PENGUIN owner Pearson hailed a record best-selling performance today after a string of authors shot up the book charts.

Pearson said 85 of its Penguin titles made it on to the New York Times best-seller lists in the first six months of the year, while 43 were in the top 10 in the UK.

The record haul, which included books by Patricia Cornwell and Jeremy Clarkson, saw Penguin bank first-half profits of é18m - up 38 per cent on last year.

The strong results at Penguin helped Pearson turn losses of é6m million in the first half last year into profits of é31m. Pearson also publishes the Financial Times and education books in the US and Britain.

Pultizer Prize for Fiction

Penguin authors also won a host of major literary awards in the first half of the year, including the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction through Geraldine Brooks for March.

Elsewhere in the group, Pearson said profits at the Financial Times were up 23 per cent to é55m, boosted by a five per cent hike in average circulation of the newspaper to 447,000 while advertising revenues continued to accelerate - up 11 per cent in the first half.

At its education arm, which is traditionally loss-making in the first half because of the timing of semesters in the US, Pearson broke even, having made losses of é21m in the same period a year ago.

Overall group sales were up eight per cent to é1.88bn and the company said it was confident it will reach its full-year targets.

"Pearson's profits are always heavily weighted to the second half of the year," the company said. "With this first-half performance we continue to expect strong earnings growth."

Pearson chief executive Marjorie Scardino added: "These results provide further evidence of the quality and potential of our business.

"All parts of Pearson are making strong progress. We remain confident that 2006 will be another good year for Pearson."