Alta Journal ’s California Bestsellers List (May 15, 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 May 11, 2025.

Check out this week’s new fiction, starting with My Name Is Emilia del Valle, by former California Book Club author Isabel Allende. The novel follows Emilia, the daughter of an Irish nun and a Chilean aristocrat, as she grows up challenging societal expectations of women. Emilia becomes a journalist and, while covering Chile’s brewing civil war, reconnects with her estranged father, falls for a fellow reporter, and finds herself. Also on the list is Carley Fortune’s One Golden Summer, a story about rediscovering love and identity. Almost two decades ago, Alice photographed then-19-year-old Charlie Florek in Barry’s Bay, Ontario. Now in her 30s and a professional photographer, Alice returns to the tourist town and finds Charlie. As a romance blooms between the two, Alice is curious but cautious, unsure whether she can fully trust Charlie.

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

Southern California

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. Great Big Beautiful Life, Emily Henry, Berkley, $29
2. My Friends, Fredrik Backman, Atria Books, $29.99
3. James, Percival Everett, Doubleday, $28. Read an excerpt in Alta.
4. My Name Is Emilia del Valle, Isabel Allende, Ballantine Books, $30. Watch the California Book Club event with the author.
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 and Sawyer Robbins, Hay House, $29.99
2. Abundance, Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, Avid Reader Press, $30
3. Life of Your Dreams: How to Take Your Family, Fun, and Financial Freedom to a Whole ’Notha Level, Mark Pentecost, Mission Driven Press, $28
4. The Book of Alchemy: A Creative Practice for an Inspired Life, Suleika Jaouad, Random House, $30
5. We Can Do Hard Things: Answers to Life’s 20 Questions, Glennon Doyle, Abby Wambach, and Amanda Doyle, the Dial Press, $34

TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION

1. Remarkably Bright Creatures, Shelby Van Pelt, Ecco, $19.99
2. Table for Two: Fictions, Amor Towles, Penguin Books, $19
3. One Golden Summer, Carley Fortune, Berkley, $19
4. The Paris Novel, Ruth Reichl, Random House Trade Paperbacks, $19
5. Martyr!, Kaveh Akbar, Vintage, $18. Watch the author speak at a California Book Club event.

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. Register for the California Book Club event.
4. Sociopath: A Memoir, Patric Gagne, PhD, Simon & Schuster, $19.99
5. The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity, Julia Cameron, TarcherPerigee, $20

Northern California

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. James, Percival Everett, Doubleday, $28. Read an excerpt in Alta.
2. Great Big Beautiful Life, Emily Henry, Berkley, $29
3. My Friends, Fredrik Backman, Atria Books, $29.99
4. My Name Is Emilia del Valle, Isabel Allende, Ballantine Books, $30. Watch the California Book Club event with the author.
5. The Wedding People, Alison Espach, Henry Holt and Company, $28.99

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. Abundance, Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, Avid Reader Press, $30
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. We Can Do Hard Things: Answers to Life’s 20 Questions, Glennon Doyle, Abby Wambach, and Amanda Doyle, the Dial Press, $34
4. The Book of Alchemy: A Creative Practice for an Inspired Life, Suleika Jaouad, Random House, $30
5. The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World, Robin Wall Kimmerer and John Burgoyne (illustrator), Scribner, $20

TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION

1. Remarkably Bright Creatures, Shelby Van Pelt, Ecco, $19.99
2. Martyr!, Kaveh Akbar, Vintage, $18. Watch the author speak at a California Book Club event.
3. Tom Lake, Ann Patchett, Harper Perennial, $19
4. Table for Two: Fictions, Amor Towles, Penguin Books, $19
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 Backyard Bird Chronicles, Amy Tan, Knopf, $36. Register for the California Book Club event.
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, $22
5. Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism, Rachel Maddow, Crown, $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.