Alta Journal ’s California Bestsellers List (September 18, 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 14, 2025.

Add two compelling September releases to your fall TBR. In All the Way to the River, Elizabeth Gilbert reflects on her relationship with her former partner, Rayya Elias. The memoir traces how their bond was marred by addiction, with both women feeding into each other’s self-destructive tendencies. And photographer Sally Mann offers a candid look at her creative life in Art Work. Through journal entries, letters, and photographs, she shares the lessons she has learned from a remarkable career behind the lens.

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

Southern California

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. The Secret of Secrets, Dan Brown, Doubleday, $38
2. Katabasis (deluxe limited edition), R.F. Kuang, Harper Voyager, $35
3. Buckeye, Patrick Ryan, Random House, $30
4. Clown Town, Mick Herron, Soho Crime, $29.95
5. My Friends, Fredrik Backman, Atria Books, $29.99

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. All the Way to the River: Love, Loss, and Liberation, Elizabeth Gilbert, Riverhead Books, $35
2. Invest Like a Billionaire: Unlocking the Wealth Secrets of the Ultra-Rich, Bob Fraser and Ben Fraser, Maxwell Leadership, $28
3. Art Work: On the Creative Life, Sally Mann, Abrams Press, $35
4. 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
5. 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

TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION

1. Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir, Ballantine, $22
2. All Fours, Miranda July, Riverhead Books, $19. Read the Alta review.
3. The Frozen River, Ariel Lawhon, Vintage, $18
4. The Life Impossible, Matt Haig, Penguin, $19
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 Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity, Julia Cameron, TarcherPerigee, $20
3. The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession, Michael Finkel, Vintage, $18
4. All the Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me, Patrick Bringley, Simon & Schuster, $18.99
5. Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World, Anne Applebaum, Vintage, $18

Northern California

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. The Secret of Secrets, Dan Brown, Doubleday, $38
2. Katabasis (deluxe limited edition), R.F. Kuang, Harper Voyager, $35
3. My Friends, Fredrik Backman, Atria Books, $29.99
4. Buckeye, Patrick Ryan, Random House, $30
5. James, Percival Everett, Doubleday, $28. Read an excerpt in Alta.

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. All the Way to the River: Love, Loss, and Liberation, Elizabeth Gilbert, Riverhead Books, $35
2. Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America, Robert B. Reich, Knopf, $30
3. Mother Mary Comes to Me, Arundhati Roy, Scribner, $30
4. Art Work: On the Creative Life, Sally Mann, Abrams Press, $35
5. It Doesn’t Have to Hurt: Your Smart Guide to a Pain-Free Life, Sanjay Gupta, MD, Simon & Schuster, $30

TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION

1. The Life Impossible, Matt Haig, Penguin, $19
2. Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir, Ballantine, $22
3. Martyr!, Kaveh Akbar, Vintage, $18. Watch the author speak at a California Book Club event.
4. Remarkably Bright Creatures, Shelby Van Pelt, Ecco, $19.99
5. The City and Its Uncertain Walls, Haruki Murakami and Philip Gabriel (translator), Vintage, $19

TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION

1. Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World, Anne Applebaum, Vintage, $18
2. On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, Timothy Snyder, Crown, $12
3. On Our Best Behavior: The Price Women Pay to Be Good, Elise Loehnen, Dial Press Trade Paperback, $20
4. The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession, Michael Finkel, Vintage, $18
5. Didion and Babitz, Lili Anolik, Scribner, $20. Read the Alta interview.

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.