Alta Journal’s California Bestsellers List (December 19, 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 15, 2024.

Impress your family and loved ones at holiday gatherings with some fun facts from nonfiction titles featured on this week’s list. Start with Bay Area Wildlife: An Irreverent Guide, written by Jeff Miller and illustrated by Obi Kaufmann. This quirky handbook offers guides to over 60 species of mammals, birds, fish, amphibians, insects, and reptiles—and it’s packed with fun facts, detailed maps, and beautiful illustrations. Another option is All the Beauty in the World, by Patrick Bringley. Drawing from his years as a museum guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Bringley offers an intimate behind-the-scenes look at one of the world’s greatest cultural treasures.

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. Small Things Like These, Claire Keegan, Grove Press, $20
3. Intermezzo, Sally Rooney, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $29
4. All Fours, Miranda July, Riverhead Books, $29. Read the Alta review.
5. The God of the Woods, Liz Moore, Riverhead Books, $30

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World, Robin Wall Kimmerer and John Burgoyne (illustrator), Scribner, $20
2. Be Ready When the Luck Happens: A Memoir, Ina Garten, Crown, $34
3. The Message, Ta-Nehisi Coates, One World, $30
4. The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook, Hampton Sides, Doubleday, $35
5. Revenge of the Tipping Point: Overstories, Superspreaders, and the Rise of Social Engineering, Malcolm Gladwell, Little, Brown and Company, $32

TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION

1. Orbital, Samantha Harvey, Grove Press, $17
2. Wicked (movie tie-in), Gregory Maguire, William Morrow Paperbacks, $19.99
3. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, Gabrielle Zevin, Vintage, $19
4. Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver, Harper Perennial, $21.99
5. North Woods, Daniel Mason, Random House Trade Paperbacks, $18. Read the Alta review.

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. All the Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me, Patrick Bringley, Simon & Schuster, $18.99
5. Greenlights, Matthew McConaughey, Crown, $20

Northern California

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. James, Percival Everett, Doubleday, $28. Read an excerpt in Alta.
2. Small Things Like These, Claire Keegan, Grove Press, $20
3. All Fours, Miranda July, Riverhead Books, $29. Read the Alta review.
4. Intermezzo, Sally Rooney, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $29
5. The City and Its Uncertain Walls, Haruki Murakami and Philip Gabriel (translator), Knopf, $35

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

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

TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION

1. Orbital, Samantha Harvey, Grove Press, $17
2. North Woods, Daniel Mason, Random House Trade Paperbacks, $18. Read the Alta review.
3. Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver, Harper Perennial, $21.99
4. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, Gabrielle Zevin, Vintage, $19
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. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Milkweed Editions, $20
4. On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, Timothy Snyder, Crown, $12
5. Bay Area Wildlife: An Irreverent Guide, Jeff Miller and Obi Kaufmann (illustrator), Heyday Books, $35

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.