Michael Lewis Tops Indie Bestseller List; Macfarlane Lands Twice

Michael Lewis's Blockers: Rebels in the Deep State sits at number one on this week's Independent Press Top 40 Bestsellers for nonfiction. The W. W. Norton title leads a chart based on sales in hundreds of independent bookstores nationwide, with data provided by the American Booksellers Association and compiled by The Independent Publishers Caucus.

Robin Wall Kimmerer's Braiding Sweetgrass holds at number two (Milkweed). Emily Wilson's Crossing the Wine-Dark Sea: Journeys Through Ancient Literature enters the top three (Liveright). Jill Lepore's The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State takes fourth (Liveright).

What does the top ten reveal about publishing power?

W. W. Norton and its Liveright imprint dominate. Counting both imprints, Norton publishes 15 of the 40 titles, including:

• Blockers (No. 1) and The Fifth Risk (No. 40), both by Michael Lewis
• The Game by Peter King (No. 7)
• Bogland by Merritt R. Turetsky (No. 8)
• Living in the Present with John Prine by Tom Piazza (No. 11)
• Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy by Mary Roach (No. 12)
• S.P.Q.R.: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard (No. 33)

That is nearly four in ten chart places for one publishing house — a concentration no rival matches.

Robert Macfarlane is the only author with two distinct titles in the top ten: The Book of Birds: A Field Guide to Wonder and Loss, co-created with Jackie Morris (No. 9), and Is a River Alive? (No. 10), both from Norton. Anne Carson appears twice with the same book in different editions — Eros the Bittersweet ranks No. 13 from Dalkey Archives and No. 15 in the Princeton Classics edition.

Which themes dominate the full list?

Nature writing claims an outsized share. Beyond Macfarlane and Kimmerer — whose Gathering Moss also charts at No. 19 from Oregon State University Press — the list includes Peter Wohlleben's The Hidden Life of Trees (No. 16), Helen Whybrow's The Salt Stones: Seasons of a Shepherd's Life (No. 32), and Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian's Forest Euphoria: The Abounding Queerness of Nature (No. 29).

John Elledge places two titles: A Brief History of Cities in 32 Inventions (No. 18) and A Brief History of the World in 47 Borders (No. 36), both from The Experiment. Verso publishes four entries, including Anton Jäger's Hyperpolitics (No. 25) and Dean Spade's expanded Mutual Aid (No. 28).

Other notable entries:

• Guinness World Records 2027 at No. 5, the list's only annual franchise title
• Viktor E. Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning at No. 14 (Beacon Press), decades after publication
• I Deliver Parcels in Beijing by Hu AnYan at No. 17 (Astra House)
• Richard Dawkins's 42 Tales from Life: A Modern Bestiary at No. 39 (Yale University Press)
• Mary Roach and Karl Stevens's graphic-format Pepper (No. 34, TOON Books) among the few illustrated titles

Why does this chart matter?

The Indie Top 40 measures a distinct market: hundreds of independent stores, not chain or online giants. Its picture differs from national composite lists. Backlist stalwarts — Frankl, Kimmerer, Wohlleben, Beard — sit alongside new releases from Lewis, Lepore, and Wilson, showing indie readers sustaining both classics and fresh titles.

The chart refreshes weekly, so the balance between Norton's blockbusters and the long tail of university-press and small-imprint titles will be the metric to watch.