Alta Journal ’s California Bestsellers List (December 11, 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 December 7, 2025.

This week’s list highlights two quiet, haunting stories about men struggling to make sense of their lives. In Flesh, by David Szalay, we meet István, a teenager whose early traumas leave him scarred and isolated. Over the next decades, he crafts a luxurious life for himself, but after an unexpected tragedy, he finds himself lost again. Denis Johnson’s Train Dreams, recently adapted into a Netflix film (read the Alta review), follows Robert Grainer, a railroad laborer, in the American West as he grapples with losing his family while trying to understand a rapidly changing world.

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

Southern California

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, Kiran Desai, Hogarth, $32
2. The Secret of Secrets, Dan Brown, Doubleday, $38
3. The Correspondent, Virginia Evans, Crown, $28
4. Heart the Lover, Lily King, Grove Press, $28
5. Flesh, David Szalay, Scribner, $28.99

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. Bread of Angels: A Memoir, Patti Smith, Random House, $30
2. A Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck, Sophie Elmhirst, Riverhead Books, $28
3. Lessons from Cats for Surviving Fascism, Stewart “Brittlestar” Reynolds, Grand Central Publishing, $13
4. 1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History—and How It Shattered a Nation, Andrew Ross Sorkin, Viking, $35
5. Always Remember: The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, the Horse and the Storm, Charlie Mackesy, Penguin Life, $27

TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION

1. Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir, Ballantine, $22
2. Hamnet, Maggie O’Farrell, Vintage, $19
3. The God of the Woods, Liz Moore, Riverhead Books, $19
4. Train Dreams, Denis Johnson, Picador, $17
5. The Frozen River, Ariel Lawhon, Vintage, $18

TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION

1. The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession, Michael Finkel, Vintage, $18
2. Kingmaker: Pamela Harriman’s Astonishing Life of Power, Seduction, and Intrigue, Sonia Purnell, Penguin Books, $22
3. I’m Glad My Mom Died, Jennette McCurdy, Simon and Schuster, $19.99
4. The Best American Essays 2025, Jia Tolentino and Kim Dana Kupperman (editors), Mariner Books, $18.99
5. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Milkweed Editions, $20

Northern California

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. The Correspondent, Virginia Evans, Crown, $28
2. The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, Kiran Desai, Hogarth, $32
3. Dog Show: Poems, Billy Collins and Pamela Sztybel (illustrator), Random House, $20
4. Flesh, David Szalay, Scribner, $28.99
5. The Black Wolf, Louise Penny, Minotaur Books, $30

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. Good Things: Recipes and Rituals to Share with People You Love, Samin Nosrat, Random House, $45
2. Something from Nothing: A Cookbook, Alison Roman, Clarkson Potter, $37.99
3. Bread of Angels: A Memoir, Patti Smith, Random House, $30
4. A Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck, Sophie Elmhirst, Riverhead Books, $28
5. 1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History—and How It Shattered a Nation, Andrew Ross Sorkin, Viking, $35

TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION

1. The God of the Woods, Liz Moore, Riverhead Books, $19
2. Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir, Ballantine, $22
3. Remarkably Bright Creatures, Shelby Van Pelt, Ecco, $19.99
4. The City and Its Uncertain Walls, Haruki Murakami and Philip Gabriel (translator), Vintage, $19
5. The Frozen River, Ariel Lawhon, Vintage, $18

TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION

1. The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder, David Grann, Vintage, $21
2. The Backyard Bird Chronicles, Amy Tan, Knopf, $36. Read 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. Kingmaker: Pamela Harriman’s Astonishing Life of Power, Seduction, and Intrigue, Sonia Purnell, Penguin Books, $22
5. The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession, Michael Finkel, Vintage, $18

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.