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 July 21, 2024.
Fill your summer TBR shelf with titles from this week’s bestsellers list. Can a family overcome generational trauma? Taffy Brodesser-Akner sets the stage in her new novel, Long Island Compromise. When Carl Fletcher was kidnapped—and returned—in 1980, no one could imagine the lasting ramifications the event would have for his three children. Almost 40 years later, Nathan, Beamer, and Jenny struggle to maintain a sense of normalcy in their lives with the feeling of terror from their father’s disappearance still lingering. And in The Black Bird Oracle, Deborah Harkness’s latest installation in her All Souls series, another character grapples with her legacy. After spending years running away from her family and their magical powers, Diana Bishop is forced to turn to her mystical great-aunt to help save her young children.
For a full list of titles and categories, visit the California Independent Booksellers Alliance.•
Southern California
HARDCOVER FICTION
- Long Island Compromise, Taffy Brodesser-Akner, Random House, $30
- All Fours, Miranda July, Riverhead Books, $29. Read the Alta review.
- The God of the Woods, Liz Moore, Riverhead Books, $30
- The Bright Sword, Lev Grossman, Viking, $35
- James, Percival Everett, Doubleday, $28. Read an excerpt in Alta.
HARDCOVER NONFICTION
- The Creative Act: A Way of Being, Rick Rubin, Penguin Press, $32
- The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War, Erik Larson, Crown Publishing Group, $35
- What This Comedian Said Will Shock You, Bill Maher, Simon & Schuster, $30
- The Friday Afternoon Club: A Family Memoir, Griffin Dunne, Penguin Press, $30. Read an excerpt in Alta.
- The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder, David Grann, Doubleday, $30
TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION
- Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, Gabrielle Zevin, Vintage, $19
- Lady Tan’s Circle of Women, Lisa See, Scribner, $18.99. Read an excerpt in Alta.
- A Court of Thorns and Roses, Sarah J. Maas, Bloomsbury Publishing, $19
- Just for the Summer, Abby Jimenez, Forever, $17.99
- The Exchange: After the Firm, John Grisham, Vintage, $18
TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION
- The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession, Michael Finkel, Vintage, $18
- All About Love: New Visions, bell hooks, William Morrow, $16.99
- The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion, Vintage, $17
- Slouching Towards Bethlehem: Essays, Joan Didion, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $18
- 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
- James, Percival Everett, Doubleday, $28. Read an excerpt in Alta.
- The Women, Kristin Hannah, St. Martin’s Press, $30
- All Fours, Miranda July, Riverhead Books, $29. Read the Alta review.
- The Black Bird Oracle, Deborah Harkness, Ballantine Books, $32
- Long Island Compromise, Taffy Brodesser-Akner, Random House, $30
HARDCOVER NONFICTION
- The Creative Act: A Way of Being, Rick Rubin, Penguin Press, $32
- On Call: A Doctor’s Journey in Public Service, Anthony Fauci, MD, Viking, $36
- The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War, Erik Larson, Crown, $35
- The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness, Jonathan Haidt, Penguin Press, $30
- The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder, David Grann, Doubleday, $30
TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION
- Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, Gabrielle Zevin, Vintage, $19
- A Court of Thorns and Roses, Sarah J. Maas, Bloomsbury Publishing, $19
- Lady Tan’s Circle of Women, Lisa See, Scribner, $18.99. Read an excerpt in Alta.
- Trust, Hernan Diaz, Riverhead Books, $17
- The Exchange: After the Firm, John Grisham, Vintage, $18
TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION
- The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession, Michael Finkel, Vintage, $18
- All About Love: New Visions, bell hooks, William Morrow, $16.99
- The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017, Rashid Khalidi, Metropolitan Books, $19.99
- Poverty, by America, Matthew Desmond, Crown, $20
- What an Owl Knows: The New Science of the World’s Most Enigmatic Birds, Jennifer Ackerman, Penguin Books, $19
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.
