As autumn with its deluge of big publications approaches, we’ve looked back at the year so far. And romantasy is in the lead in the UK, with Rebecca Yarros’s Onyx Storm, about a school of dragon riders, selling over 280,000 copies (and more than 11,000 in Ireland). But Richard Osman is close behind with his latest cosy crime success — if you add the hardback and paperback sales of We Solve Murders together, it comes to 275,785 copies.

Hanging in at No 2 in General Paperbacks is The Salt Path, which enjoyed a brief spike in sales after the release of the film adaptation, starring Gillian Anderson. But after an Observer investigation that challenged the veracity of the memoir, sales have been steadily declining and the book recently dropped from the weekly bestseller lists. Will it have sold enough in the first half of the year to make it onto our end-of-year charts? We’ll have to wait and see.

General hardbacks

1 The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins (Hay House £22.99)
Stop wasting your time and energy on the things that you can’t control (138,085)
Does Mel Robbins have the key to happiness in 2025?

2 What’s Your Dream? by Simon Squibb (Century £20)
The entrepreneur shares lessons learnt from his business life and personal life (49,950)

3 To the Women by Donna Ashworth (Black & White £12.99)
Poetry collection celebrating the beauty, strength and joy of being a woman (49,720)

4 Open When… by Julie Smith (Michael Joseph £20)
Advice to turn to when you find yourself caught in the eye of a storm (44,260)

5 Big Dunc by Duncan Ferguson (Century £22)
Autobiography by the larger-than-life Scottish footballer who played for Everton FC (43,960)

6 Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton (Canongate £18.99)
How an unlikely friendship with a newborn hare transformed the author’s life (37,935)
Read our review of Raising Hare

7 The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy (Ebury £20)
An illustrated fable containing gentle life philosophy on friendship and hope (29,730)

8 The Little Things in Life by Catherine Hapka and Mike Wall (Studio £14.99)
Illustrated mindful moments and affirmations from Disney’s Winnie the Pooh (27,855)

9 The Greatest Story Ever Told by Bear Grylls (John Murray £14.99)
A retelling of the life of Jesus Christ using eyewitness accounts from the era (26,885)
Bear Grylls: To be fully understood, the Christian faith must be tried

10 Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams (Macmillan £22)
The author’s experiences working at the heart of Facebook (26,610)

• The Sunday Times Bestsellers — have men or women sold more books this year?

General paperbacks

1 The Trading Game by Gary Stevenson (Penguin £10.99)
The rags-to-riches memoir of a former City trader and why he gave it all up (114,040)
Read our review of The Trading Game

2 The Salt Path by Raynor Winn (Penguin £10.99)
A couple of 32 years discover the healing power of the natural world (111,630)

3 The Courage to Be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga (Allen & Unwin £10.99)
A philosopher and a student discuss the means to achieve lasting happiness (108,595)

4 Atomic Habits by James Clear (Random House Business £17.99)
The minuscule changes that can result in life-altering outcomes (101,850)

5 The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt (Penguin £10.99)
How a shift from free play to smartphones in childhood has affected our health (84,155)

6 Ultra-Processed People by Chris van Tulleken (Penguin £10.99)
Investigating the science and economics of highly processed food (56,345)

7 The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel (Harriman House £16.99)
A series of essays on the strange ways people think about money (55,515)

8 Surrounded by Idiots by Thomas Erikson (Vermilion £10.99)
How understanding personality types can improve human interaction (54,900)

9 Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton (Canongate £10.99)
How an unlikely friendship with a newborn hare transformed the author’s life (53,890)

10 Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall (Elliott & Thompson £10.99)
Ten maps that tell you all about global politics (47,070)

• Meet Rebecca Yarros — the new queen of romantasy

Fiction hardbacks

1 Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros (Piatkus £25)
As war heightens in Basgiath loyalties are tested; sequel to Iron Flame (280,735)
Read our review of Onyx Storm

2 Never Flinch by Stephen King (Hodder & Stoughton £25)
The PI Holly Gibney faces a killer’s cryptic threat and a client with a stalker (50,155)

3 Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (4th Estate £20)
The interconnected story of four women, their loves, longings and desires (48,105)

4 Quicksilver by Callie Hart (Hodderscape £20)
A woman with strange powers lands in the middle of a centuries-long conflict (47,250)

5 Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid (Hutchinson Heinemann £20)
An astrophysics professor begins training in the 1980s US space programme (37,015)
Read our review of Atmosphere

6 Don’t Let Him In by Lisa Jewell (Century £20)
A seemingly perfect man hiding a host of secrets seduces a recent widow (35,995)
Novelist Lisa Jewell: ‘I thought my daughter was dying’

7 We Solve Murders by Richard Osman (Viking £22)
A private security officer calls her father-in-law for help when framed for murder (33,365)
Read our review of We Solve Murders

8 We All Live Here by Jojo Moyes (Michael Joseph £22)
When Lila Kennedy’s estranged dad reappears in her life it feels like the final straw (32,455)

9 Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by VE Schwab (Tor £22)
The desires and dreams of a trio of women across three time periods (31,800)

10 The Knight and the Moth by Rachel Gillig (Orbit £19.99)
A prophetess is forced on an impossible quest with a knight (30,560)

Fiction paperbacks

1 We Solve Murders by Richard Osman (Penguin £9.99)
A private security officer calls her father-in-law for help when framed for murder (242,420)

2 The Housemaid by Freida McFadden (Little, Brown £9.99)
Hired as a live-in maid, an ex-con finds her employers difficult to work for (207,200)

3 Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros (Piatkus £10.99)
A young woman is among many candidates to become an elite dragon rider (191,115)

4 A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J Maas (Bloomsbury £8.99)
After a huntress kills a wolf, a terrifying creature demands retribution (168,845)

5 In Too Deep by Lee Child and Andrew Child (Penguin £9.99)
Jack Reacher wakes up shackled to a bed with no memory of how he got there (168,010)

6 The Women by Kristin Hannah (Pan £9.99)
In 1965 a sheltered daughter of conservative parents enlists as a nurse in Vietnam (165,750)

7 Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros (Piatkus £10.99)
Violet Sorrengail’s second year at Basgiath War College; sequel to Fourth Wing (162,750)

8 My Favourite Mistake by Marian Keyes (Penguin £9.99)
A beauty PR trades the skyscrapers of Manhattan for a tiny Irish town (146,150)

9 The Hotel Avocado by Bob Mortimer (Gallery £9.99)
Gary Thorn is tempted to help his girlfriend to open a hotel in Brighton (138,025)
Read our review of The Hotel Avocado

10 The List of Suspicious Things by Jennie Godfrey (Penguin £9.99)
A girl seeks to uncover the identity of the Yorkshire Ripper (137,845)

• Read more book reviews and interviews — and see what’s top of the Sunday Times Bestsellers List

Manuals

1 Cozy Corner by Coco Wyo (Penguin £7.99)
A heartwarming bakery, a reading alcove, a cosy kitchen and more to colour in (156,095)

2 Cozy Cuties by Coco Wyo (Penguin £7.99)
Colour in budding gardens, baby animals and sunny skies for rest and relaxation (139,910)

3 Easy Air Fryer by Jamie Oliver (Michael Joseph £26)
Recipes to get the maximum out of the kitchen gadget that saves you time and money (113,890)

4 Live to Eat by Emily English (Seven Dials £25)
A new collection of recipes that are nutritionally balanced and easy to prepare (61,285)

5 Girl Moments by Coco Wyo (Coco Wyo £7.50)
Colouring book for adults and children featuring scenes of familiar daily activities (58,150)

The lists are prepared by and the data is supplied by (and copyrighted to) NielsenIQ BookData, and are taken from NielsenIQ BookScan Total Consumer Market for the 33-week period from 29/12/2024 to 16/08/2025.

To order a copy of any of our bestsellers go to timesbookshop.co.uk/bestsellers

Explore the best books of 2025 with our critics’ top reads so far, or see the top 100 bestselling books of the past 50 years

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