Alta Journal’s California Bestsellers List (October 4, 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 October 1, 2023.

For Banned Books Week (October 1–7), we take a look at bestselling titles by authors whose writing has been challenged, disputed, or banned. Ann Patchett’s Tom Lake, a story of a mother and her three daughters’ reflections on family history, graces the top of the list. In 2006, Patchett’s memoir Truth and Beauty: A Friendship was challenged by Clemson University, in South Carolina, for depictions of sex, drug use, and suicide. Also on the list is Lauren Groff’s almost one-month-old novel, The Vaster Wilds: a young girl’s tale of survival after escaping a colonial settlement. Groff’s 2015 novel, Fates and Furies, is still making headlines after it was banned in Florida in 2022. Last, Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead tells the story of a lost boy in southern Appalachia, evoking the four southern girls searching for meaning on a missionary trip to the Congo in The Poisonwood Bible, which was formerly banned in New York State.

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 Vaster Wilds, Lauren Groff, Riverhead Books, $28
3. The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, James McBride, Riverhead Books, $28
4. The Iliad, Homer, Emily Wilson (translator), W.W. Norton & Company, $39.95
5. Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver, Harper, $32.50

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. Elon Musk, Walter Isaacson, Simon & Schuster, $35
2. The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder, David Grann, Doubleday, $30
3. Enough, Cassidy Hutchinson, Simon & Schuster, $30
4. Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America, Heather Cox Richardson, Viking, $30
5. The Creative Act: A Way of Being, Rick Rubin, Penguin Press, $32

TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION

1. Trust, Hernan Diaz, Riverhead Books, $17
2. The Secret History, Donna Tartt, Vintage, $18
3. Big Swiss, Jen Beagin, Scribner, $17
4. The Best Short Stories 2023: The O. Henry Prize Winners, Lauren Groff (editor), Anchor, $18
5. The Thursday Murder Club, Richard Osman, Penguin Books, $18

TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION

1. Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, David Grann, Vintage, $17
2. Crying in H Mart: A Memoir, Michelle Zauner, Vintage, $17
3. American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, Vintage, $25
4. Solito: A Memoir, Javier Zamora, Hogarth, $18
5. Stay True: A Memoir, Hua Hsu, Anchor, $17. Read Alta’s coverage here.

Northern California

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. Tom Lake, Ann Patchett, Harper, $30
2. Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver, Harper, $32.50
3. The Fraud, Zadie Smith, Penguin Press, $29
4. The Iliad, Homer, Emily Wilson (translator), W.W. Norton & Company, $39.95
5. The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, James McBride, Riverhead Books, $28

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America, Heather Cox Richardson, Viking, $30
2. Enough, Cassidy Hutchinson, Simon & Schuster, $30
3. Elon Musk, Walter Isaacson, Simon & Schuster, $35
4. The Creative Act: A Way of Being, Rick Rubin, Penguin Press, $32
5. Astor: The Rise and Fall of an American Fortune, Anderson Cooper and Katherine Howe, Harper, $32.99

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 Best Short Stories 2023: The O. Henry Prize Winners, Lauren Groff (editor), Anchor, $18

TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION

1. Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, David Grann, Vintage, $17
2. Solito: A Memoir, Javier Zamora, Hogarth, $18
3. How to Tell a Story: The Essential Guide to Memorable Storytelling from the Moth, Moth staffers, Crown, $18
4. Crying in H Mart: A Memoir, Michelle Zauner, Vintage, $17
5. Bay Curious: Exploring the Hidden True Stories of the San Francisco Bay Area, Olivia Allen-Price, Chronicle Books, $15.95

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.