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

This week brings two compelling new titles set in small towns and the countryside in Ireland. Small Things Like These, by Claire Keegan—which NPR called “a feminist revision of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol”—follows Bill Furlong, a father of five grappling with the church’s authority in New Ross, Ireland. In The Hunter, by Tana French, readers will travel to a remote village in West Ireland where two men arrive intending to find gold—a father estranged from his daughter and a suspicious Englishman with a risky plan. French spins an intricate crime novel that examines the strength of familial ties and the power of greed.

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

Southern California

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. James, Percival Everett, Doubleday, $28. Read an excerpt in Alta.
2. Wind and Truth, Brandon Sanderson, Tor Books, $39.99
3. Intermezzo, Sally Rooney, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $29
4. All Fours, Miranda July, Riverhead Books, $29. Read the Alta review.
5. Small Things Like These, Claire Keegan, Grove Press, $20

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World, Robin Wall Kimmerer and John Burgoyne (illustrator), Scribner, $20
2. The Message, Ta-Nehisi Coates, One World, $30
3. Be Ready When the Luck Happens: A Memoir, Ina Garten, Crown, $34
4. Didion and Babitz, Lili Anolik, Scribner, $29.99. Read the Alta interview with Anolik.
5. Cher: The Memoir, Part One, Cher, Dey Street Books, $36

TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION

1. Orbital, Samantha Harvey, Grove Press, $17
2. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, Gabrielle Zevin, Vintage, $19
3. North Woods, Daniel Mason, Random House Trade Paperbacks, $18. Read the Alta review.
4. The Vegetarian, Han Kang and Deborah Smith (translator), Hogarth, $17
5. Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver, Harper Perennial, $21.99

TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION

1. The Backyard Bird Chronicles, Amy Tan, Knopf, $35
2. On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, Timothy Snyder, Crown, $12
3. The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession, Michael Finkel, Vintage, $18
4. The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom, Don Miguel Ruiz and Janet Mills, Amber-Allen Publishing, $12.95
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. Wind and Truth, Brandon Sanderson, Tor Books, $39.99
3. Small Things Like These, Claire Keegan, Grove Press, $20
4. The City and Its Uncertain Walls, Haruki Murakami and Philip Gabriel (translator), Knopf, $35
5. All Fours, Miranda July, Riverhead Books, $29. Read the Alta review.

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World, Robin Wall Kimmerer and John Burgoyne (illustrator), Scribner, $20
2. The Message, Ta-Nehisi Coates, One World, $30
3. Be Ready When the Luck Happens: A Memoir, Ina Garten, Crown, $34
4. Revenge of the Tipping Point: Overstories, Superspreaders, and the Rise of Social Engineering, Malcolm Gladwell, Little, Brown and Company, $32
5. Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI, Yuval Noah Harari, Random House, $35

TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION

1. Orbital, Samantha Harvey, Grove Press, $17
2. Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver, Harper Perennial, $21.99
3. North Woods, Daniel Mason, Random House Trade Paperbacks, $18. Read the Alta review.
4. The Frozen River, Ariel Lawhon, Vintage, $18
5. The Hunter, Tana French, Penguin Books, $19

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. Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America, Heather Cox Richardson, Penguin Books, $18
4. All the Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me, Patrick Bringley, Simon & Schuster, $18.99
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.