Alta Journal’s California Bestsellers List (August 1, 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 July 28, 2024.

Start your August with new titles from this week’s bestsellers list. Up first is Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World, by journalist Anne Applebaum. Heavily researched and expertly written, the book discusses the modern autocratic state and calls on federal officials to devise policies that will safeguard democracy. Also on the list is The Book of Elsewhere, from coauthors Keanu Reeves and China Miéville. In this experimental novel, an immortal soldier, known as B, is promised by a U.S. black-ops team something he has long been seeking: death. But first, B must help fight against a supernatural being—one more powerful than anyone predicted.

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

Southern California

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. All Fours, Miranda July, Riverhead Books, $29. Read the Alta review.
2. The God of the Woods, Liz Moore, Riverhead Books, $30
3. Long Island Compromise, Taffy Brodesser-Akner, Random House, $30
4. James, Percival Everett, Doubleday, $28. Read an excerpt in Alta.
5. The Book of Elsewhere, Keanu Reeves and China Miéville, Del Rey, $30

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. The Creative Act: A Way of Being, Rick Rubin, Penguin Press, $32
2. Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World, Anne Applebaum, Doubleday, $27
3. Play a Bigger Game: Seven Universal Principles to Experience True Fulfillment and Win at Life, Markus Kaulius, Amplify Publishing, $28
4. The Friday Afternoon Club: A Family Memoir, Griffin Dunne, Penguin Press, $30. Read an excerpt in Alta.
5. The Art of Encouragement: How to Lead Teams, Spread Love, and Serve from the Heart, Jordan Montgomery, Wiley, $28

TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION

1. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, Gabrielle Zevin, Vintage, $19
2. A Court of Thorns and Roses, Sarah J. Maas, Bloomsbury Publishing, $19
3. The Midnight Library, Matt Haig, Penguin Books, $18
4. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho, HarperOne, $17.99
5. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Taylor Jenkins Reid, Atria, $17

TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION

1. Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis, J.D. Vance, Harper, $18.99
2. The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession, Michael Finkel, Vintage, $18
3. All About Love: New Visions, bell hooks, William Morrow, $16.99
4. The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017, Rashid Khalidi, Metropolitan Books, $19.99
5. Everything I Know About Love: A Memoir, Dolly Alderton, Harper Perennial, $18.99

Northern California

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. All Fours, Miranda July, Riverhead Books, $29. Read the Alta review.
2. James, Percival Everett, Doubleday, $28. Read an excerpt in Alta.
3. The Women, Kristin Hannah, St. Martin’s Press, $30
4. The Bright Sword, Lev Grossman, Viking, $35
5. A Death in Cornwall, Daniel Silva, Harper, $32

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World, Anne Applebaum, Doubleday, $27
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 Creative Act: A Way of Being, Rick Rubin, Penguin Press, $32
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. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, Gabrielle Zevin, Vintage, $19
2. A Court of Thorns and Roses, Sarah J. Maas, Bloomsbury Publishing, $19
3. Just for the Summer, Abby Jimenez, Forever, $17.99
4. A Court of Mist and Fury, Sarah J. Maas, Bloomsbury Publishing, $19
5. Lady Tan’s Circle of Women, Lisa See, Scribner, $18.99. Read an excerpt in Alta.

TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION

1. The Backyard Bird Chronicles, Amy Tan, Knopf, $35
2. The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession, Michael Finkel, Vintage, $18
3. All About Love: New Visions, bell hooks, William Morrow, $16.99
4. Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis, J.D. Vance, Harper, $18.99
5. The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017, Rashid Khalidi, Metropolitan Books, $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.