“The Mountain Is You”, Zaluzhnyi, and Illarion Pavliuk: Bestsellers in Ukraine 2025

03.01.2026

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The success formula for Ukrainian publishers in 2025 largely mirrors global trends: motivational nonfiction, serialized romance, dark romance, thrillers, and young adult titles by already well-established international authors once again dominate sales. These are the books that reach print runs of tens of thousands of copies, with some selling as many as 40,000–50,000 copies. At the same time, children’s literature—which until 2021 had consistently ranked among top sellers—has almost disappeared from bestseller lists.

As early as 2021, the top five best-selling titles at publishers such as The Old Lion Publishing House consisted exclusively of children’s books, with print runs of 15,000–20,000 copies. Children’s literature also appeared much more frequently among top sellers at other publishers. This year, however, only Ranok Publishing House managed to surpass the mark of more than 15,000 copies sold with a title that had already been a bestseller last year. It is noticeable that among children’s books, the most popular categories remain encyclopedias, “books about growing up,” and titles focused on financial literacy.

In 2025, these include novels by Rebecca Yarros (“Onyx storm,” 45,000), Sierra Simone (“Priest,” 44,000), Liz Tomforde (“Mile high,” 40,000), Holly Jackson (“A good girl’s guide to murder,” 40,000; “Five survive,” 30,000), Penelope Douglas (“Conclave,” 35,000), and Freida McFadden (“The housemaid,” 33,000; “The housemaid is watching,” 24,200).

As in 2024, the bestsellers of 2025 are mostly not new names but long-selling titles or sequels to established series. This continues a trend from previous years: readers tend to choose what is familiar and proven, especially amid steadily rising book prices and limited budgets.

At the same time, demand for psychological and popular science nonfiction remains strong in 2025, having firmly established itself among mass-market sales since 2022. Books about anxiety, relationships, self-organization, and mental health sell particularly well, including “The walls in my head” by Volodymyr Stanchyshyn (33,000), “For kids about intimate matters” by Yuliia Yarmolenko (24,000), “Essentialism” by Greg McKeown (23,600), “The daily stoic” by Ryan Holiday (12,200), and “Behave” by Robert Sapolsky (7,500). For a number of publishers, nonfiction has become the second most profitable segment after genre fiction.

In 2025, Ukrainian authors once again lag behind foreign ones in terms of print runs, although certain names continue to sell very well. As in previous years, the leading Ukrainian writer remains Illarion Pavliuk with “I see you are interested in darkness” (38,000) and “Emil’s book” (25,500). The former has been the publisher’s top-selling title for three consecutive years, with 44,000 copies sold two years ago and 64,500 last year. The top tier of Ukrainian literary fiction once again includes books by Yevheniia Kuznietsova (“Ask Miechka,” 18,000; “The sheep are safe,” 17,000), Andrii Semyankiv (“Dancing with bones,” 21,428), and Anastasiia Levkova (“There is land beyond perekop”). However, as in 2024, these print runs remain significantly lower than those of mass-market international hits.

So what did Ukrainians most want to read? “Chytomo” surveyed 39 publishers to find out which books sold best.

The full list of bestsellers from each publishing house is available in the Ukrainian version of the article. Here, we present the 10 top-selling books from the 10 most successful publishers of the year, each of which has at least one bestseller with a minimum of 15,000 copies sold during the year.

BookChef

Brianna Wiest. “The Mountain Is You: Transforming Self-Sabotage into Self-Mastery” — 58,584 copies;
Brianna Wiest. “The Pivot Year: 365 Days to Become the Person You Truly Want to Be” — 39,073 copies;
Jim Lawless. “Taming Tigers: Do Things You Never Thought You Could” — 38,841 copies;
D. Carlton. “Cat and Mouse Duet. Book 1: Haunting Adeline” — 37,206 copies;
D. Carlton. “Where’s Molly?” — 26,814 copies.

KSD (Family Leisure Club)

Rebecca Yarros. Onyx Storm (The Empyrean Series) Book 3 — 45,000 copies;
Sierra Simone. The Priest. Book 1 — 44,000 copies;
Liz Tomforde. Mile High (Windy City Series) Book 1 — 40,000 copies;
Tess Gerritsen. The Surgeon. Book 1 — 36,000 copies;
Penelope Douglas. Conclave. Book 3 — 35,000 copies.

Readberry

Holly Jackson. A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder — 40,000 copies (same as last year);
Holly Jackson. Five Survive — 30,000 copies;
Holly Jackson. Not Quite Dead Yet — print run not specified;
Lauren Roberts. Powerless — 20,000 copies;
Anna Savas. Hold Me. New England Ballet School — 15,000 copies.

Old Lion Publishing

Illarion Pavliuk. I See You Are Interested in Darkness — 38,000 copies;
Illarion Pavliuk. Emil’s Book — 25,500 copies;
Yevheniia Kuznetsova. Ask Miechka — 18,000 copies;
Yevheniia Kuznetsova. Sheep Are Safe — 17,000 copies;
Pavlo Derevianko. Wolf’s Lasso — 16,000 copies.

Vikhola

Volodymyr Stanchyshyn. Walls in My Head. Living with Anxiety and Depression — 33,900 copies;
Yulia Yarmolenko. For Kids About Intimate Things — 24,000 copies;
Andrii Semiankiv (MED GOblin). Dancing with Bones — 22,000 copies;
Volodymyr Stanchyshyn. Relationships Take Two — 20,900 copies;
Volodymyr Kulish. A Word About the “Slovo” House — 15,000 copies.

Vivat

Freida McFadden. The Housemaid — 33,000 copies;
John P. Strelecky. The Cafe on the Edge of the World — 25,000 copies;
Ana Hwang. Twisted Love — 24,500 copies;
Frieda McFadden. The Housemaid Is Watching — 24,200 copies;
Stephanie Garber. The Ballad of Never After — 19,000 copies.

Babylon Library

Valerii Zaluzhnyi. My War — over 33,000 copies;
Kurt Vonnegut. Player Piano — over 2,500 copies;
Miguel Ángel Asturias. Men of Maize — over 2,200 copies;
Joseph Heller. Catch-22 — over 2,000 copies;
José Saramago. The Lives of Things — over 1,500 copies.

Nash Format

Greg McKeown. Essentialism. The Disciplined Pursuit of Less (updated edition) — 23,616 copies;
Ryan Holiday, Stephen Hanselman. The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living (updated edition) — 12,190 copies;
Robert Sapolsky. Behave — 7,457 copies;
David Goggins. Can’t Hurt Me. Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds — 7,429 copies;
Daniel Kahneman. Thinking, Fast and Slow — 6,263 copies.

Ranok

Hanna Bulgakova. The Big Encyclopedia for Why — 15,500 copies;
Iryna Potanina. My Pets. Meet and Pet Them — 7,000 copies;
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. The Little Prince — 6,500 copies;
Lars Mahle: Dinosaur friends — 6,000 copies;
Rick Riordan. Percy Jackson and the Olympians. The Lightning Thief — 5,000 copies.

Yakaboo Publishing

Clarissa Pinkola Estés. Women Who Run with the Wolves. The Archetype of the Wild Woman in Myths and Legends — 15,024 copies;
Philip Zimbardo. The Lucifer Effect. Understanding How Good People Turn Evil — 3,314 copies;
Anna Topilina. Love Without Illusions. How to Break Free from Toxic Stereotypes and Build Healthy Relationships — 3,095 copies;
John Gwynne. The Shadow of the Gods — 2,939 copies;
Edward Hallowell, John Ratey. ADHD 2.0: New Science and Essential Strategies for Thriving with Distraction–from Childhood through Adulthood — 2,842 copies.