Alta Journal’s California Bestsellers List (June 13, 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 June 9, 2024.

Sixteen years after his death, Jurassic Park creator Michael Crichton’s passion project has finally been published. Using Crichton’s notes and a half-finished manuscript, author James Patterson completed Eruption, the story of a natural disaster that’s overshadowed by a U.S. military secret kept hidden for decades. Also published posthumously is Anthony Bourdain’s World Travel: An Irreverent Guide. Laurie Woolever, Bourdain’s former assistant and coauthor of Appetites: A Cookbook, uses Bourdain’s writings and TV appearances to recount his experiences in the 43 locations featured.

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

Southern California

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. The Women, Kristin Hannah, St. Martin’s Press, $30
2. Eruption, Michael Crichton and James Patterson, Little, Brown and Company, $32
3. Table for Two: Fictions, Amor Towles, Viking, $32
4. Funny Story, Emily Henry, Berkley, $29
5. All Fours, Miranda July, Riverhead Books, $29. Read the Alta review.

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War, Erik Larson, Crown Publishing Group, $35
2. The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness, Jonathan Haidt, Penguin Press, $30
3. The Creative Act: A Way of Being, Rick Rubin, Penguin Press, $32
4. An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Simon & Schuster, $35
5. In My Time of Dying: How I Came Face-to-Face with the Idea of an Afterlife, Sebastian Junger, Simon & Schuster, $27.99

TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION

1. A Court of Thorns and Roses, Sarah J. Maas, Bloomsbury Publishing, $19
2. Trust, Hernan Diaz, Riverhead Books, $17
3. Just for the Summer, Abby Jimenez, Forever, $17.99
4. Dune, Frank Herbert, Ace Books, $18
5. Happy Place, Emily Henry, Berkley Books, $19

TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION

1. The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017, Rashid Khalidi, Metropolitan Books, $19.99
2. All About Love: New Visions, bell hooks, William Morrow, $16.99
3. The Backyard Bird Chronicles, Amy Tan, Knopf, $35
4. Everything I Know About Love: A Memoir, Dolly Alderton, Harper Perennial, $18.99
5. Liliana’s Invincible Summer: A Sister’s Search for Justice, Cristina Rivera Garza, Hogarth Press, $18

Northern California

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. James, Percival Everett, Doubleday, $28. Read an excerpt in Alta.
2. The Women, Kristin Hannah, St. Martin’s Press, $30
3. All Fours, Miranda July, Riverhead Books, $29. Read the Alta review.
4. Eruption, Michael Crichton and James Patterson, Little, Brown and Company, $32
5. Table for Two: Fictions, Amor Towles, Viking, $32

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War, Erik Larson, Crown, $35
2. The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness, Jonathan Haidt, Penguin Press, $30
3. The Creative Act: A Way of Being, Rick Rubin, Penguin Press, $32
4. An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Simon & Schuster, $35
5. Somehow: Thoughts on Love, Anne Lamott, Riverhead Books, $22

TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION

1. A Court of Thorns and Roses, Sarah J. Maas, Bloomsbury Publishing, $19
2. The Three-Body Problem, Cixin Liu and Ken Liu (translator), Tor Books, $18.99
3. Happy Place, Emily Henry, Berkley Books, $19
4. The Guest, Emma Cline, Random House, $18
5. The Midnight Library, Matt Haig, Penguin Books, $18

TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION

1. The Backyard Bird Chronicles, Amy Tan, Knopf, $35
2. The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017, Rashid Khalidi, Metropolitan Books, $19.99
3. All About Love: New Visions, bell hooks, William Morrow, $16.99
4. Solito: A Memoir, Javier Zamora, Hogarth, $18. Register for Zamora’s California Book Club event.
5. World Travel: An Irreverent Guide, Anthony Bourdain and Laurie Woolever, Ecco, $22

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.