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 April 21, 2024.
The triumphant memoir Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder, by Booker Prize winner Salman Rushdie, is featured on the list this week. Almost two years after an attempt on his life, Rushdie finally shares his memory of the attack and subsequent recovery journey. And in the world of fiction, Yulin Kuang’s How to End a Love Story captures a blossoming romance set in Hollywood. In this novel, bestselling L.A. author Helen Zhang reencounters screenwriter Grant Shepard after 13 years apart. Can their love survive the shadow of the tragic event that defined their first meeting all those years ago?
For a full list of titles and categories, visit the California Independent Booksellers Alliance.•
Southern California
HARDCOVER FICTION
- James, Percival Everett, Doubleday, $28. Read an excerpt in Alta.
- The Women, Kristin Hannah, St. Martin’s Press, $30
- Table for Two: Fictions, Amor Towles, Viking, $32
- The Familiar, Leigh Bardugo, Flatiron Books, $29.99
- The Hunter, Tana French, Viking, $32
HARDCOVER NONFICTION
- Somehow: Thoughts on Love, Anne Lamott, Riverhead Books, $22
- Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder, Salman Rushdie, Random House, $28
- An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Simon & Schuster, $35
- The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality, Amanda Montell, Atria/One Signal Publishers, $28.99
- The Creative Act: A Way of Being, Rick Rubin, Penguin Press, $32
TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION
- The Three-Body Problem, Cixin Liu, Tor Books, $18.99
- Just for the Summer, Abby Jimenez, Forever, $17.99
- Dune, Frank Herbert, Ace Books, $18
- A Court of Thorns and Roses, Sarah J. Maas, Bloomsbury Publishing, $19
- How to End a Love Story, Yulin Kuang, Avon, $18.99
TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION
- Everything I Know About Love: A Memoir, Dolly Alderton, Harper Perennial, $18.99
- The Eater Guide to Los Angeles, Eater, Abrams Image, $19.99
- The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017, Rashid Khalidi, Metropolitan Books, $19.99
- Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI (movie tie-in edition), David Grann, Vintage, $18
- All About Love: New Visions, bell hooks, William Morrow, $16.99
Northern California
HARDCOVER FICTION
- James, Percival Everett, Doubleday, $28. Read an excerpt in Alta.
- Table for Two: Fictions, Amor Towles, Viking, $32
- The Women, Kristin Hannah, St. Martin’s Press, $30
- The Familiar, Leigh Bardugo, Flatiron Books, $29.99
- Wandering Stars, Tommy Orange, Knopf, $29. Read the Alta review.
HARDCOVER NONFICTION
- Somehow: Thoughts on Love, Anne Lamott, Riverhead Books, $22
- Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder, Salman Rushdie, Random House, $28
- An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Simon & Schuster, $35
- The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook, Hampton Sides, Doubleday, $35
- The Creative Act: A Way of Being, Rick Rubin, Penguin Press, $32
TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION
- The Three-Body Problem, Cixin Liu, Tor Books, $18.99
- A Court of Thorns and Roses, Sarah J. Maas, Bloomsbury Publishing, $19
- Trust, Hernan Diaz, Riverhead Books, $17
- Dune, Frank Herbert, Ace Books, $18
- The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Taylor Jenkins Reid, Atria Books, $17
TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION
- The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017, Rashid Khalidi, Metropolitan Books, $19.99
- Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI (movie tie-in edition), David Grann, Vintage, $18
- Solito: A Memoir, Javier Zamora, Hogarth, $18. Register for Zamora’s California Book Club event.
- All About Love: New Visions, bell hooks, William Morrow, $16.99
- Poverty, by America, Matthew Desmond, Crown, $20
Source: California Independent Booksellers Alliance
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.
