Alta Journal’s California Bestsellers List (February 13, 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 February 9, 2025.

This week’s list features two very different love stories, just in time for Valentine’s Day. First is Geraldine Brooks’s heartfelt memoir, Memorial Days. Following the sudden death of her husband of more than three decades, Brooks never found the time to properly grieve. Three years later, she retreats to Australia, where she finally confronts her loss. Brooks’s memoir is both a reflection of and a meditation on enduring love. For another sort of love story, there’s Ali Hazelwood’s Deep End. In this novel, a competitive diver and a swimmer agree to a no-strings-attached relationship to keep their rising careers on track—but when emotions surface, they must decide whether love and ambition can coexist.

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. All Fours, Miranda July, Riverhead Books, $29. Read the Alta review.
4. Onyx Storm (deluxe limited edition), Rebecca Yarros, Red Tower Books, $32.99
5. Intermezzo, Sally Rooney, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $29

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. The Let Them Theory: A Life-Changing Tool That Millions of People Can’t Stop Talking About, Mel Robbins, Hay House, $29.99
2. Source Code: My Beginnings, Bill Gates, Knopf, $30
3. On the Hippie Trail: Istanbul to Kathmandu and the Making of a Travel Writer, Rick Steves, $30
4. The Sirens’ Call: How Attention Became the World’s Most Endangered Resource, Chris Hayes, Penguin Press, $32
5. Memorial Days: A Memoir, Geraldine Brooks, Viking, $28

TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION

1. Deep End, Ali Hazelwood, Berkley, $20
2. Fourth Wing, Rebecca Yarros, Red Tower Books, $20.99
3. Martyr!, Kaveh Akbar, Vintage, $18. Watch the author speak at a California Book Club event.
4. Parable of the Sower, Octavia E. Butler, Grand Central Publishing, $19.99. Read Lynell George’s reflection on the novel.
5. Orbital, Samantha Harvey, Grove Press, $17

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. 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. Onyx Storm (deluxe limited edition), Rebecca Yarros, Red Tower Books, $32.99
2. James, Percival Everett, Doubleday, $28. Read an excerpt in Alta.
3. Small Things Like These, Claire Keegan, Grove Press, $20
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 Let Them Theory: A Life-Changing Tool That Millions of People Can’t Stop Talking About, Mel Robbins, Hay House, $29.99
2. The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World, Robin Wall Kimmerer and John Burgoyne (illustrator), Scribner, $20
3. The Sirens’ Call: How Attention Became the World’s Most Endangered Resource, Chris Hayes, Penguin Press, $32
4. Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning, Peter Beinart, Knopf, $26
5. The Harder I Fight the More I Love You: A Memoir, Neko Case, Grand Central Publishing, $30

TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION

1. Martyr!, Kaveh Akbar, Vintage, $18. Watch the author speak at a California Book Club event.
2. Orbital, Samantha Harvey, Grove Press, $17
3. Deep End, Ali Hazelwood, Berkley, $20
4. Fourth Wing, Rebecca Yarros, Red Tower Books, $20.99
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. All About Love: New Visions, bell hooks, William Morrow, $16.99
4. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Milkweed Editions, $20
5. The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession, Michael Finkel, Vintage, $18

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.