Indie Bestsellers | IndieBound.org

Indie Bestseller Lists for October 21, 2020

For the week ending October 18, 2020 based on sales in hundreds of independent bookstores nationwide.

Hardcover Fiction Bestsellers

#1: The Searcher

By Tana French

Viking

Buy

In French's latest novel of suspense, a former Chicago police officer retreats to a bucolic Irish village and starts to realize that even small towns shelter dangerous secrets.

Rank last week: 1

Weeks on List: 2

#2: A Time for Mercy

By John Grisham

Doubleday

Buy

Jake Brigance returns in John Grisham's most powerful courtroom drama yet.

Rank last week: NEW

Weeks on List: 1

#3: The Vanishing Half

By Brit Bennett

Riverhead Books

Buy

Bennett's beautiful new novel about twin sisters, inseparable as children, who ultimately choose to live in two very different worlds, one black and one white. A June 2020 Indie Next List Great Read.

Rank last week: 4

Weeks on List: 20

#4: The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

By V. E. Schwab

Tor

Buy

France, 1714: In a moment of desperation, a young woman makes a Faustian bargain to live forever--and is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets. The #1 Indie Next List Great Read for October 2020.

Rank last week: 2

Weeks on List: 2

#5: Anxious People

By Fredrik Backman

Atria

Buy

An ingeniously constructed novel about the enduring power of friendship, forgiveness, and hope--the things that save us, even in the most anxious times. The #1 Indie Next List Great Read for September 2020.

Rank last week: 5

Weeks on List: 6

#6: Leave the World Behind

By Rumaan Alam

Ecco

Buy

A magnetic novel about two families, strangers to each other, who are forced together on a long weekend gone terribly wrong. An October 2020 Indie Next List Great Read.

Rank last week: 3

Weeks on List: 2

#7: The Evening and the Morning

By Ken Follett

Viking

Buy

Follett's thrilling and addictive new Kingsbridge novel is a prequel to The Pillars of the Earth.

Rank last week: 6

Weeks on List: 5

#8: Jack

By Marilynne Robinson

FSG

Buy

Pulitzer Prize-winner Robinson returns to the world of Gilead with Jack, the latest novel in one of the great works of contemporary American fiction.

Rank last week: 9

Weeks on List: 3

#9: Transcendent Kingdom

By Yaa Gyasi

Knopf

Buy

Gyasi's stunning follow-up to Homegoing is a powerful, raw, intimate, deeply layered novel about a Ghanaian family in Alabama. A September 2020 Indie Next List Great Read.

Rank last week: 8

Weeks on List: 7

#10: All the Devils Are Here

By Louise Penny

Minotaur

Buy

Chief Inspector Armand Gamache investigates a sinister plot in the City of Light.

Rank last week: 7

Weeks on List: 7

#11: The Once and Future Witches

By Alix E. Harrow

Redhook

Buy

In the late 1800s. three sisters use witchcraft to change the course of history in Harrow's powerful novel of magic and the suffragette movement.

Rank last week: NEW

Weeks on List: 1

#12: Magic Lessons

By Alice Hoffman

S&S

Buy

Hoffmans's unforgettable new novel unveils the story of Maria Owens, accused of witchcraft in Salem, and matriarch of a line of the amazing Owens women and men featured in Practical Magic and The Rules of Magic.

Rank last week: 13

Weeks on List: 2

#13: The Book of Two Ways

By Jodi Picoult

Ballantine

Buy

Picoult's riveting new novel about the choices that alter the course of our lives.

Rank last week: 10

Weeks on List: 4

#14: The Lying Life of Adults

By Elena Ferrante

Europa Editions

Buy

Ferrante's powerful and gripping new novel about the transition from childhood to adolescence to adulthood is a September 2020 Indie Next List Great Read.

Rank last week: 14

Weeks on List: 7

#15: Piranesi

By Susanna Clarke

Bloomsbury Publishing

Buy

The intoxicating, hypnotic new novel by the bestselling author of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell is a September 2020 Indie Next List Great Read.

Rank last week: 11

Weeks on List: 5

Hardcover Nonfiction Bestsellers

#1: Caste

By Isabel Wilkerson

Random House

Buy

Beautifully written, original, and revealing, Caste is an eye-opening story of people and history, and a reexamination of what lies under the surface of ordinary lives and of American life today.

Rank last week: 2

Weeks on List: 11

#2: Modern Comfort Food: A Barefoot Contessa Cookbook

By Ina Garten

Clarkson Potter

Buy

From cocktails to dessert, from special weekend breakfasts to quick weeknight dinners, you'll find yourself making these cozy and delicious recipes over and over again.

Rank last week: 1

Weeks on List: 2

#3: How to Be an Antiracist

By Ibram X. Kendi

One World

Buy

Kendi's book is an essential work for anyone who wants to go beyond the awareness of racism to the next step: contributing to the formation of a just and equitable society.

Rank last week: 8

Weeks on List: 28

#4: Untamed

By Glennon Doyle

The Dial Press

Buy

In Doyle's most revealing and powerful memoir yet, she explores the joy and peace we discover when we stop striving to meet the expectations of the world, and start trusting the voice deep within us.

Rank last week: 6

Weeks on List: 32

#5: Solutions and Other Problems

By Allie Brosh

Gallery Books

Buy

The bestselling author of Hyperbole and a Half returns with a new collection of comedic, autobiographical, and illustrated essays. An October 2020 Indie Next List Great Read.

Rank last week: 7

Weeks on List: 4

#6: Rage

By Bob Woodward

S&S

Buy

Woodward's new book is an unprecedented and intimate tour de force of new reporting on the Trump presidency facing a global pandemic, economic disaster, and racial unrest.

Rank last week: 3

Weeks on List: 5

#7: Is This Anything?

By Jerry Seinfeld

S&S

Buy

The first book in 25 years from Jerry Seinfeld features his best work across five decades in comedy.

Rank last week: 5

Weeks on List: 2

#8: Ottolenghi Flavor: A Cookbook

By Yotam Ottolenghi, Ixta Belfrage

Ten Speed Press

Buy

Ottolenghi teams up with Ottolenghi Test Kitchen's Ixta Belfrage to reveal how flavor is created and amplified through 100+ super-delicious, plant-based recipes.

Rank last week: NEW

Weeks on List: 1

#9: The 99% Invisible City: A Field Guide to the Hidden World of Everyday Design

By Roman Mars, Kurt Kohlstedt

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Buy

A beautifully designed guidebook to the unnoticed yet essential elements of our cities, from the creators of the wildly popular 99% Invisible podcast.

Rank last week: 4

Weeks on List: 2

#10: The Splendid and the Vile

By Erik Larson

Crown

Buy

Larson's fresh and compelling portrait of Winston Churchill and London during the Blitz is a March 2020 Indie Next List Great Read.

Rank last week: 9

Weeks on List: 34

#11: Vesper Flights

By Helen MacDonald

Grove Press

Buy

Macdonald's new collection of essays is a captivating and foundational book about observation, fascination, time, memory, love, and loss and how we make sense of the world around us. A September 2020 Indie Next List Great Read.

Rank last week: NEW

Weeks on List: 7

#12: How to Write One Song: Loving the Things We Create and How They Love Us Back

By Jeff Tweedy

Dutton

Buy

Tweedy brings readers into the intimate process of writing one song--lyrics, music, and putting it all together--and accesses the deep sense of wonder that remains at the heart of this curious, yet incredibly fulfilling, artistic act.

Rank last week: NEW

Weeks on List: 1

#13: Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World

By Fareed Zakaria

Norton

Buy

Zakaria helps readers to begin thinking beyond the immediate effects of COVID-19.

Rank last week: NEW

Weeks on List: 1

#14: Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants

By Robin Wall Kimmerer

Milkweed Editions

Buy

Updated with a new introduction from Robin Wall Kimmerer, the special edition of Braiding Sweetgrass, reissued in honor of the 40th anniversary of Milkweed Editions, celebrates the book as an object of meaning that will last the ages.

Rank last week: NEW

Weeks on List: 1

#15: Trust: America's Best Chance

By Pete Buttigieg

Liveright

Buy

Refusing to give in to the despair that threatens our foundations, Buttigieg seeks to inspire Americans to build a powerful movement that will define all of us in the years to come.

Rank last week: 11

Weeks on List: 2

Trade Paperback Fiction Bestsellers

#1: The Overstory

By Richard Powers

Norton

Buy

National Book Award-winner Powers delivers a sweeping, impassioned novel of activism and resistance that is also a stunning evocation of--and paean to--the natural world.

Rank last week: 1

Weeks on List: *

#2: Circe

By Madeline Miller

Back Bay

Buy

Miller's masterful follow-up to The Song of Achilles is a triumph of storytelling, an intoxicating epic of family rivalry, palace intrigue, love and loss, as well as a celebration of indomitable female strength in a man's world.

Rank last week: 2

Weeks on List: 27

#3: Homegoing

By Yaa Gyasi

Vintage

Buy

Gyasi's extraordinary novel illuminates slavery's troubled legacy both for those who were taken and those who stayed--and shows how the memory of captivity has been inscribed on the soul of our nation.

Rank last week: 7

Weeks on List: 35

#4: The Nickel Boys

By Colson Whitehead

Anchor

Buy

Whitehead's masterful and haunting novel about two boys sentenced to a hellish reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida is the winner of the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Rank last week: 3

Weeks on List: 16

#5: Normal People

By Sally Rooney

Hogarth

Buy

Rooney brings her brilliant psychological acuity and perfectly spare prose to a story that explores the subtleties of class, the electricity of first love, and the complex entanglements of family and friendship.

Rank last week: 6

Weeks on List: 35

#6: This Tender Land

By William Kent Krueger

Atria

Buy

A magnificent novel about four orphans on a life-changing odyssey during the Great Depression.

Rank last week: 4

Weeks on List: 20

#7: The Topeka School

By Ben Lerner

Picador

Buy

Lerner's novel is a tender and expansive family drama set in the American Midwest at the turn of the 21st century.

Rank last week: 5

Weeks on List: 3

#8: The Song of Achilles

By Madeline Miller

Ecco

Buy

Miller's monumental debut novel is an action-packed adventure and epic love story that brilliantly re-imagines Homer's enduring masterwork, The Iliad.

Rank last week: 11

Weeks on List: 7

#9: The Testaments

By Margaret Atwood

Anchor

Buy

Atwood's masterful sequel to her modern classic, The Handmaid's Tale.

Rank last week: 8

Weeks on List: 7

#10: Dune

By Frank Herbert

Ace

Buy

Herbert's classic masterpiece--a triumph of the imagination--is soon to be a major motion picture.

Rank last week: 9

Weeks on List: 6

#11: A Single Thread

By Tracy Chevalier

Penguin

Buy

An immersive, moving novel of a woman coming into her own at the dawn of the Second World War.

Rank last week: 13

Weeks on List: 2

#12: Little Fires Everywhere

By Celeste Ng

Penguin

Buy

A riveting novel that traces the intertwined fates of a picture-perfect family and the enigmatic mother and daughter who upend their lives. Now a Hulu original series.

Rank last week: 12

Weeks on List: *

#13: A Gentleman in Moscow

By Amor Towles

Penguin

Buy

Towles' transporting novel about a man who is ordered to spend the rest of his life inside a luxury hotel.

Rank last week: NEW

Weeks on List: *

#14: Parable of the Sower

By Octavia E. Butler

Grand Central

Buy

A post-apocalyptic novel of hope and terror by the bestselling author of Kindred.

Rank last week: 10

Weeks on List: 9

#15: Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead

By Olga Tokarczuk

Riverhead Books

Buy

Tokarczuk's Nobel Prize-winning novel is deeply satisfying thriller cum fairy tale, and a provocative exploration of the murky borderland between sanity and madness, justice and tradition, autonomy and fate.

Rank last week: NEW

Weeks on List: 8

Trade Paperback Nonfiction Bestsellers

#1: Braiding Sweetgrass

By Robin Wall Kimmerer

Milkweed Editions

Buy

Drawing on her life as an indigenous scientist, and as a woman, Kimmerer shows how other living beings offer us gifts and lessons, even if we've forgotten how to hear their voices.

Rank last week: 3

Weeks on List: 45

#2: My Own Words

By Ruth Bader Ginsburg

S&S

Buy

Ruth Bader Ginsburg's first book after becoming a Supreme Court Justice in 1993 is a witty, engaging, and serious collection of writings and speeches.

Rank last week: 1

Weeks on List: 41

#3: White Fragility

By Robin DiAngelo

Beacon Press

Buy

DiAngelo explores the counterproductive reactions white people have when their assumptions about race are challenged, and how these reactions maintain racial inequality.

Rank last week: 2

Weeks on List: *

#4: The Warmth of Other Suns

By Isabel Wilkerson

Vintage

Buy

Pulitzer Prize-winner Wilkerson's chronicle of the decades-long migration of black citizens who fled the South in search of a better life.

Rank last week: 4

Weeks on List: 37

#5: The Color of Law

By Richard Rothstein

Liveright

Buy

Rothstein's powerful book describes how the American government systematically imposed residential segregation.

Rank last week: 12

Weeks on List: 25

#6: So You Want to Talk About Race

By Ijeoma Oluo

Seal Press

Buy

Oluo guides readers of all races in an attempt to make the seemingly impossible possible: honest conversations about race and racism, and how they infect almost every aspect of American life.

Rank last week: 7

Weeks on List: 21

#7: Born a Crime

By Trevor Noah

One World

Buy

Noah's compelling, inspiring, and comically sublime coming-of-age memoir is set during the twilight of apartheid and the tumultuous days of freedom that followed.

Rank last week: 5

Weeks on List: *

#8: The New Jim Crow

By Michelle Alexander

New Press

Buy

The tenth-anniversary edition of Alexander's iconic book discusses the impact the book has had and the state of the criminal justice reform movement today.

Rank last week: 10

Weeks on List: 21

#9: The Fire Next Time

By James Baldwin

Vintage

Buy

At once a powerful evocation of James Baldwin's early life in Harlem and a disturbing examination of the consequences of racial injustice.

Rank last week: 11

Weeks on List: 20

#10: The Truths We Hold: An American Journey

By Kamala Harris

Penguin

Buy

Senator and Vice Presidential Nominee Harris looks at the core truths that unite us, and the long struggle to discern what those truths are and how best to act upon them.

Rank last week: 8

Weeks on List: 8

#11: Intimations

By Zadie Smith

Penguin

Buy

Deeply personal and powerfully moving, a short and timely series of reflective essays by one of the most clear-sighted and essential writers of our time.

Rank last week: 6

Weeks on List: 12

#12: Just Mercy

By Bryan Stevenson

One World

Buy

A powerful true story about the potential for mercy to redeem us, and a clarion call to fix our broken system of justice.

Rank last week: 14

Weeks on List: 41

#13: Stamped from the Beginning

By Ibram X. Kendi

Bold Type Books

Buy

Kendi's National Book Award winning history of how racist ideas were created, spread, and deeply rooted in American society.

Rank last week: NEW

Weeks on List: 20

#14: Sapiens

By Yuval Noah Harari

Harper Perennial

Buy

A groundbreaking narrative of humanity's creation and evolution that explores the ways in which biology and history have defined us and enhanced our understanding of what it means to be human.

Rank last week: 13

Weeks on List: *

#15: Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee

By Casey Cep

Vintage

Buy

Cep unravels the mystery surrounding Harper Lee's first and only work of nonfiction, and the shocking true crimes at the center of it.

Rank last week: NEW

Weeks on List: 1

Mass Market Bestsellers

#1: Dune

By Frank Herbert

Ace

Buy

Rank last week: 1

Weeks on List: 48

#2: 1984

By George Orwell

Signet

Buy

Rank last week: 2

Weeks on List: *

#3: Animal Farm

By George Orwell

Signet

Buy

Rank last week: 4

Weeks on List: 15

#4: Dune Messiah

By Frank Herbert

Ace

Buy

Rank last week: 5

Weeks on List: 5

#5: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

By Maya Angelou

Ballantine

Buy

Rank last week: 9

Weeks on List: 31

#6: The Autobiography of Malcolm X

By Malcom X

Ballantine

Buy

Rank last week: NEW

Weeks on List: 15

#7: The Shining

By Stephen King

Anchor

Buy

Rank last week: 3

Weeks on List: 8

#8: The Guardians

By John Grisham

Dell

Buy

Rank last week: 7

Weeks on List: 16

#9: The Name of the Wind

By Patrick Rothfuss

DAW

Buy

Rank last week: 6

Weeks on List: *

#10: The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition

By Anne Frank

Bantam

Buy

Rank last week: NEW

Weeks on List: 9

Children's Illustrated Bestsellers

#1: Room on the Broom Push-Pull-Slide Board Book

By Julia Donaldson, Axel Scheffler (Illus.)

Dial Books

Buy

Rank last week: 1

Weeks on List: 6

#2: Antiracist Baby

By Ibram X. Kendi, Ashley Lukashevsky (Illus.)

Kokila

Buy

Rank last week: 2

Weeks on List: 14

#3: What We'll Build: Plans For Our Together Future

By Oliver Jeffers

Philomel Books

Buy

Rank last week: 3

Weeks on List: 2

#4: Little Blue Truck's Halloween

By Alice Schertle, Jill McElmurry (Illus.)

HMH Books for Young Readers

Buy

Rank last week: 4

Weeks on List: 31

#5: Goodnight Moon

By Margaret Wise Brown, Clement Hurd (Illus.)

Harper

Buy

Rank last week: 5

Weeks on List: *

#6: Gustavo, the Shy Ghost

By Flavia Z. Drago

Candlewick

Buy

Rank last week: 6

Weeks on List: 4

#7: Bunheads

By Misty Copeland, Setor Fiadzigbey (Illus.)

G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers

Buy

Rank last week: 8

Weeks on List: 3

#8: The Very Hungry Caterpillar

By Eric Carle

Putnam

Buy

Rank last week: 7

Weeks on List: *

#9: The Snowy Day

By Ezra Jack Keats

Viking Books for Young Readers

Buy

Rank last week: NEW

Weeks on List: *

#10: Where the Wild Things Are

By Maurice Sendak

Harper

Buy

Rank last week: 9

Weeks on List: *

#11: Becoming a Good Creature

By Sy Montgomery, Rebecca Green (Illus.)

HMH Books for Young Readers

Buy

Rank last week: NEW

Weeks on List: 2

#12: Happy Halloween from The Very Busy Spider

By Eric Carle

World of Eric Carle

Buy

Rank last week: 10

Weeks on List: 2

#13: Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?

By Bill Martin, Eric Carle (Illus.)

Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)

Buy

Rank last week: NEW

Weeks on List: *

#14: Unicorns Are the Worst!

By Alex Willan

Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

Buy

Rank last week: NEW

Weeks on List: 2

#15: The Little Ghost Who Was a Quilt

By Riel Nason, Byron Eggenschwiler (Illus.)

Tundra Books

Buy

Rank last week: 13

Weeks on List: 2

Children's Interest Bestsellers

#1: Dog Man: Grime and Punishment

By Dav Pilkey

Graphix

Buy

Rank last week: 1

Weeks on List: 7

#2: Room on the Broom Push-Pull-Slide Board Book

By Julia Donaldson, Axel Scheffler (Illus.)

Dial Books

Buy

Rank last week: 3

Weeks on List: 5

#3: Class Act

By Jerry Craft

Quill Tree Books

Buy

Rank last week: 5

Weeks on List: 2

#4: The Tower of Nero (The Trials of Apollo, Book Five)

By Rick Riordan

Hyperion

Buy

Rank last week: 2

Weeks on List: 2

#5: Rowley Jefferson's Awesome Friendly Adventure

By Jeff Kinney

Amulet

Buy

Rank last week: 6

Weeks on List: 11

#6: Midnight Sun (Twilight)

By Stephenie Meyer

Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Buy

Rank last week: 7

Weeks on List: 11

#7: Antiracist Baby

By Ibram X. Kendi, Ashley Lukashevsky (Illus.)

Kokila

Buy

Rank last week: 9

Weeks on List: 14

#8: Spy School Revolution

By Stuart Gibbs

Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

Buy

Rank last week: 4

Weeks on List: 2

#9: What We'll Build: Plans For Our Together Future

By Oliver Jeffers

Philomel Books

Buy

Rank last week: 12

Weeks on List: 2

#10: Little Blue Truck's Halloween

By Alice Schertle, Jill McElmurry (Illus.)

HMH Books for Young Readers

Buy

Rank last week: 13

Weeks on List: 17

#11: Who Is Ruth Bader Ginsburg? (Who Was/Is...?)

By Patricia Brennan Demuth, Jake Murray (Illus.)

Penguin Workshop

Buy

Rank last week: NEW

Weeks on List: 4

#12: Logan Likes Mary Anne! (The Baby-Sitters Club Graphic Novel, #8)

By Ann M. Martin, Gale Galligan (Illus.)

Graphix

Buy

Rank last week: 8

Weeks on List: 7

#13: A Tale of Witchcraft... (A Tale of Magic... #2)

By Chris Colfer

Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Buy

Rank last week: 14

Weeks on List: 3

#14: The One and Only Bob

By Katherine Applegate, Patricia Castelao (Illus.)

Harper

Buy

Rank last week: NEW

Weeks on List: 24

#15: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (A Hunger Games Novel)

By Suzanne Collins

Scholastic

Buy

Rank last week: 10

Weeks on List: 25