Alta Journal ’s California Bestsellers List (September 25, 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 21, 2025.

California creative types step into the spotlight this month. Chef and educator Samin Nosrat gathers 125 of her favorite recipes in Good Things: Recipes and Rituals to Share with People You Love. In this cookbook, Nosrat weaves in practical tips on everything from worthy market splurges to pressure cookers. Actor and producer Charlie Sheen reflects on the highs and lows of his career in The Book of Sheen, a candid account tracing his path through Hollywood stardom and struggles with addiction.

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. My Friends, Fredrik Backman, Atria Books, $29.99
3. Katabasis (deluxe limited edition), R.F. Kuang, Harper Voyager, $35
4. The Academy, Elin Hilderbrand and Shelby Cunningham, Little, Brown and Company, $30
5. Culpability, Bruce Holsinger, Spiegel & Grau, $30

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. All the Way to the River: Love, Loss, and Liberation, Elizabeth Gilbert, Riverhead Books, $35
2. The Book of Sheen: A Memoir, Charlie Sheen, Gallery Books, $35
3. Good Things: Recipes and Rituals to Share with People You Love, Samin Nosrat, Random House, $45
4. We the People: A History of the U.S. Constitution, Jill Lepore, Liveright, $39.99
5. Art Work: On the Creative Life, Sally Mann, Abrams Press, $35

TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION

1. The Ministry of Time, Kaliane Bradley, Avid Reader Press, $18.99
2. Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir, Ballantine, $22
3. The Frozen River, Ariel Lawhon, Vintage, $18
4. The City and Its Uncertain Walls, Haruki Murakami and Philip Gabriel (translator), Vintage, $19
5. Tell Me Everything, Elizabeth Strout, Random House Trade Paperbacks, $18

TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION

1. All the Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me, Patrick Bringley, Simon & Schuster, $18.99
2. On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, Timothy Snyder, Crown, $12
3. Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI, Yuval Noah Harari, Random House Trade Paperbacks, $25
4. The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession, Michael Finkel, Vintage, $18
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. Buckeye, Patrick Ryan, Random House, $30
3. Clown Town, Mick Herron, Soho Crime, $29.95
4. The Emperor of Gladness, Ocean Vuong, Penguin Press, $30
5. My Friends, Fredrik Backman, Atria Books, $29.99

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. Good Things: Recipes and Rituals to Share with People You Love, Samin Nosrat, Random House, $45
2. All the Way to the River: Love, Loss, and Liberation, Elizabeth Gilbert, Riverhead Books, $35
3. Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy, Mary Roach, W.W. Norton & Company, $28.99
4. Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America, Robert B. Reich, Knopf, $30
5. We the People: A History of the U.S. Constitution, Jill Lepore, Liveright, $39.99

TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION

1. The City and Its Uncertain Walls, Haruki Murakami and Philip Gabriel (translator), Vintage, $19
2. The Life Impossible, Matt Haig, Penguin, $19
3. Tell Me Everything, Elizabeth Strout, Random House Trade Paperbacks, $18
4. Martyr!, Kaveh Akbar, Vintage, $18. Watch the author speak at a California Book Club event.
5. Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir, Ballantine, $22

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. The Backyard Bird Chronicles, Amy Tan, Knopf, $36. Read a recap of the California Book Club event.
4. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Milkweed Editions, $20
5. The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder, David Grann, Vintage, $21

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.