Alta Journal ’s California Bestsellers List (September 11, 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 September 7, 2025.

This week’s list includes two books providing insight into the lives of writers. Novelist and activist Arundhati Roy reflects on losing her mother in Mother Mary Comes to Me. In this poignant memoir, Roy weaves together memories of her childhood in Kerala and her early days as a young writer in Delhi. Current California Book Club author Amy Tan also opens a window into her world with The Backyard Bird Chronicles, a daily journal documenting the small creatures who visit Tan’s home. She’ll be joining us to talk about the book on Thursday, September 18, at 5 p.m. PT—sign-up here.

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

Southern California

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. Katabasis (deluxe limited edition), R. F. Kuang, Harper Voyager, $35
2. Atmosphere: A Love Story, Taylor Jenkins Reid, Ballantine Books, $30
3. James, Percival Everett, Doubleday, $28. Read an excerpt in Alta.
4. Buckeye, Patrick Ryan, Random House, $30
5. Katabasis (standard edition), R. F. Kuang, Harper Voyager, $32

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 Little Frog's Guide to Self-Care: Affirmations, Self-Love and Life Lessons According to the Internet's Beloved Mushroom Frog, Maybell Eequay, Summersdale, $11.99
4. Raising Hare: A Memoir, Chloe Dalton, Pantheon, $27
5. Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection, John Green, Crash Course Books, $28

TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION

1. Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir, Ballantine, $20
2. Martyr!, Kaveh Akbar, Vintage, $18. Watch the author speak at a California Book Club event.
3. The Lion Women of Tehran, Marjan Kamali, Gallery Books, $18.99
4. I Who Have Never Known Men, Jacqueline Harpman and Ros Schwartz (translator), Transit Books, $16.95
5. Remarkably Bright Creatures, Shelby Van Pelt, Ecco, $19.99

TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION

1. The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom, Don Miguel Ruiz and Janet Mills, Amber-Allen Publishing, $12.95
2. The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth, Zoë Schlanger, Harper Perennial, $19.99
3. The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity, Julia Cameron, TarcherPerigee, $20
4. All the Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me, Patrick Bringley, Simon & Schuster, $18.99
5. The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder, David Grann, Vintage, $21

Northern California

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. Katabasis (deluxe limited edition), R. F. Kuang, Harper Voyager, $35
2. The Hallmarked Man, Robert Galbraith, Mulholland Books, $40
3. James, Percival Everett, Doubleday, $28. Read an excerpt in Alta.
4. Atmosphere: A Love Story, Taylor Jenkins Reid, Ballantine Books, $30
5. The Emperor of Gladness, Ocean Vuong, Penguin Press, $30

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America, Robert B. Reich, Knopf, $30
2. Mother Mary Comes to Me, Arundhati Roy, Scribner, $30
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. 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

TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION

1. The Life Impossible, Matt Haig, Penguin, $19
2. Tell Me Everything, Elizabeth Strout, Random House Trade Paperbacks, $18
3. Remarkably Bright Creatures, Shelby Van Pelt, Ecco, $19.99
4. Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir, Ballantine, $20
5. Martyr!, Kaveh Akbar, Vintage, $18. Watch the author speak at a California Book Club event.

TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION

1. Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World, Anne Applebaum, Vintage, $18
2. Didion and Babitz, Lili Anolik, Scribner, $20. Read the Alta interview.
3. On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, Timothy Snyder, Crown, $12
4. The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder, David Grann, Vintage, $21
5. The Backyard Bird Chronicles, Amy Tan, Knopf, $36. Register for the California Book Club event.

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.