Alta Journal ’s California Bestsellers List (April 3, 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 March 30, 2025.

Make April a time for reflection with these two bestselling memoirs that offer poignant examples of resilience. When the Going Was Good, by Graydon Carter (read Alta’s review), provides a lively account of the author’s journey to becoming the editor in chief of Vanity Fair, the role he held from 1992 until 2017. Carter brings to life the golden era of magazine making, complete with big personalities, bold ideas, and a rapidly shifting media landscape. In Grief Is for People, Sloane Crosley deals with the sudden death of a close friend, navigating the messy and unpredictable reality of mourning. Searching for deeper meaning, Crosley turns to philosophy and art as she weathers profound loss.

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. The Women, Kristin Hannah, St. Martin’s Press, $30
3. Dream Count, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Knopf, $32
4. The God of the Woods, Liz Moore, Riverhead Books, $30
5. The Wedding People, Alison Espach, Henry Holt and Company, $28.99

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism, Sarah Wynn-Williams, Flatiron Books, $32.99
2. Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection (signed edition), John Green, Crash Course Books, $28
3. The Let Them Theory: A Life-Changing Tool That Millions of People Can’t Stop Talking About, Mel Robbins and Sawyer Robbins, Hay House, $29.99
4. Abundance, Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, Avid Reader Press, $30
5. When the Going Was Good: An Editor’s Adventures During the Last Golden Age of Magazines, Graydon Carter, Penguin Press, $32. Read the Alta review.

TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION

1. Martyr!, Kaveh Akbar, Vintage, $18. Watch the author speak at a California Book Club event.
2. North Woods, Daniel Mason, Random House Trade Paperbacks, $18. Read the Alta review.
3. The Husbands, Holly Gramazio, Vintage, $18
4. Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver, Harper Perennial, $21.99
5. Yellowface, R.F. Kuang, William Morrow Paperbacks, $18.99

TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION

1. On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, Timothy Snyder, Crown, $12
2. The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder, David Grann, Vintage, $21
3. The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession, Michael Finkel, Vintage, $18
4. Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution, Cat Bohannon, Vintage, $20
5. Grief Is for People, Sloane Crosley, Picador, $18

Northern California

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. James, Percival Everett, Doubleday, $28. Read an excerpt in Alta.
2. Dream Count, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Knopf, $32
3. Wild Dark Shore, Charlotte McConaghy, Flatiron Books, $28.99
4. All Fours, Miranda July, Riverhead Books, $29. Read the Alta review.
5. The Wedding People, Alison Espach, Henry Holt and Company, $28.99

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism, Sarah Wynn-Williams, Flatiron Books, $32.99
2. The Let Them Theory: A Life-Changing Tool That Millions of People Can’t Stop Talking About, Mel Robbins and Sawyer Robbins, Hay House, $29.99
3. Abundance, Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, Avid Reader Press, $30
4. The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World, Robin Wall Kimmerer and John Burgoyne (illustrator), Scribner, $20
5. Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection (signed edition), John Green, Crash Course Books, $28

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. The Frozen River, Ariel Lawhon, Vintage, $18
4. Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver, Harper Perennial, $21.99
5. Funny Story, Emily Henry, Berkley, $19

TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION

1. On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, Timothy Snyder, Crown, $12
2. The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder, David Grann, Vintage, $21
3. The Backyard Bird Chronicles, Amy Tan, Knopf, $36
4. The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession, Michael Finkel, Vintage, $18
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.