Alta Journal’s California Bestsellers List (January 11, 2024)

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 January 7, 2024.

This week, the bestsellers list features two tales set in the Pacific Northwest. In the opening of Shelby Van Pelt’s Remarkably Bright Creatures, Tova Sullivan is reeling from the death of her husband and her son’s mysterious disappearance in Puget Sound. During her night shift at the aquarium, Sullivan forms an unlikely alliance with a giant Pacific octopus, who could answer the widow’s biggest questions. And from Daniel James Brown comes The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Through primary sources and interviews with descendants, Brown revisits the University of Washington athletes who charted an unusual path to victory.

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

Southern California

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, James McBride, Riverhead Books, $28
2. Tom Lake, Ann Patchett, Harper, $30
3. Lessons in Chemistry, Bonnie Garmus, Doubleday, $29
4. Iron Flame, Rebecca Yarros, Red Tower Books, $29.99
5. North Woods, Daniel Mason, Random House, $28. Read the Alta review.

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. The Creative Act: A Way of Being, Rick Rubin, Penguin Press, $32
2. The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder, David Grann, Doubleday, $30
3. Atomic Habits: An Easy and Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones, James Clear, Avery, $27
4. Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning, Liz Cheney, Little, Brown, $32.50
5. The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession, Michael Finkel, Knopf, $28

TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION

1. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Taylor Jenkins Reid, Washington Square Press, $17
2. Trust, Hernan Diaz, Riverhead Books, $17
3. All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr, Scribner, $18.99
4. The Midnight Library, Matt Haig, Penguin Books, $18
5. A Court of Mist and Fury, Sarah J. Maas, Bloomsbury Publishing, $19

TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION

1. All About Love: New Visions, bell hooks, William Morrow, $16.99
2. The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017, Rashid Khalidi, Picador, $19.99
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 Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics (movie tie-in edition), Daniel James Brown, Penguin, $19
5. The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom, Don Miguel Ruiz and Janet Mills, Amber-Allen Publishing, $12.95

Northern California

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, James McBride, Riverhead Books, $28
2. Iron Flame, Rebecca Yarros, Red Tower Books, $29.99
3. Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver, Harper, $32.50
4. Remarkably Bright Creatures, Shelby Van Pelt, Ecco Press, $29.99
5. North Woods, Daniel Mason, Random House, $28. Read the Alta review.

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning, Liz Cheney, Little, Brown, $32.50
2. The Creative Act: A Way of Being, Rick Rubin, Penguin Press, $32
3. How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen, David Brooks, Random House, $30
4. The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder, David Grann, Doubleday, $30
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. A Court of Mist and Fury, Sarah J. Maas, Bloomsbury Publishing, $19
4. The Midnight Library, Matt Haig, Penguin Books, $18
5. Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone, Benjamin Stevenson, Mariner Books, $18.99

TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION

1. The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics (movie tie-in edition), Daniel James Brown, Penguin, $19
2. All About Love: New Visions, bell hooks, William Morrow, $16.99
3. Solito: A Memoir, Javier Zamora, Hogarth, $18
4. Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI (movie tie-in edition), David Grann, Vintage, $18
5. The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017, Rashid Khalidi, Picador, $19.99

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.