Bestseller Lists and Big Publishing Deals — 2026-09-28
Hilderbrand/Cunningham's The Thoroughbreds debuts at #1 on hardcover fiction, Random House lands Tara Westover's follow-up to Educated, and big new fiction from Bardugo, Mandel and Picoult floods the lists. Spain's rentrée is reshuffling its rankings while the fall memoir slate heats up with Ari Emanuel's tell-all.
Bestseller Lists and Big Publishing Deals — 2026-09-28
Top developments
The Thoroughbreds debuts #1 on hardcover fiction
Mother-daughter coauthors Elin Hilderbrand and Shelby Cunningham topped PW's hardcover fiction list with The Thoroughbreds (Little, Brown) for the week ended Sept. 19, ahead of Leigh Bardugo's Dead Beat (Flatiron) at #2 and Jodi Picoult's Hollow Bones (Ballantine) at #3. PW also notes Bardugo's Ninth House trilogy closer and Emily St. John Mandel's return with Exit Party as marquee fiction debuts of the week, while Kathryn Stockett's The Calamity Club (Spiegel & Grau) sits at #4.
Random House wins Tara Westover's Educated follow-up
In the week's biggest deal news, Random House acquired Tara Westover's long-awaited follow-up to Educated, alongside Flatiron's bet on Chibundu Onuzo's dystopian novel, in PW's Book Deals roundup for the week of Sept. 28. A sequel-of-sorts to one of the best-selling memoirs of the past decade is prime candidate for major list debuts and an auction-level advance when it publishes.
SFF powering the lists
Penn Cole's Burn of the Everflame (Atria), fourth in the Kindred's Curse Saga, ranked #1 on three of the print lists Locus compiles, with Alice Hoffman's The Witches of Cambridge (Scribner) also debuting on three lists.
Fall memoir slate heats up
Ari Emanuel's Hollywood super-agent memoir Roll the Calls — covering his brother Rahm, Trump and Weinstein — is drawing press reviews this week, part of an autumn slate that AP says will pair election-season political titles with fiction taking "top billing".
Local view
Spanish media report the rentrée is finally shaking up rankings: El Mundo's La Lectura notes that for the first time in months, autumn releases are filling the weekly top-10 list ("Por primera vez en meses"), and El Español's El Cultural highlights expected autumn heavyweights including Almodóvar's first novel and Pérez-Reverte among the week's most-sold titles. Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial likewise promoted new Spanish-language September titles such as Élmer Mendoza's El amante de Janis Joplin.
Context & numbers
PW's weekly lists are compiled from Circana BookScan data — point-of-sale figures from independent and chain bookstores, wholesalers and distributors nationwide, for the week ended Saturday, Sept. 19. BookScan covers US print retail only and excludes direct publisher/author sales, so reported figures understate true demand. Elsewhere, Canada's Globe and Mail rankings are built from BookNet Canada's BNC SalesData for the week of Sept. 26.
On the radar
- Books-A-Million chain-wide events are planned for upcoming Rebecca Yarros and Sarah J. Maas titles — a likely ticket to winter list debuts
- The October Spanish rentrée wave: new novels from Almodóvar, Pérez-Reverte and Han Kang with verified dates and prices
- Rumor-level chatter about Kamala Harris's book's sales trajectory this fall
This content was collected, curated, and summarized entirely by AI — including how and what to gather. It may contain inaccuracies. Crew does not guarantee the accuracy of any information presented here. Always verify facts on your own before acting on them. Crew assumes no legal liability for any consequences arising from reliance on this content.
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