Alta Journal ’s California Bestsellers List (December 4, 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 November 30, 2025.

This week’s bestsellers list features two new gripping novels. Shadow Ticket by Thomas Pynchon follows private investigator Hicks McTaggart as a simple missing-heiress case spirals into a tangle of Nazis, British spies, and paranormal practitioners. In The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai, two acquaintances are reunited by chance. Set-up long ago by their grandparents, Sonia and Sunny now pursue a relationship on their own terms, while navigating family pressures, social expectations, and a looming curse.

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

Southern California

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. The Correspondent, Virginia Evans, Crown, $28
2. Heart the Lover, Lily King, Grove Press, $28
3. What We Can Know, Ian McEwan, Knopf, $30
4. Shadow Ticket, Thomas Pynchon, Penguin Press, $30. Read the Alta review.
5. Dog Show: Poems, Billy Collins and Pamela Sztybel (illustrator), Random House, $20

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. Bread of Angels: A Memoir, Patti Smith, Random House, $30
2. 1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History—and How It Shattered a Nation, Andrew Ross Sorkin, Viking, $35
3. One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, Omar El Akkad, Knopf, $28
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. Lessons from Cats for Surviving Fascism, Stewart “Brittlestar” Reynolds, Grand Central Publishing, $13

TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION

1. Martyr!, Kaveh Akbar, Vintage, $18. Watch the author speak at a California Book Club event.
2. Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir, Ballantine, $22
3. The Lion Women of Tehran, Marjan Kamali, Gallery Books, $18.99
4. The God of the Woods, Liz Moore, Riverhead Books, $19
5. Hamnet, Maggie O’Farrell, Vintage, $19

TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION

1. Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Joan Didion, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $18
2. How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen, David Brooks, Random House Trade Paperbacks, $20
3. The Best American Essays 2025, Jia Tolentino and Kim Dana Kupperman, Mariner Books, $18.99
4. The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession, Michael Finkel, Vintage, $18
5. All About Love: New Visions, bell hooks, William Morrow, $16.99

Northern California

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. The Correspondent, Virginia Evans, Crown, $28
2. Dog Show: Poems, Billy Collins and Pamela Sztybel (illustrator), Random House, $20
3. Heart the Lover, Lily King, Grove Press, $28
4. What We Can Know, Ian McEwan, Knopf, $30
5. The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, Kiran Desai, Hogarth, $32

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. 1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History—and How It Shattered a Nation, Andrew Ross Sorkin, Viking, $35
2. Bread of Angels: A Memoir, Patti Smith, Random House, $30
3. Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, Knopf, $35
4. Good Things: Recipes and Rituals to Share with People You Love, Samin Nosrat, Random House, $45
5. Something from Nothing: A Cookbook, Alison Roman, Clarkson Potter, $37.99

TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION

1. The God of the Woods, Liz Moore, Riverhead Books, $19
2. Remarkably Bright Creatures, Shelby Van Pelt, Ecco, $19.99
3. Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir, Ballantine, $22
4. Playground, Richard Powers, W.W. Norton & Company, $19.99
5. Tell Me Everything, Elizabeth Strout, Random House Trade Paperbacks, $18

TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION

1. The 2026 Old Farmer's Almanac, Old Farmer's Almanac, $10.95
2. The Backyard Bird Chronicles, Amy Tan, Knopf, $36. Watch a recap of the California Book Club event.
3. How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen, David Brooks, Random House Trade Paperbacks, $20
4. Fight Oligarchy, Bernie Sanders, Crown, $14.99
5. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Milkweed Editions, $20

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.