Alta Journal’s California Bestsellers List (October 18, 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 15, 2023.

This week’s bestsellers list features the Pulitzer Prize finalist The Idiot, by Elif Batuman. Selin, a young Turkish woman, is starting her first year at Harvard in 1995. As her world expands, she assumes an identity that would have shocked her younger self. Also featured this week is Nick Offerman’s travelogue, Where the Deer and the Antelope Play: The Pastoral Observations of One Ignorant American Who Loves to Walk Outside. With vivid insights from his three excursions across the United States, Offerman reflects on one’s connection to the outdoors and the importance of conservation.

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 Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, James McBride, Riverhead Books, $28
3. The Fraud, Zadie Smith, Penguin Press, $29
4. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, Gabrielle Zevin, Knopf, $28
5. Death Valley, Melissa Broder, Scribner, $27

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. Be Useful: Seven Tools for Life, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Penguin Press, $28
2. Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon, Michael Lewis, W.W. Norton & Company, $30
3. The Creative Act: A Way of Being, Rick Rubin, Penguin Press, $32
4. Elon Musk, Walter Isaacson, Simon & Schuster, $35
5. Making It So: A Memoir, Patrick Stewart, Gallery Books, $35

TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION

1. Trust, Hernan Diaz, Riverhead Books, $17
2. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Taylor Jenkins Reid, Washington Square Press, $17
3. The Way Forward, Yung Pueblo, Andrews McMeel Publishing, $16.99
4. The Midnight Library, Matt Haig, Penguin Books, $18
5. The Idiot, Elif Batuman, 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. Stay True: A Memoir, Hua Hsu, Anchor, $17. Read Alta’s coverage here.
3. All About Love: New Visions, bell hooks, William Morrow, $16.99
4. Where the Deer and the Antelope Play: The Pastoral Observations of One Ignorant American Who Loves to Walk Outside, Nick Offerman, Dutton, $18
5. The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion, Vintage, $17

Northern California

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. Tom Lake, Ann Patchett, Harper, $30
2. Lessons in Chemistry, Bonnie Garmus, Doubleday, $29
3. The Fraud, Zadie Smith, Penguin Press, $29
4. Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver, Harper, $32.50
5. The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, James McBride, Riverhead Books, $28

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon, Michael Lewis, W.W. Norton & Company, $30
2. Be Useful: Seven Tools for Life, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Penguin Press, $28
3. Elon Musk, Walter Isaacson, Simon & Schuster, $35
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 Passenger, Cormac McCarthy, Vintage, $18. Read the Alta review.
3. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Taylor Jenkins Reid, Washington Square Press, $17
4. The Best Short Stories 2023: The O. Henry Prize Winners, Lauren Groff (editor), Anchor, $18
5. The Midnight Library, Matt Haig, 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. Solito: A Memoir, Javier Zamora, Hogarth, $18
3. Stay True: A Memoir, Hua Hsu, Anchor, $17. Read Alta’s coverage here.
4. All About Love: New Visions, bell hooks, William Morrow, $16.99
5. Crying in H Mart: A Memoir, Michelle Zauner, Vintage, $17

Source: California Independent Booksellers Alliance

Elizabeth Casillas

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