Alta Journal’s California Bestsellers List (October 10, 2024)

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 6, 2024.

This week’s bestsellers list features two literary masterpieces. Kicking things off is The Message, by Ta-Nehisi Coates. What began as a guide to writing evolved into something much deeper. In this new release, Coates shares reflections from home and abroad in the form of three powerful essays on race, moral accountability, and a narrator’s duty to honesty. Also on the list is North Woods, by Daniel Mason. This original and inventive narrative is set in the New England forest, where a house is inhabited by both human and ghostly tenants.

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

Southern California

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. Intermezzo, Sally Rooney, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $29
2. Playground, Richard Powers, W.W. Norton & Company, $29.99
3. James, Percival Everett, Doubleday, $28. Read an excerpt in Alta.
4. All Fours, Miranda July, Riverhead Books, $29. Read the Alta review.
5. The Life Impossible, Matt Haig, Viking, $30

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. Be Ready When the Luck Happens: A Memoir, Ina Garten, Crown, $34
2. The Message, Ta-Nehisi Coates, One World, $30
3. Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI, Yuval Noah Harari, Random House, $35
4. Revenge of the Tipping Point: Overstories, Superspreaders, and the Rise of Social Engineering, Malcolm Gladwell, Little, Brown and Company, $32
5. On Freedom, Timothy Snyder, Crown, $32

TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION

1. Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver, Harper Perennial, $21.99
2. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, Gabrielle Zevin, Vintage, $19
3. Fourth Wing, Rebecca Yarros, Red Tower Books, $20.99
4. The Bee Sting, Paul Murray, Picador, $20
5. North Woods: A Novel, Daniel Mason, Random House Trade Paperbacks, $18

TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION

1. The Backyard Bird Chronicles, Amy Tan, Knopf, $35
2. The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma, Bessel van der Kolk, MD, Penguin Books, $19
3. Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World, Naomi Klein, Picador, $20
4. All About Love: New Visions, bell hooks, William Morrow, $16.99
5. The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity, Julia Cameron, TarcherPerigee, $20

Northern California

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. Intermezzo, Sally Rooney, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $29
2. Tell Me Everything, Elizabeth Strout, Random House, $30
3. All Fours, Miranda July, Riverhead Books, $29. Read the Alta review.
4. Playground, Richard Powers, W.W. Norton & Company, $29.99
5. James, Percival Everett, Doubleday, $28. Read an excerpt in Alta.

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. The Message, Ta-Nehisi Coates, One World, $30
2. Be Ready When the Luck Happens: A Memoir, Ina Garten, Crown, $34
3. Revenge of the Tipping Point: Overstories, Superspreaders, and the Rise of Social Engineering, Malcolm Gladwell, Little, Brown and Company, $32
4. Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI, Yuval Noah Harari, Random House, $35
5. Something Lost, Something Gained: Reflections on Life, Love, and Liberty, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Simon & Schuster, $29.99

TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION

1. Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver, Harper Perennial, $21.99
2. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, Gabrielle Zevin, Vintage, $19
3. North Woods: A Novel, Daniel Mason, Random House Trade Paperbacks, $18
4. Fourth Wing, Rebecca Yarros, Red Tower Books, $20.99
5. The Best Short Stories 2024: The O. Henry Prize Winners, Amor Towles (editor) and Jenny Minton Quigley (editor), Vintage, $19

TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION

1. The Backyard Bird Chronicles, Amy Tan, Knopf, $35
2. The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession, Michael Finkel, Vintage, $18
3. The Truths We Hold: An American Journey, Kamala Harris, Penguin, $20
4. Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World, Naomi Klein, Picador, $20
5. All About Love: New Visions, bell hooks, William Morrow, $16.99

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.