Alta Journal ’s California Bestsellers List (May 29, 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 25, 2025.

California Book Club alumni are making waves this week. Rebecca Solnit’s new release, No Straight Road Takes You There, is a powerful new essay collection. Through stories about feminism and democracy, Solnit explores the uncertainty of the future and offers ways to find peace. And Michael Connelly is back with Nightshade, a true-crime novel set on Catalina Island. He introduces Detective Stilwell, who finds himself pulled into dangerous dealings when a murder surfaces—along with a big-money cover-up.

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

Southern California

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. The Emperor of Gladness, Ocean Vuong, Penguin Press, $30
2. Nightshade, Michael Connelly, Little, Brown and Company, $30. Watch the California Book Club event with the author.
3. James, Percival Everett, Doubleday, $28. Read an excerpt in Alta.
4. Fever Beach, Carl Hiaasen, Knopf, $30
5. My Name Is Emilia del Valle, Isabel Allende and Frances Riddle (translator), Ballantine Books, $30. Watch the California Book Club event with the author.

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again, Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, Penguin Press, $32
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. Who Knew, Barry Diller, Simon & Schuster, $30
4. Is a River Alive?, Robert Macfarlane, W.W. Norton & Company, $31.99
5. The Creative Act: A Way of Being, Rick Rubin, Penguin Press, $32

TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION

1. Martyr!, Kaveh Akbar, Vintage, $18. Watch the author speak at a California Book Club event.
2. All Fours, Miranda July, Riverhead Books, $19. Read the Alta review.
3. Remarkably Bright Creatures, Shelby Van Pelt, Ecco, $19.99
4. The Ministry of Time, Kaliane Bradley, Avid Reader Press, $18.99
5. The Paris Novel, Ruth Reichl, Random House Trade Paperbacks, $19

TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION

1. On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, Timothy Snyder, Crown, $12
2. The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity, Julia Cameron, TarcherPerigee, $20
3. The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma, Bessel van der Kolk, MD, Penguin Books, $19
4. The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder, David Grann, Vintage, $21
5. Slouching Towards Bethlehem: Essays, Joan Didion, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $18

Northern California

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. The Emperor of Gladness, Ocean Vuong, Penguin Press, $30
2. James, Percival Everett, Doubleday, $28. Read an excerpt in Alta.
3. Nightshade, Michael Connelly, Little, Brown and Company, $30. Watch the California Book Club event with the author.
4. Great Big Beautiful Life, Emily Henry, Berkley, $29
5. Fever Beach, Carl Hiaasen, Knopf, $30

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. Abundance, Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, Avid Reader Press, $30
2. Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again, Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, Penguin Press, $32
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. The Book of Alchemy: A Creative Practice for an Inspired Life, Suleika Jaouad, Random House, $30
5. Mark Twain, Ron Chernow, Penguin Press, $45

TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION

1. Remarkably Bright Creatures, Shelby Van Pelt, Ecco, $19.99
2. All Fours, Miranda July, Riverhead Books, $19. Read the Alta review.
3. Martyr!, Kaveh Akbar, Vintage, $18. Watch the author speak at a California Book Club event.
4. The Ministry of Time, Kaliane Bradley, Avid Reader Press, $18.99
5. Tom Lake, Ann Patchett, Harper Perennial, $19

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. No Straight Road Takes You There: Essays for Uneven Terrain, Rebecca Solnit, Haymarket Books, $16.95. Watch the California Book Club event with the author.
5. The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma, Bessel van der Kolk, MD, Penguin Books, $19

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.