Alta Journal’s California Bestsellers List (October 16, 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 October 12, 2025.

Dive into two new literary fiction titles this week. First up is Shadow Ticket by Thomas Pynchon. Set in Milwaukee in 1932, the novel follows private eye Hicks McTaggart, whose simple task of locating a runaway heiress spirals into a bigger mystery involving spies, Nazis, and outlaw motorcyclists. Also featured is Playground by Richard Powers, a story about ambition and technology that brings together four diverse characters in French Polynesia. From a girl testing one of the first aqualungs in Montreal to another growing up on a naval base, these characters’ lives slowly intersect as the plot unravels.

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

Southern California

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. Shadow Ticket, Thomas Pynchon, Penguin Press, $30. Read the Alta review.
2. The Impossible Fortune, Richard Osman, Pamela Dorman Books, $30
3. What We Can Know, Ian McEwan, Knopf, $30
4. Alchemised, SenLinYu, Del Rey, $35
5. Heart the Lover, Lily King, Grove Press, $28

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. 107 Days, Kamala Harris, Simon & Schuster, $30
2. Perseverance Principles: How to Unlock Confidence, Consistency, and Wealth Under Pressure, J.J. Mazzo, Wiley, $26
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. All the Way to the River: Love, Loss, and Liberation, Elizabeth Gilbert, Riverhead Books, $35
5. Raising Hare: A Memoir, Chloe Dalton, Pantheon, $27

TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION

1. Mate, Ali Hazelwood, Berkley, $20
2. Martyr!, Kaveh Akbar, Vintage, $18. Watch the author speak at a California Book Club event.
3. I Who Have Never Known Men, Jacqueline Harpman and Ros Schwartz (translator), Transit Books, $16.95
4. Tell Me Everything, Elizabeth Strout, Random House Trade Paperbacks, $18
5. The Frozen River, Ariel Lawhon, Vintage, $18

TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION

1. On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, Timothy Snyder, Crown, $12
2. All About Love: New Visions, bell hooks, William Morrow, $16.99
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. Revenge of the Tipping Point: Overstories, Superspreaders, and the Rise of Social Engineering, Malcolm Gladwell, Back Bay Books, $21.99

Northern California

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. Shadow Ticket, Thomas Pynchon, Penguin Press, $30. Read the Alta review.
2. The Secret of Secrets, Dan Brown, Doubleday, $38
3. The Impossible Fortune, Richard Osman, Pamela Dorman Books, $30
4. What We Can Know, Ian McEwan, Knopf, $30
5. Alchemised, SenLinYu, Del Rey, $35

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

TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION

1. Mate, Ali Hazelwood, Berkley, $20
2. Playground, Richard Powers, W. W. Norton & Company, $19.99
3. Tell Me Everything, Elizabeth Strout, Random House Trade Paperbacks, $18
4. Remarkably Bright Creatures, Shelby Van Pelt, Ecco, $19.99
5. Intermezzo, Sally Rooney, Picador, $19

TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION

1. On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, Timothy Snyder, Crown, $12
2. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Milkweed Editions, $20
3. Revenge of the Tipping Point: Overstories, Superspreaders, and the Rise of Social Engineering, Malcolm Gladwell, Back Bay Books, $21.99
4. Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World, Anne Applebaum, Vintage, $18
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.