Alta Journal’s California Bestsellers List (June 27, 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 23, 2024.

This week’s bestsellers list debuts a few titles just in time for summer. Catherine Newman’s recently published novel, Sandwich, follows Rocky, a woman stuck between two generations—her elderly parents and her rapidly growing children—all vacationing together in the family’s Cape Cod rental. Already struggling with menopause symptoms and nostalgia for past summers, Rocky must also come to terms with her family’s colored history. And from French author Anne Berest (in a translation by Tina Kover) comes the historical fiction novel The Postcard. Decades after World War II, the Berest family receive a mysterious postcard identifying four of their relatives killed in Auschwitz. With little else for them to go on, the family’s search for the person who sent the letter—and the reason why—begins.

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. James, Percival Everett, Doubleday, $28. Read an excerpt in Alta.
3. All Fours, Miranda July, Riverhead Books, $29. Read the Alta review.
4. Table for Two: Fictions, Amor Towles, Viking, $32
5. Funny Story, Emily Henry, Berkley, $29

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. On Call: A Doctor’s Journey in Public Service, Anthony Fauci, MD, Viking, $36
2. The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War, Erik Larson, Crown Publishing Group, $35
3. The Creative Act: A Way of Being, Rick Rubin, Penguin Press, $32
4. The Friday Afternoon Club: A Family Memoir, Griffin Dunne, Penguin Press, $30. Read an excerpt in Alta.
5. The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness, Jonathan Haidt, Penguin Press, $30

TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION

1. A Court of Thorns and Roses, Sarah J. Maas, Bloomsbury Publishing, $19
2. Lady Tan’s Circle of Women, Lisa See, Scribner, $18.99. Read an excerpt in Alta.
3. Not in Love, Ali Hazelwood, Berkley, $19
4. The Guest, Emma Cline, Random House, $18
5. Just for the Summer, Abby Jimenez, Forever, $17.99

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. Everything I Know About Love: A Memoir, Dolly Alderton, Harper Perennial, $18.99
3. The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom, Don Miguel Ruiz and Janet Mills, Amber-Allen Publishing, $12.95
4. All About Love: New Visions, bell hooks, William Morrow, $16.99
5. The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma, Bessel van der Kolk, MD, Penguin Books, $19

Northern California

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. James, Percival Everett, Doubleday, $28. Read an excerpt in Alta.
2. All Fours, Miranda July, Riverhead Books, $29. Read the Alta review.
3. The Women, Kristin Hannah, St. Martin’s Press, $30
4. Sandwich, Catherine Newman, Harper, $26.99
5. Table for Two: Fictions, Amor Towles, Viking, $32

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. On Call: A Doctor’s Journey in Public Service, Anthony Fauci, MD, Viking, $36
2. The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War, Erik Larson, Crown, $35
3. The Friday Afternoon Club: A Family Memoir, Griffin Dunne, Penguin Press, $30. Read an excerpt in Alta.
4. The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness, Jonathan Haidt, Penguin Press, $30
5. The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder, David Grann, Doubleday, $30

TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION

1. Not in Love, Ali Hazelwood, Berkley, $19
2. Lady Tan’s Circle of Women, Lisa See, Scribner, $18.99. Read an excerpt in Alta.
3. A Court of Thorns and Roses, Sarah J. Maas, Bloomsbury Publishing, $19
4. Just for the Summer, Abby Jimenez, Forever, $17.99
5. The Postcard, Anne Berest and Tina Kover (translator), Europa Editions, $18.95

TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION

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

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.