Bloomsbury Publishing has posted strong first-half year results, sending shares up 2.24%.

Growing profits were helped by the surge in sales of Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential, as well as the continuing demand for Harry Potter books.

“It was unexpected; there were a lot of ebook downloads, a lot of people wanted to read his master work,” said Nigel Newton, the chief executive of Bloomsbury Publishing, about the recent demand in Kitchen Confidential sales following the death of TV chef and writer, Bourdain.

On the Harry Potter demand, Newton said: “Last year’s Harry Potter anniversary generated one of the highest levels of revenue since the initial publications, and we’ve been pleased to build on this momentum in the first half.”

Sales in Harry Potter were up 5% in the first six months of this year.

Total revenues for the group rose 4% to £75.3 million, up from £72.1 million a year earlier.

“I am very pleased with the performance of our business over the last six months,” said Newton.

“These strong results, following our excellent results for the interim and full year last year, demonstrates the underlying strength, resilience and further potential of our strategy.”

“We have made very good progress in all seven of our Bigger Bloomsbury initiatives focusing on our key growth drivers with targeted strategies across the Group to help grow our revenues and improve our margins over the next five years,” he added.

The group has confirmed that it is trading in line with expectations for the full year.

Shares in the group (LON: BMY) are trading at 199,70 (1503GMT).