They say that books help to furnish a room – well, now they appear to be making a home for themselves in the seat back pockets of our planes too. A new study has today revealed the literary works of Lord Alan Sugar, Paul Gascoigne and Katie Price were the most readily discarded reads at 35,000 feet.

A survey of Virgin Atlantic’s cabin crew over the festive period left Lord Sugar’s opinionated autobiography The Way I See It: Rants, Revelations and Rules For Life topping the charts as the book passengers were most inclined to abandon onboard.

Alan Sugar's The Way I See It © Pan Macmillan

In second place is Glorious: My World, Football and Me which offers an insight into the mind of Gazza, one of the world’s greatest footballers, whereas glamour model and entrepreneur Katie Price made third place with her seventh novel, Santa Baby.

Virgin Atlantic’s President, Sir Richard Branson was also amongst the authors whose books were left behind on Virgin Atlantic aircraft as his latest book Screw Business as Usual made eighth place.

Here’s the full countdown of Virgin Atlantic’s top ten list of books left behind on board its aircraft over the Christmas period:

1)      The Way I See it: Rants, Revelations and Rules For Life by Lord Alan Sugar
2)      Glorious: My World, Football and Me by Paul Gascoigne
3)      Santa Baby by Katie Price
4)      The World of Downton Abbey
5)      I Heart Vegas by Lindsey Kelk
6)      Twisting my Melon by Shaun Ryder
7)      May I have your attention please? by James Corden
8)      Screw Business as Usual by Sir Richard Branson
9)      An Idiot Abroad: The Travel Diaries of Karl Pilkington
10)   The Help by Kathryn Stockett

Other key findings from the survey of Virgin Atlantic’s 3,000 cabin crew revealed:

• Over 20 copies of Shaun Ryder’s autobiography were left behind on Virgin Atlantic’s services departing out of Manchester to Barbados, Orlando and Las Vegas

• An Idiot Abroad: The Travel Diaries of Karl Pilkington was found all over Virgin Atlantic’s route network but mainly on long-haul routes to Delhi, Nairobi and Australia

• Passengers travelling to Las Vegas got themselves in the mood by reading (and leaving behind) Lindsey Kelk’s chick-lit novel I Heart Vegas

• Business minded passengers travelling to New York, Tokyo and Shanghai passed the time by reading Lord Alan Sugar’s autobiography

• Travellers heading to Dubai over the Christmas period got into the festive spirit by reading Santa Baby by Katie Price

Passengers who do leave items behind on board Virgin Atlantic planes can collect items from the BAA Lost Property Office.

Header photo by Marcin Wichary on Flickr.com