Which self-help books do Italians buy? The sales charts published every month by the Giornale della Libreria, the magazine of the Italian Publishers Association (AIE), based on NielsenIQ data, paint a picture of a market very different from France. Where France favors translated classics, Italy makes plenty of room for its own authors.
Short answer: the self-help book that has sold best in Italy over time is La sottile arte di fare quello che ca**o ti pare, the translation of Mark Manson's The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck (407,000 copies in total). Recent years have been dominated by Italian author Gianluca Gotto, number one in the category in 2023 and 2024, and then by La teoria di lasciare andare (The Let Them Theory) by Mel Robbins, top of the charts in 2026.
The best-seller ranking
In Italy, self-help is classified in the manualistica category, which also includes cooking, games and practical guides. The positions below are therefore ranks within this broader category.
| Book (Italian title) | Author | What the figures say |
|---|---|---|
| La sottile arte di fare quello che ca**o ti pare (The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck) | Mark Manson | No. 2 in 2023, No. 3 in 2024, No. 4 in 2025; 407,000 copies in total |
| Profondo come il mare, leggero come il cielo | Gianluca Gotto | No. 1 in 2023, still in the top 10 in 2025 |
| Quando inizia la felicità | Gianluca Gotto | No. 1 in 2024 |
| La teoria di lasciare andare (The Let Them Theory) | Mel Robbins | No. 2 in 2025, No. 1 or No. 2 almost every month in 2026 |
| Atomic Habits | James Clear | In the monthly top 10 throughout 2026 |
| Intelligenza emotiva (Emotional Intelligence) | Daniel Goleman | No. 9 in 2023, No. 10 in 2024 |
| Perfetti o felici / Io, te, l'amore | Stefania Andreoli | Top 10 in 2023 and in 2024 |
| Ti meriti la felicità | Andrea De Simone | No. 9 in 2025 |
| Lascia che la felicità accada | Anna De Simone and Ana Maria Sepe | Monthly top 5 in early 2026 |
| La montagna sei tu (The Mountain Is You) | Brianna Wiest | Monthly top 10 in 2026 |
The long-seller: Mark Manson
Published in Italy in 2017, Mark Manson's book is a lasting phenomenon: 70,000 copies sold in 2024 alone, 407,000 in total according to GfK data cited by ItaliaOggi, and a place in the category top 5 three years in a row. Its provocative tone and its message boil down to one idea: carefully choose what is worth caring about. Read the summary of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck.
The wave of Italian authors
This is the defining feature of the Italian market. Gianluca Gotto, whose books are about travel, the search for meaning and happiness, took first place in the category two years in a row with Profondo come il mare, leggero come il cielo (2023) and then Quando inizia la felicità (2024). His books sold nearly 360,000 copies in total in 2024 according to GfK.
Around him, a generation of Italian authors holds the top of the charts: psychotherapist Stefania Andreoli, Andrea De Simone, the duo Anna De Simone and Ana Maria Sepe, Daniel Lumera, number one in the category in May 2025 with Ti lascio andare, and Paolo Borzacchiello, a specialist in persuasive communication.
The 2025-2026 phenomenon: La teoria di lasciare andare
Released in Italy in May 2025, Mel Robbins' book (The Let Them Theory) climbed to second place in the category's 2025 annual sales, then to the top almost every month of 2026. According to Il Post, 86,000 copies had already been sold by January 2026. Its central idea: stop trying to control other people's behavior and focus your energy on what is up to you, a very modern take on a Stoic idea.
The international classics
Translated classics are less dominant than in France, but some have settled in for the long run. Atomic Habits, by James Clear, appears in the monthly top 10 throughout 2026 (read the summary). Intelligenza emotiva (Emotional Intelligence), by Daniel Goleman, was in the annual top 10 in 2023 and in 2024 (we devoted a complete guide to it). And La montagna sei tu (The Mountain Is You), by Brianna Wiest, settled into the monthly top 10 in 2026.
A shrinking market
These successes come against the backdrop of a declining Italian book market: -1.5% in value in 2024, then -2.1% in 2025, to 1.484 billion euros according to the AIE. The manualistica category fell by 4.1% in 2024. The self-help best-sellers are holding up nonetheless, a sign that Italian readers are concentrating their purchases on a few strong titles.
What this ranking reveals
Compared with France, the Italian market favors homegrown authors and recent books, whereas French readers stay loyal to twenty-year-old classics. The two countries do, however, share a strong taste for self-help focused on emotions, happiness and relationships rather than productivity. For comparison, check out the best-selling self-help books in France and our ranking of the countries that read the most in Europe.
Several of these books are summarized on Cobalt, in a 5-minute read, at https://www.cobaltapp.io/en/resumes, and the app can be downloaded at https://www.cobaltapp.io/download.
Method and sources: annual and monthly rankings of the manualistica category published by the Giornale della Libreria (AIE) based on NielsenIQ BookData; sales figures cited by ItaliaOggi (December 2024, GfK data) and Il Post (January 2026); AIE market data for 2024 and 2025. Public Italian rankings are limited to the top 10.