Alta Journal ’s California Bestsellers List (April 10, 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 April 6, 2025.

Explore two captivating works of fiction: Deep Cuts, by Holly Brickley, follows Percy Marks and Joe Morrow, whose chance meeting in Berkeley kicks off a tumultuous, yearslong relationship—both romantic and professional—that may be doing more harm than good. In The God of the Woods, by Liz Moore, the Van Laars are distraught when their 13-year-old daughter goes missing—but Barbara isn’t the first child in her family to disappear. As the story unfolds, buried secrets emerge.

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

Southern California

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. Say You’ll Remember Me, Abby Jimenez, Forever, $28
2. James, Percival Everett, Doubleday, $28. Read an excerpt in Alta.
3. The God of the Woods, Liz Moore, Riverhead Books, $30
4. All Fours, Miranda July, Riverhead Books, $29. Read the Alta review.
5. Deep Cuts, Holly Brickley, Crown, $28

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. 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
2. Abundance, Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, Avid Reader Press, $30
3. The Creative Act: A Way of Being, Rick Rubin, Penguin Press, $32
4. Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection (signed edition), John Green, Crash Course Books, $28
5. Who Is Government? The Untold Story of Public Service, Michael Lewis, Riverhead Books, $30

TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION

1. Martyr!, Kaveh Akbar, Vintage, $18. Watch the author speak at a California Book Club event.
2. Parable of the Sower, Octavia E. Butler, Grand Central Publishing, $19.99. Read Lynell George’s reflection on the novel.
3. Orbital, Samantha Harvey, Grove Press, $17
4. North Woods, Daniel Mason, Random House Trade Paperbacks, $18. Read the Alta review.
5. I Who Have Never Known Men, Jacqueline Harpman and Ros Schwartz (translator), Transit Books, $16.95

TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION

1. On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, Timothy Snyder, Crown, $12
2. The Backyard Bird Chronicles, Amy Tan, Knopf, $36
3. The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity, Julia Cameron, TarcherPerigee, $20
4. The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder, David Grann, Vintage, $21
5. Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution, Cat Bohannon, Vintage, $20

Northern California

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. Say You’ll Remember Me, Abby Jimenez, Forever, $28
2. James, Percival Everett, Doubleday, $28. Read an excerpt in Alta.
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. 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
2. Abundance, Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, Avid Reader Press, $30
3. Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism, Sarah Wynn-Williams, Flatiron Books, $32.99
4. Who Is Government? The Untold Story of Public Service, Michael Lewis, Riverhead Books, $30
5. The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World, Robin Wall Kimmerer and John Burgoyne (illustrator), Scribner, $20

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. Tom Lake, Ann Patchett, Harper Perennial, $19
4. North Woods, Daniel Mason, Random House Trade Paperbacks, $18. Read the Alta review.
5. The Frozen River, Ariel Lawhon, Vintage, $18

TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION

1. On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, Timothy Snyder, Crown, $12
2. The Backyard Bird Chronicles, Amy Tan, Knopf, $36
3. The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder, David Grann, Vintage, $21
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.