Alta Journal ’s California Bestsellers List (September 5, 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 September 1, 2024.

As summer turns to fall, curl up with some titles from the bestsellers list. Up first is the Pulitzer Prize–winning novel Demon Copperhead, by Barbara Kingsolver. Inspired by Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield, Kingsolver tells the story of Damon Fields, a young boy born in the Appalachian Mountains who navigates poverty and addiction in his rural community. Also on the list is National Book Award finalist The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder, by journalist David Grann. In this nonfiction epic, Grann recounts the harrowing tale of those aboard a British vessel that washed ashore on the coast of Brazil in 1742.

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

Southern California

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. Long Island Compromise, Taffy Brodesser-Akner, Random House, $30
2. The Women, Kristin Hannah, St. Martin’s Press, $30
3. All Fours, Miranda July, Riverhead Books, $29. Read the Alta review.
4. James, Percival Everett, Doubleday, $28. Read an excerpt in Alta.
5. The God of the Woods, Liz Moore, Riverhead Books, $30

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. The Creative Act: A Way of Being, Rick Rubin, Penguin Press, $32
2. The Art of Power: My Story As America’s First Woman Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, Simon & Schuster, $30
3. Atomic Habits: An Easy and Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones, James Clear, Avery, $27
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. Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver, Harper Perennial, $21.99
2. My Brilliant Friend (HBO tie-in edition), Elena Ferrante and Ann Goldstein (translator), Europa Editions, $17. Read more about the HBO series in Alta.
3. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, Gabrielle Zevin, Vintage, $19
4. A Court of Thorns and Roses, Sarah J. Maas, Bloomsbury Publishing, $19
5. The Alchemist (25th-anniversary edition), Paulo Coelho, HarperOne, $17.99

TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION

1. The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession, Michael Finkel, Vintage, $18
2. Slouching Towards Bethlehem: Essays, Joan Didion, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $18
3. The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom, Don Miguel Ruiz and Janet Mills, Amber-Allen Publishing, $12.95
4. The Backyard Bird Chronicles, Amy Tan, Knopf, $35
5. All About Love: New Visions, bell hooks, William Morrow, $16.99

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 God of the Woods, Liz Moore, Riverhead Books, $30
4. The Women, Kristin Hannah, St. Martin’s Press, $30
5. The Book of Bill, Alex Hirsch, Hyperion Avenue, $26.99

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. The Art of Power: My Story As America’s First Woman Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, Simon & Schuster, $30
2. On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything, Nate Silver, Penguin Press, $35
3. The Creative Act: A Way of Being, Rick Rubin, Penguin Press, $32
4. The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War, Erik Larson, Crown, $35
5. The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder, David Grann, Doubleday, $30

TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION

1. Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver, Harper Perennial, $21.99
2. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, Gabrielle Zevin, Vintage, $19
3. It Ends with Us (media tie-in edition), Colleen Hoover, Atria, $16.99
4. My Brilliant Friend (HBO tie-in edition), Elena Ferrante and Ann Goldstein (translator), Europa Editions, $17. Read more about the HBO series in Alta.
5. A Court of Thorns and Roses, Sarah J. Maas, Bloomsbury Publishing, $19

TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION

1. The Truths We Hold: An American Journey, Kamala Harris, Penguin, $20
2. The Backyard Bird Chronicles, Amy Tan, Knopf, $35
3. The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession, Michael Finkel, Vintage, $18
4. Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon, Michael Lewis, W.W. Norton & Company, $19.99
5. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Milkweed Editions, $20

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.