Alta Journal ’s California Bestsellers List (August 14, 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 August 10, 2025.

Check out these nonfiction picks this weekend. For Bruce Springsteen fans, Tonight in Jungleland, by Peter Ames Carlin, is a must-read. With insider access to Springsteen’s circle, Carlin tells the full story behind the making of the album Born to Run—including the songwriting process and the mental toll that creating the record took on Springsteen. In Coming Up Short, Robert B. Reich (who served in three presidential administrations, most notably as secretary of labor under Clinton) reflects on his time in Washington. He details the pivotal moments that shaped his career, examines his generation’s political accomplishments and failings, and provides a road map for how Democrats can bounce back from the challenges of the present moment.

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

Southern California

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. Atmosphere: A Love Story, Taylor Jenkins Reid, Ballantine Books, $30
2. An Inside Job, Daniel Silva, Harper, $32
3. My Friends, Fredrik Backman, Atria Books, $29.99
4. The Emperor of Gladness, Ocean Vuong, Penguin Press, $30
5. Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil, V.E. Schwab, Tor Books, $29.99

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. A Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck, Sophie Elmhirst, Riverhead Books, $28
2. Tonight in Jungleland: The Making of Born to Run, Peter Ames Carlin, Doubleday, $30
3. King of Kings: The Iranian Revolution; A Story of Hubris, Delusion and Catastrophic Miscalculation, Scott Anderson, Doubleday, $35
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. The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World, Robin Wall Kimmerer and John Burgoyne (illustrator), Scribner, $20

TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION

1. Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir, Ballantine, $20
2. I Who Have Never Known Men, Jacqueline Harpman and Ros Schwartz (translator), Transit Books, $16.95
3. All Fours, Miranda July, Riverhead Books, $19. Read the Alta review.
4. Martyr!, Kaveh Akbar, Vintage, $18. Watch the author speak at a California Book Club event.
5. The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, James McBride, Riverhead Books, $19

TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION

1. On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, Timothy Snyder, Crown, $12
2. Didion and Babitz, Lili Anolik, Scribner, $20. Read the Alta interview.
3. The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook, Hampton Sides, Vintage, $19
4. The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder, David Grann, Vintage, $21
5. All the Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me, Patrick Bringley, Simon & Schuster, $18.99

Northern California

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. Atmosphere: A Love Story, Taylor Jenkins Reid, Ballantine Books, $30
2. The Emperor of Gladness, Ocean Vuong, Penguin Press, $30
3. My Friends, Fredrik Backman, Atria Books, $29.99
4. Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil, V.E. Schwab, Tor Books, $29.99
5. An Inside Job, Daniel Silva, Harper, $32

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America, Robert B. Reich, Knopf, $30
2. Abundance, Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, Avid Reader Press, $30
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. A Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck, Sophie Elmhirst, Riverhead Books, $28
5. Raising Hare: A Memoir, Chloe Dalton, Pantheon, $27

TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION

1. Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir, Ballantine, $20
2. Remarkably Bright Creatures, Shelby Van Pelt, Ecco, $19.99
3. Martyr!, Kaveh Akbar, Vintage, $18. Watch the author speak at a California Book Club event.
4. All Fours, Miranda July, Riverhead Books, $19. Read the Alta review.
5. Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver, Harper Perennial, $21.99

TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION

1. On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, Timothy Snyder, Crown, $12
2. The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder, David Grann, Vintage, $21
3. All About Love: New Visions, bell hooks, William Morrow, $16.99
4. Sociopath: A Memoir, Patric Gagne, PhD, Simon & Schuster, $19.99
5. Didion and Babitz, Lili Anolik, Scribner, $20. Read the Alta interview.

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.