Alta Journal’s California Bestsellers List (January 9, 2025)

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 January 5, 2025.

Fewer than 10 percent of Americans stick to their New Year’s resolutions—don’t be part of that statistic! Check out the inspiring self-help titles from this week’s bestsellers list to stay on track. In Atomic Habits: An Easy and Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones, author James Clear offers practical strategies to construct and maintain good routines, the foundation for achieving any goal. The book features an easy-to-follow guide to habit formation as well as inspirational true stories from Olympic athletes, artists, and physicians. The Creative Act: A Way of Being, by Rick Rubin, offers a similar template, specifically geared toward readers interested in pursuing artistic paths. This how-to guide explores the origins of creativity and identifies negative forces that zap imaginative thinking.

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. James, Percival Everett, Doubleday, $28. Read an excerpt in Alta.
3. Small Things Like These, Claire Keegan, Grove Press, $20
4. Intermezzo, Sally Rooney, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $29
5. The God of the Woods, Liz Moore, Riverhead Books, $30

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. Revenge of the Tipping Point: Overstories, Superspreaders, and the Rise of Social Engineering, Malcolm Gladwell, Little, Brown and Company, $32
2. The Creative Act: A Way of Being, Rick Rubin, Penguin Press, $32
3. Atomic Habits: An Easy and Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones, James Clear, Avery, $27
4. The Message, Ta-Nehisi Coates, One World, $30
5. Didion and Babitz, Lili Anolik, Scribner, $29.99. Read the Alta interview with Anolik.

TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION

1. Orbital, Samantha Harvey, Grove Press, $17
2. Martyr!, Kaveh Akbar, Vintage, $18. Watch his special-guest appearance at the California Book Club.
3. Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver, Harper Perennial, $21.99
4. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, Gabrielle Zevin, Vintage, $19
5. The Berry Pickers, Amanda Peters, Catapult, $17.95

TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION

1. On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, Timothy Snyder, Crown, $12
2. The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession, Michael Finkel, Vintage, $18
3. The Backyard Bird Chronicles, Amy Tan, Knopf, $35
4. All About Love: New Visions, bell hooks, William Morrow, $16.99
5. Greenlights, Matthew McConaughey, Crown, $20

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. Small Things Like These, Claire Keegan, Grove Press, $20
4. Intermezzo, Sally Rooney, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $29
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 Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World, Robin Wall Kimmerer and John Burgoyne (illustrator), Scribner, $20
3. The Message, Ta-Nehisi Coates, One World, $30
4. Revenge of the Tipping Point: Overstories, Superspreaders, and the Rise of Social Engineering, Malcolm Gladwell, Little, Brown and Company, $32
5. Be Ready When the Luck Happens: A Memoir, Ina Garten, Crown, $34

TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION

1. Orbital, Samantha Harvey, Grove Press, $17
2. Martyr!, Kaveh Akbar, Vintage, $18. Watch his special-guest appearance at the California Book Club.
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. All About Love: New Visions, bell hooks, William Morrow, $16.99
3. On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, Timothy Snyder, Crown, $12
4. The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017, Rashid Khalidi, Metropolitan Books, $19.99
5. All the Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me, Patrick Bringley, Simon & Schuster, $18.99

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.