Alta Journal’s California Bestsellers List (September 12, 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 8, 2024.

Two newly released novels debut on the bestsellers list this week. First up is the California Book Club’s September pick, Colored Television, by Danzy Senna. In this satirical social critique, Senna tackles race and the entertainment industry through the eyes of Jane, a struggling biracial novelist who finds herself settling for her plan B: working in Hollywood. Next up is Creation Lake, by past CBC author Rachel Kushner. Narrator Sadie Smith is a 34-year-old secret agent assigned by mysterious entities to manipulate a French anarchist collective. But as she grows increasingly fascinated with the anarchists’ mentor, Bruno Lacombe, it becomes unclear who is manipulating whom.

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

Southern California

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. The Life Impossible, Matt Haig, Viking, $30
2. Creation Lake, Rachel Kushner, Scribner, $29.99. Read the Alta review.
3. All Fours, Miranda July, Riverhead Books, $29. Read the Alta review.
4. Colored Television, Danzy Senna, Riverhead Books, $29. Register for Senna’s California Book Club event.
5. James, Percival Everett, Doubleday, $28. Read an excerpt in Alta.

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. The Creative Act: A Way of Being, Rick Rubin, Penguin Press, $32
2. Dynamic Drive: The Purpose-Fueled Formula for Sustainable Success, Molly Fletcher, Hachette Go, $30
3. The Friday Afternoon Club: A Family Memoir, Griffin Dunne, Penguin Press, $30. Read an excerpt in Alta.
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. My Brilliant Friend (HBO tie-in edition), Elena Ferrante and Ann Goldstein (translator), Europa Editions, $17. Read more about the HBO series in Alta.
4. The Midnight Library, Matt Haig, Penguin Books, $18
5. Babel: An Arcane History, R.F. Kuang, Harper Voyager, $20

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. 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. Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon, Michael Lewis, W.W. Norton & Company, $19.99

Northern California

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. Creation Lake, Rachel Kushner, Scribner, $29.99. Read the Alta review.
2. The Life Impossible, Matt Haig, Viking, $30
3. James, Percival Everett, Doubleday, $28. Read an excerpt in Alta.
4. All Fours, Miranda July, Riverhead Books, $29. Read the Alta review.
5. Death at the Sign of the Rook, Kate Atkinson, Doubleday, $30

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. The Art of Power: My Story As America’s First Woman Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, Simon & Schuster, $30
2. Lovely One, Ketanji Brown Jackson, Random House, $35
3. On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything, Nate Silver, Penguin Press, $35
4. The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness, Jonathan Haidt, Penguin Press, $30
5. The Creative Act: A Way of Being, Rick Rubin, Penguin Press, $32

TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION

1. Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver, Harper Perennial, $21.99
2. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, Gabrielle Zevin, Vintage, $19
3. My Brilliant Friend (HBO tie-in edition), Elena Ferrante and Ann Goldstein (translator), Europa Editions, $17. Read more about the HBO series in Alta.
4. A Court of Thorns and Roses, Sarah J. Maas, Bloomsbury Publishing, $19
5. The Midnight Library, Matt Haig, Penguin Books, $18

TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION

1. The Backyard Bird Chronicles, Amy Tan, Knopf, $35
2. The Truths We Hold: An American Journey, Kamala Harris, Penguin, $20
3. The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession, Michael Finkel, Vintage, $18
4. The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017, Rashid Khalidi, Metropolitan Books, $19.99
5. Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon, Michael Lewis, W.W. Norton & Company, $19.99

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.