Alta Journal ’s California Bestsellers List (December 18, 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 14, 2025.

This week’s bestsellers list brings two stories of women navigating emotional upheaval and change. In Stone Yard Devotional, by Charlotte Wood, the unnamed narrator leaves her home in Sydney, Australia, to return to the place she grew up in—where she is forced to face what she left behind. In The Correspondent, by Virginia Evans, Sybil Van Antwerp spends years writing and sending letters to everyone from her brother to Joan Didion. When a note arrives from someone from her past, Sybil must face what she’s tried to forget.

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. Flesh, David Szalay, Scribner, $28.99
5. Stone Yard Devotional, Charlotte Wood, Riverhead Books, $28

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. The Uncool: A Memoir, Cameron Crowe, Avid Reader Press, $35
2. Bread of Angels: A Memoir, Patti Smith, Random House, $30
3. A Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck, Sophie Elmhirst, Riverhead Books, $28
4. 1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History—and How It Shattered a Nation, Andrew Ross Sorkin, Viking, $35
5. Good Things: Recipes and Rituals to Share with People You Love, Samin Nosrat, Random House, $45

TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION

1. Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir, Ballantine, $22
2. Hamnet, Maggie O’Farrell, Vintage, $19
3. The Frozen River, Ariel Lawhon, Vintage, $18
4. Playground, Richard Powers, W.W. Norton & Company, $19.99
5. Train Dreams, Denis Johnson, Picador, $17. Read the Alta review of the Netflix adaptation.

TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION

1. The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder, David Grann, Vintage, $21
2. The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession, Michael Finkel, Vintage, $18
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. On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, Timothy Snyder, Crown, $12

Northern California

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. The Correspondent, Virginia Evans, Crown, $28
2. The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, Kiran Desai, Hogarth, $32
3. Buckeye, Patrick Ryan, Random House, $30
4. What We Can Know, Ian McEwan, Knopf, $30
5. Heart the Lover, Lily King, Grove Press, $28

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. Good Things: Recipes and Rituals to Share with People You Love, Samin Nosrat, Random House, $45
2. 1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History—and How It Shattered a Nation, Andrew Ross Sorkin, Viking, $35
3. Bread of Angels: A Memoir, Patti Smith, Random House, $30
4. Something from Nothing: A Cookbook, Alison Roman, Clarkson Potter, $37.99
5. Always Remember: The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, the Horse and the Storm, Charlie Mackesy, Penguin Life, $27

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. Hamnet, Maggie O’Farrell, Vintage, $19

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. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Milkweed Editions, $20
4. The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder, David Grann, Vintage, $21
5. Fight Oligarchy, Bernie Sanders, Crown, $14.99

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.