The Midwest Indie Bestseller List
Explore the bestselling titles in indie bookstores throughout our region
Looking for something good to read? You've come to the right place. Our weekly Midwest Indie Bestseller List is a collection of the top-selling adult and children's titles for both hardcover and paperback releases. The list is an excellent reflection of the handselling expertise of booksellers and the taste of readers throughout our region. We release the list via email to 1,500 members throughout the industry every Wednesday afternoon. We thank the American Booksellers Association for their generous work of compiling the data from indie bookstores across the country every week.
This week's top titles: 09/28/2025
Week Ending 09/28/25
HARDCOVER FICTION

#1 Alchemised
By SenLinYu (Del Rey)
Price: $35 / Get the Book

#2 The Secret of Secrets
By Dan Brown (Doubleday)
Price: $38 / Get the Book

#3 My Friends
By Fredrik Backman (Atria Books)
Price: $29.99 / Get the Book

#4 Circle of Days
By Ken Follett (Grand Central Publishing)
Price: $40 / Get the Book

#5 What We Can Know
By Ian McEwan (Knopf)
Price: $30 / Get the Book

#6 The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny
By Kiran Desai (Hogarth)
Price: $32 / Get the Book

#7 This Inevitable Ruin
By Matt Dinniman (Ace)
Price: $39 / Get the Book

#8 Buckeye
By Patrick Ryan (Random House)
Price: $30 / Get the Book

#9 Apostle's Cove
By William Kent Krueger (Atria Books)
Price: $29 / Get the Book

#10 The Academy
By Elin Hilderbrand, Shelby Cunningham (Little, Brown and Company)
Price: $30 / Get the Book

#11 James
By Percival Everett (Doubleday)
Price: $28 / Get the Book

#12 The Correspondent
By Virginia Evans (Crown)
Price: $28 / Get the Book

#13 Atmosphere
By Taylor Jenkins Reid (Ballantine Books)
Price: $30 / Get the Book

#14 Will There Ever Be Another You
By Patricia Lockwood (Riverhead Books)
Price: $29 / Get the Book

#15 Tourist Season
By Brynne Weaver (Slowburn)
Price: $28.95 / Get the Book
HARDCOVER NONFICTION

#1 107 Days
By Kamala Harris (Simon & Schuster)
Price: $30 / Get the Book

#2 Awake: A Memoir
By Jen Hatmaker (Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster)
Price: $30 / Get the Book

#3 Good Things: Recipes and Rituals to Share with People You Love
By Samin Nosrat (Random House)
Price: $45 / Get the Book

#4 Separation of Church and Hate: A Sane Person's Guide to Taking Back the Bible from Fundamentalists, Fascists, and Flock-Fleecing Frauds
By John Fugelsang (Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster)
Price: $29.99 / Get the Book

#5 Strong Ground: The Lessons of Daring Leadership, the Tenacity of Paradox, and the Wisdom of the Human Spirit
By Brené Brown (Random House)
Price: $32 / Get the Book

#6 History Matters
By David McCullough (Simon & Schuster)
Price: $27 / Get the Book

#7 We the People: A History of the U.S. Constitution
By Jill Lepore (Liveright)
Price: $39.99 / Get the Book

#8 Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy
By Mary Roach (W. W. Norton & Company)
Price: $28.99 / Get the Book

#9 Poems & Prayers
By Matthew McConaughey (Crown)
Price: $29 / Get the Book

#10 The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World
By Robin Wall Kimmerer, John Burgoyne (Illus.) (Scribner)
Price: $20 / Get the Book

#11 The Let Them Theory: A Life-Changing Tool That Millions of People Can't Stop Talking About
By Mel Robbins, Sawyer Robbins (Hay House LLC)
Price: $29.99 / Get the Book

#12 The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness
By Jonathan Haidt (Penguin Press)
Price: $30 / Get the Book

#13 All the Way to the River: Love, Loss, and Liberation
By Elizabeth Gilbert (Riverhead Books)
Price: $35 / Get the Book

#14 The Little Frog's Guide to Life: Love, Advice and Inspiration for Every Day from the Internet's Beloved Mushroom Frog
By Maybell Eequay (Summersdale)
Price: $11.99 / Get the Book

#15 Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America
By Robert B. Reich (Knopf)
Price: $30 / Get the Book
TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION

#1 Remarkably Bright Creatures
By Shelby Van Pelt (Ecco)
Price: $19.99 / Get the Book

#2 The Gingerbread Bakery
By Laurie Gilmore (HarperCollins)
Price: $18.99 / Get the Book

#3 The Lion Women of Tehran
By Marjan Kamali (Gallery Books)
Price: $18.99 / Get the Book

#4 A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping
By Sangu Mandanna (Berkley)
Price: $19 / Get the Book

#5 Project Hail Mary
By Andy Weir (Ballantine)
Price: $22 / Get the Book

#6 The Frozen River
By Ariel Lawhon (Vintage)
Price: $18 / Get the Book

#7 When the Cranes Fly South
By Lisa Ridzén (Vintage)
Price: $18 / Get the Book

#8 We Solve Murders
By Richard Osman (Penguin Books)
Price: $19 / Get the Book

#9 The Berry Pickers
By Amanda Peters (Catapult)
Price: $17.95 / Get the Book

#10 I Who Have Never Known Men
By Jacqueline Harpman (Transit Books)
Price: $16.95 / Get the Book

#11 Somewhere Beyond the Sea
By TJ Klune (Tor Books)
Price: $19.99 / Get the Book

#12 Martyr!
By Kaveh Akbar (Vintage)
Price: $18 / Get the Book

#13 The Pumpkin Spice Café
By Laurie Gilmore (HarperCollins)
Price: $18.99 / Get the Book

#14 Sandwich
By Catherine Newman (Harper Perennial)
Price: $18.99 / Get the Book

#15 Orbital
By Samantha Harvey (Grove Press)
Price: $17 / Get the Book
TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION

#1 America's Best Idea: The Separation of Church and State
By Randall Balmer (Steerforth)
Price: $13.95 / Get the Book

#2 Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants
By Robin Wall Kimmerer (Milkweed Editions)
Price: $22 / Get the Book

#3 On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century
By Timothy Snyder (Crown)
Price: $12 / Get the Book

#4 All About Love: New Visions
By bell hooks (Morrow)
Price: $16.99 / Get the Book

#5 A People's History of the United States
By Howard Zinn (Harper Perennial Modern Classics)
Price: $23.99 / Get the Book

#6 Goethe's Oak: A Holocaust Story
By John T. Price (Ice Cube Press)
Price: $19.99 / Get the Book

#7 The Artist's Way: 30th Anniversary Edition
By Julia Cameron (TarcherPerigee)
Price: $24 / Get the Book

#8 Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture (Harper Perennial Olive Editions)
By Roxane Gay (Harper Perennial)
Price: $12 / Get the Book

#9 The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession
By Michael Finkel (Vintage)
Price: $18 / Get the Book

#10 Mysteries of the National Parks: 35 Stories of Baffling Disappearances, Unexplained Phenomena, and More
By Mike Bezemek (Sourcebooks)
Price: $18.99 / Get the Book

#11 The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder
By David Grann (Vintage)
Price: $21 / Get the Book

#12 A Little Less Broken: How an Autism Diagnosis Finally Made Me Whole
By Marian Schembari (Flatiron Books)
Price: $18.99 / Get the Book

#13 The 2026 Old Farmer's Almanac
By Old Farmer's Almanac (Old Farmer's Almanac)
Price: $10.95 / Get the Book

#14 All the Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me
By Patrick Bringley (Simon & Schuster)
Price: $18.99 / Get the Book

#15 Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World
By Anne Applebaum (Vintage)
Price: $18 / Get the Book
MASS MARKET

#1 1984
By George Orwell (Signet)
Price: $10.99 / Get the Book

#2 Animal Farm
By George Orwell (Signet)
Price: $9.99 / Get the Book

#3 The Way of Kings
By Brandon Sanderson (Tor)
Price: $12.99 / Get the Book

#4 Dune
By Frank Herbert (Ace)
Price: $10.99 / Get the Book

#5 The Left Hand of Darkness
By Ursula K. Le Guin (Ace)
Price: $10.99 / Get the Book

#6 The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
By J.R.R.Tolkien (Ballantine)
Price: $8.99 / Get the Book

#7 The Fellowship of the Ring: The Lord of the Rings: Part One
By J.R.R. Tolkien (Del Rey)
Price: $8.99 / Get the Book

#8 The Diary of a Young Girl
By Anne Frank (Bantam)
Price: $8.99 / Get the Book

#9 Hamlet
By William Shakespeare (Simon & Schuster)
Price: $9.99 / Get the Book

#10 Mistborn: The Final Empire
By Brandon Sanderson (Tor)
Price: $10.99 / Get the Book
CHILDREN'S ILLUSTRATED

#1 Baby Pumpkin: Finger Puppet Book
By Yu-Hsuan Huang (Illus.) (Chronicle Books)
Price: $7.99 / Get the Book

#2 Hansel and Gretel
By Stephen King, Maurice Sendak (Illus.) (HarperCollins)
Price: $26.99 / Get the Book

#3 Room on the Broom
By Julia Donaldson, Axel Scheffler (Illus.) (Dial Books)
Price: $9.99 / Get the Book

#4 Goodnight Moon
By Margaret Wise Brown, Clement Hurd (Illus.) (Harper)
Price: $10.99 / Get the Book

#5 The Very Hungry Caterpillar
By Eric Carle (World of Eric Carle)
Price: $10.99 / Get the Book

#6 If We Were Dogs
By Sophie Blackall (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)
Price: $18.99 / Get the Book

#7 The Little Ghost Who Was a Quilt - Gift Edition
By Riel Nason, Byron Eggenschwiler (Illus.) (Tundra Books)
Price: $19.99 / Get the Book

#8 Aggie and the Ghost
By Matthew Forsythe (Simon & Schuster/Paula Wiseman Books)
Price: $19.99 / Get the Book

#9 Chicka Chicka Tricka Treat
By Julien Chung (Beach Lane Books)
Price: $19.99 / Get the Book

#10 If You Make a Call on a Banana Phone
By Gideon Sterer, Emily Hughes (Illus.) (Clarion Books)
Price: $19.99 / Get the Book
CHILDREN'S INTEREST

#1 From the World of Percy Jackson: The Court of the Dead: A Nico di Angelo Adventure
By Rick Riordan, Mark Oshiro (Disney Hyperion)
Price: $21.99 / Get the Book

#2 The Poisoned King (Impossible Creatures #2)
By Katherine Rundell, Ashley Mackenzie (Illus.) (Knopf Books for Young Readers)
Price: $19.99 / Get the Book

#3 Troubling Tonsils! (Jasper Rabbit's Creepy Tales!)
By Aaron Reynolds, Peter Brown (Illus.) (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers)
Price: $13.99 / Get the Book

#4 Scarlet Morning
By ND Stevenson (Quill Tree Books)
Price: $19.99 / Get the Book

#5 Impossible Creatures
By Katherine Rundell, Ashley Mackenzie (Illus.) (Yearling)
Price: $11.99 / Get the Book

#6 The Lost Library
By Rebecca Stead, Wendy Mass (Square Fish)
Price: $8.99 / Get the Book

#7 Unicornia: Learning to Fly
By Ana Punset, Diana Vicedo (Illus.) (Candlewick)
Price: $6.99 / Get the Book

#8 The Millicent Quibb School of Etiquette for Young Ladies of Mad Science
By Kate McKinnon (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)
Price: $9.99 / Get the Book

#9 Codebreaker
By Jay Martel (Wednesday Books)
Price: $13 / Get the Book

#10 Ferris
By Kate DiCamillo (Candlewick)
Price: $8.99 / Get the Book
CHILDREN'S SERIES TITLES

#1 InvestiGators: Case Files
By John Patrick Green, Steve Behling, Chris Fenoglio (Illus.) (First Second)
Price: $12.99 / Get the Book

#2 Bones and Berserkers (Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales #13): 13 True Tales of Terror from American History
By Nathan Hale (Harry N. Abrams)
Price: $15.99 / Get the Book

#3 The Wild Robot Escapes
By Peter Brown (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)
Price: $8.99 / Get the Book

#4 Dog Man: Big Jim Begins
By Dav Pilkey (Graphix)
Price: $14.99 / Get the Book

#5 Sunrise on the Reaping (A Hunger Games Novel)
By Suzanne Collins (Scholastic Press)
Price: $27.99 / Get the Book

#6 The Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell
By Chris Colfer (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)
Price: $9.99 / Get the Book

#7 Warriors Graphic Novel: The Prophecies Begin, #1
By Erin Hunter, Natalie Riess (Illus.), Sara Goetter (Illus.) (HarperAlley)
Price: $15.99 / Get the Book

#8 Dinosaurs Before Dark (Magic Tree House, #1)
By Mary Pope Osborne, Sal Murdocca (Illus.) (Random House Books for Young Readers)
Price: $5.99 / Get the Book

#9 A Good Girl's Guide to Murder
By Holly Jackson (Delacorte Press)
Price: $10.99 / Get the Book

#10 The Summer I Turned Pretty (Deluxe Edition)
By Jenny Han (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers)
Price: $12.99 / Get the Book