Alta Journal’s California Bestsellers List (January 16, 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 12, 2025.

This week’s bestsellers list features two exciting new titles. First is Oliver Burkeman’s Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts. Blending insights from philosophy, religion, and literature, Burkeman offers practical tools to reduce distractions and curb perfectionism. Historical fiction fans will enjoy Álvaro Enrigue’s You Dreamed of Empires, translated by Natasha Wimmer. In this colonial revenge story, Enrigue reconstructs the ancient Mexican city of Tenochtitlán through the 16th-century meeting of Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés and Aztec emperor Moctezuma.

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

Southern California

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. Small Things Like These, Claire Keegan, Grove Press, $20
2. Intermezzo, Sally Rooney, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $29
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 Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook, Hampton Sides, Doubleday, $35
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 Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World, Robin Wall Kimmerer and John Burgoyne (illustrator), Scribner, $20
5. Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts, Oliver Burkeman, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $27

TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION

1. Orbital, Samantha Harvey, Grove Press, $17
2. Martyr!, Kaveh Akbar, Vintage, $18. Watch the author speak at a California Book Club event.
3. You Dreamed of Empires, Álvaro Enrigue and Natasha Wimmer (translator), Riverhead Books, $18
4. The Vegetarian, Han Kang and Deborah Smith (translator), Hogarth, $17
5. The Alchemist, 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. On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, Timothy Snyder, Crown, $12
3. The Backyard Bird Chronicles, Amy Tan, Knopf, $35
4. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Milkweed Editions, $20
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. Intermezzo, Sally Rooney, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $29
4. Small Things Like These, Claire Keegan, Grove Press, $20
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. Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts, Oliver Burkeman, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $27
3. The Creative Act: A Way of Being, Rick Rubin, Penguin Press, $32
4. The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook, Hampton Sides, Doubleday, $35
5. The Message, Ta-Nehisi Coates, One World, $30

TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION

1. Orbital, Samantha Harvey, Grove Press, $17
2. Martyr!, Kaveh Akbar, Vintage, $18. Watch the author speak at a California Book Club event.
3. Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver, Harper Perennial, $21.99
4. The Frozen River, Ariel Lawhon, Vintage, $18
5. Fourth Wing, Rebecca Yarros, Red Tower Books, $20.99

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. On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, Timothy Snyder, Crown, $12
4. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Milkweed Editions, $20
5. The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017, Rashid Khalidi, Metropolitan Books, $19.99

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.