Alta Journal ’s California Bestsellers List (October 2, 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 28, 2025.

Check out two new fantastical releases this week. Ian McEwan’s latest novel What We Can Know opens in 2014 with the reading of a poem at a dinner party. More than a century later, in 2119, researcher Thomas Metcalfe, obsessed with the early twenty-first century, searches for the original poem, uncovering truths about a history he thought he understood. Alchemised, by SenLinYu, tells the story of alchemist Helena Marino in the aftermath of a long war. Suspected of collusion by the corrupt government, Helena is sent to work with a necromancer who may be the key to unlocking the secrets of her past.

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

Southern California

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. Alchemised, SenLinYu, Del Rey, $35
2. What We Can Know, Ian McEwan, Knopf, $30
3. The Secret of Secrets, Dan Brown, Doubleday, $38
4. The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, Kiran Desai, Hogarth, $32
5. Katabasis (deluxe limited edition), R.F. Kuang, Harper Voyager, $35

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. 107 Days, Kamala Harris, Simon & Schuster, $30
2. All the Way to the River: Love, Loss, and Liberation, Elizabeth Gilbert, Riverhead Books, $35
3. Faithonomics: The Wealth is in the Kingdom, the Legacy is in the Story, Jerry Lopez, Jerry Lopez (publisher), $28.99
4. Good Things: Recipes and Rituals to Share with People You Love, Samin Nosrat, Random House, $45
5. Poems & Prayers, Matthew McConaughey, Crown, $29

TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION

1. Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir, Ballantine, $22
2. The City and Its Uncertain Walls, Haruki Murakami and Philip Gabriel (translator), Vintage, $19
3. Remarkably Bright Creatures, Shelby Van Pelt, Ecco, $19.99
4. I Who Have Never Known Men, Jacqueline Harpman and Ros Schwartz (translator), Transit Books, $16.95
5. All Fours, Miranda July, Riverhead Books, $19. Read the Alta review.

TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION

1. Alignment: A Montessori Approach to Reimagining Work-Life Balance, Katie Keller Wood, Page Two, $18.95
2. All About Love: New Visions, bell hooks, William Morrow, $16.99
3. The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity, Julia Cameron, TarcherPerigee, $24
4. Didion and Babitz, Lili Anolik, Scribner, $20. Read the Alta interview.
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. What We Can Know, Ian McEwan, Knopf, $30
3. Alchemised, SenLinYu, Del Rey, $35
4. The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, Kiran Desai, Hogarth, $32
5. My Friends, Fredrik Backman, Atria Books, $29.99

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. 107 Days, Kamala Harris, Simon & Schuster, $30
2. Good Things: Recipes and Rituals to Share with People You Love, Samin Nosrat, Random House, $45
3. All the Way to the River: Love, Loss, and Liberation, Elizabeth Gilbert, Riverhead Books, $35
4. Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy, Mary Roach, W.W. Norton & Company, $28.99
5. Strong Ground: The Lessons of Daring Leadership, the Tenacity of Paradox, and the Wisdom of the Human Spirit, Brené Brown, Random House, $32

TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION

1. Remarkably Bright Creatures, Shelby Van Pelt, Ecco, $19.99
2. The City and Its Uncertain Walls, Haruki Murakami and Philip Gabriel (translator), Vintage, $19
3. Martyr!, Kaveh Akbar, Vintage, $18. Watch the author speak at a California Book Club event.
4. Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir, Ballantine, $22
5. Tell Me Everything, Elizabeth Strout, Random House Trade Paperbacks, $18

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. Read a recap of the California Book Club event.
3. The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession, Michael Finkel, Vintage, $18
4. All About Love: New Visions, bell hooks, William Morrow, $16.99
5. The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth, Zoë Schlanger, Harper Perennial, $19.99

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.