Bestselling Books in California

With reporting from the California Impartial Booksellers Alliance, Alta Journal brings you a listing of the bestselling titles at unbiased bookstores throughout Northern and Southern California for the week ending August 17, 2025.

Our September California E book Membership choose—The Backyard Bird Chronicles—is on the checklist this week. On this journal, creator Amy Tan paperwork her birdwatching via diary entries and sketches that remember the wonders of the pure world. Make sure you tune in on September 18, to look at ebook membership host John Freeman in dialog with Tan. If you happen to’re within the temper for a high-stakes thriller, choose up Not Fairly Lifeless But by Holly Jackson. After surviving an assault on Halloween evening, Jet Mason learns she has only one week to reside on account of an aneurysm brought on by the assault. Mason spends her remaining days monitoring down the individual accountable.

For a full checklist of titles and classes, go to the California Independent Booksellers Alliance.•

Southern California

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. The Emperor of Gladness, Ocean Vuong, Penguin Press, $30
2. Atmosphere: A Love Story, Taylor Jenkins Reid, Ballantine Books, $30
3. James, Percival Everett, Doubleday, $28. Learn an excerpt in Alta.
4. The Wedding People, Alison Espach, Henry Holt and Firm, $28.99
5. My Friends, Fredrik Backman, Atria Books, $29.99

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. The Let Them Theory: A Life-Changing Tool That Millions of People Can’t Stop Talking About, Mel Robbins and Sawyer Robbins, Hay Home, $29.99
2. Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America, Robert B. Reich, Knopf, $30
3. The Creative Act: A Way of Being, Rick Rubin, Penguin Press, $32
4. Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection, John Inexperienced, Crash Course Books, $28
5. A Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck, Sophie Elmhirst, Riverhead Books, $28

TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION

1. Martyr!, Kaveh Akbar, Classic, $18. Watch the creator communicate at a California Book Club event.
2. Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir, Ballantine, $20
3. Remarkably Bright Creatures, Shelby Van Pelt, Ecco, $19.99
4. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho, HarperOne, $17.99
5. I Who Have Never Known Men, Jacqueline Harpman and Ros Schwartz (translator), Transit Books, $16.95

TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION

1. On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, Timothy Snyder, Crown, $12
2. Didion and Babitz, Lili Anolik, Scribner, $20. Learn the Alta interview.
3. All the Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me, Patrick Bringley, Simon & Schuster, $18.99
4. The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder, David Grann, Classic, $21
5. The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity, Julia Cameron, TarcherPerigee, $20

Northern California

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. Atmosphere: A Love Story, Taylor Jenkins Reid, Ballantine Books, $30
2. James, Percival Everett, Doubleday, $28. Learn an excerpt in Alta.
3. The Emperor of Gladness, Ocean Vuong, Penguin Press, $30
4. My Friends, Fredrik Backman, Atria Books, $29.99
5. Not Quite Dead Yet, Holly Jackson, Bantam, $28

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America, Robert B. Reich, Knopf, $30
2. Abundance, Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, Avid Reader Press, $30
3. One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, Omar El Akkad, Knopf, $28
4. Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection, John Inexperienced, Crash Course Books, $28
5. King of Kings: The Iranian Revolution; A Story of Hubris, Delusion and Catastrophic Miscalculation, Scott Anderson, Doubleday, $35

TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION

1. Martyr!, Kaveh Akbar, Classic, $18. Watch the creator communicate at a California Book Club event.
2. Remarkably Bright Creatures, Shelby Van Pelt, Ecco, $19.99
3. Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir, Ballantine, $20
4. All Fours, Miranda July, Riverhead Books, $19. Learn the Alta review.
5. The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, James McBride, Riverhead Books, $19

TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION

1. On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, Timothy Snyder, Crown, $12
2. The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession, Michael Finkel, Classic, $18
3. The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder, David Grann, Classic, $21
4. All About Love: New Visions, bell hooks, William Morrow, $16.99
5. The Backyard Bird Chronicles, Amy Tan, Knopf, $36. Register for the California Book Club occasion.

Supply: California Independent Booksellers Alliance

Elizabeth Casillas is an assistant editor at Alta Journal. A graduate of California State Polytechnic College, Pomona, she has beforehand written for the Poly Put up and Enspire Journal.