Alta Journal’s California Bestsellers List (August 16, 2023)

With reporting from the California Independent Booksellers Alliance, Alta Journal brings you a list of the bestselling titles at independent bookstores across Northern and Southern California for the week ending August 13, 2023.

It’s that time of the year again: back-to-school season. This year, the sharpening of pencils is overshadowed by the steady uptick of banned books across the country: PEN America reports that over 2,500 books were banned during the 2021–22 school year. This week, we take a look at two books by authors who are no strangers to censorship.

Activist and social critic bell hooks (author of banned book Black Looks: Race and Representation) is again on the bestsellers list with All About Love: New Visions. In this 1999 classic, hooks shares her concept of love and explains how it cannot exist in the presence of abuse and neglect. Also on love: Sarah J. Maas—whose novel A Court of Mist and Fury was banned, and later restored, this year—returns this week for A Court of Thorns and Roses, the first installment in a fantasy series about a huntress in a magical land.

For a full list of titles and categories, visit the California Independent Booksellers Alliance.•

Southern California

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. Tom Lake, Ann Patchett, Harper, $30
2. The Covenant of Water, Abraham Verghese, Grove Press, $32
3. The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, James McBride, Riverhead Books, $28
4. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, Gabrielle Zevin, Knopf, $28
5. Fourth Wing, Rebecca Yarros, Red Tower Books, $29.99
   

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. The Creative Act: A Way of Being, Rick Rubin, Penguin Press, $32
2. Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity, Peter Attia, MD, with Bill Gifford, Harmony, $32
3. The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder, David Grann, Doubleday, $30
4. The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession, Michael Finkel, Knopf, $28
5. Atomic Habits: An Easy and Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones, James Clear, Avery, $27

TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION

1. Trust, Hernan Diaz, Riverhead Books, $17
2. A Court of Thorns and Roses, Sarah J. Maas, Bloomsbury Publishing, $19
3. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Taylor Jenkins Reid, Washington Square Press, $17
4. The Midnight Library, Matt Haig, Penguin Books, $18
5. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho, HarperOne, $17.99

TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION

1. American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, Vintage, $25
2. Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, David Grann, Vintage, $17
3. The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma, Bessel van der Kolk, MD, Penguin Books, $19
4. The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom, Don Miguel Ruiz and Janet Mills, Amber-Allen Publishing, $12.95
5. Crying in H Mart: A Memoir, Michelle Zauner, Vintage, $17

Northern California

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. Tom Lake, Ann Patchett, Harper, $30
2. The Covenant of Water, Abraham Verghese, Grove Press, $32
3. Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver, Harper, $32.50
4. The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, James McBride, Riverhead Books, $28
5. Fourth Wing, Rebecca Yarros, Red Tower Books, $29.99

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder, David Grann, Doubleday, $30
2. Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity, Peter Attia, MD, with Bill Gifford, Harmony, $32
3. The Creative Act: A Way of Being, Rick Rubin, Penguin Press, $32
4. Atomic Habits: An Easy and Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones, James Clear, Avery, $27
5. The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession, Michael Finkel, Knopf, $28

TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION

1. Trust, Hernan Diaz, Riverhead Books, $17
2. The Midnight Library, Matt Haig, Penguin Books, $18
3. A Court of Thorns and Roses, Sarah J. Maas, Bloomsbury Publishing, $19
4. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Taylor Jenkins Reid, Washington Square Press, $17
5. The Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller, Ecco, $17.99

TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION

1. American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, Vintage, $25
2. Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, David Grann, Vintage, $17
3. All About Love: New Visions, bell hooks, William Morrow, $16.99
4. Solito: A Memoir, Javier Zamora, Hogarth, $18
5. Crying in H Mart: A Memoir, Michelle Zauner, Vintage, $17

Source: California Independent Booksellers Alliance

Elizabeth Casillas

Elizabeth Casillas is an associate editor at Alta Journal. A graduate of California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, she has previously written for the Poly Post and Enspire Magazine.