than 53,000 copies.

Some books, such as Joseph Hellers Catch-22 (printed by Fulmar subsidiary Bookmarque) have re-entered the bestseller lists as a result of the programme. Online bookseller Amazon.co.uk has reported a 500% increase in demand for some titles.

Colour book specialist Butler & Tanner has also benefited from the project, as it printed 100,000 copies of the BBC Big Read Book of Books, published by Dorling Kindersley, which accompanied the series. And the multimedia packaging sector also received a boost, as DVD sales of film and television adaptations of shortlisted books rocketed by as much as 1,500%.

Story by Jo Francis