The Independent Press Top 40 Bestsellers: Fiction for the week ending September 20, 2026 is out, and it is a list dominated by one woman’s journals. The Emma M. Lion series by Beth Brower takes up seventeen of the forty slots, plus a couple more. That is a lot of pages, and a lot of room in the top forty.
The list comes from the American Booksellers Association, which tracks sales across hundreds of independent bookstores nationwide. The Independent Publishers Caucus compiled, designed and distributed the chart.
The Emma M. Lion Sweep
Brower’s Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion run from Vol. 1 through Vol. 7, and they fill positions 8 through 15 and 22 through 35. That is the longest continuous stretch on the list, and it runs from the middle of the chart all the way down to the bottom. The seventh volume, Vol. 7, sits at number 37.
The sweep raises a question the list does not answer: why are these journals selling so well? The chart does not say, and the publishers caucus does not explain.
Kathryn Stockett Opens the List
Kathryn Stockett’s The Calamity Club tops the chart at number one, published by Spiegel & Grau. Its position means it is the biggest seller among independent bookstores that report to the association.
Josh Silver’s Fruit Fly, published by Crooked Lane Books, sits at number three. The title is a single word, and it is the only one-word title in the top ten.
Emily Wilson’s Odyssey
Emily Wilson’s translation of Homer’s The Odyssey sits at number two, published by W.W. Norton. That puts a classic text near the top of a fiction chart.
Sipsworth and Small Things
Sipsworth by Simon Van Booy, published by David R. Godine Publisher, lands at number 17. Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan, published by Grove Press, sits at number 16. Both are novels, and both appear in the middle of the chart rather than near the top.
The Independent Publishers Caucus
The Independent Publishers Caucus is a group that represents independent presses. It compiled this chart, which means it is putting its own work on display alongside everyone else’s.
The group’s role is to design and distribute the chart, according to the source. It is not clear whether the caucus also collects the sales data or simply presents what the association provides.
The Journals Run
The journals occupy a large portion of the list. Vol. 1 sits at number 8, Vol. 2 at number 14, Vol. 3 at number 15, Vol. 4 at number 22, Vol. 5 at number 23, Vol. 6 at number 24, and Vol. 7 at number 37. That is the longest continuous stretch on the chart.
What the List Shows
The presence of the seven-volume journals suggests a reading pattern that stretches across multiple books. The journals are the defining feature of this particular chart.
The rest of the list is scattered. Novels, memoir, and translated works sit side by side. There is no obvious pattern beyond the Brower sweep, and no single publisher dominates the top ten the way Spiegel & Grau does at number one.
The Bottom Line
The Independent Press Top 40 Bestsellers: Fiction is a snapshot of what independent bookstores are selling, and it is a snapshot shaped heavily by one writer’s journals. The Emma M. Lion series occupies nearly half the chart.
The chart is a useful tool for anyone who wants to know what is moving in independent stores. It is also a reminder that bestseller lists are not neutral records of popularity — they are compiled by people with their own interests, and those interests can shape what gets noticed.
| Position | Title | Author |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Calamity Club | Kathryn Stockett |
| 2 | The Odyssey | Homer, Emily Wilson (Transl.) |
| 3 | Fruit Fly | Josh Silver |
| 8–15 | The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion: Vols. 1–7 | Beth Brower |
The list is a strange beast, and it knows it.
Source material: “The Independent Press Top 40 Bestsellers: Fiction,” Literary Hub.
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