Alta Journal ’s California Bestsellers List (August 28, 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 24, 2025.

Enjoy the final days of summer with two engrossing reads. First, travel to Crosby, Maine, in Elizabeth Strout’s Tell Me Everything, the fifth installment of the Amgash series. Lawyer Bob Burgess is working a gripping murder case, while writer Lucy Barton meets retired schoolteacher Olive Kitteridge for the first time. On the nonfiction side, Raising Hare, by Chloe Dalton, follows the author’s experience looking after a leveret. Blending memoir and natural history, Dalton explores the portrayal of hares in art and literature while reflecting on her bond with the animal in her care.

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

Southern California

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. My Friends, Fredrik Backman, Atria Books, $29.99
2. The Wedding People, Alison Espach, Henry Holt and Company, $28.99
3. Atmosphere: A Love Story, Taylor Jenkins Reid, Ballantine Books, $30
4. James, Percival Everett, Doubleday, $28. Read an excerpt in Alta.
5. Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil, V.E. Schwab, Tor Books, $29.99

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. 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
2. Raising Hare: A Memoir, Chloe Dalton, Pantheon, $27
3. The Creative Act: A Way of Being, Rick Rubin, Penguin Press, $32
4. Tonight in Jungleland: The Making of Born to Run, Peter Ames Carlin, Doubleday, $30
5. I Regret Almost Everything, Keith McNally, Gallery Books, $29.99

TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION

1. Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir, Ballantine, $20
2. Remarkably Bright Creatures, Shelby Van Pelt, Ecco, $19.99
3. All Fours, Miranda July, Riverhead Books, $19. Read the Alta review.
4. The Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller, Ecco, $17.99
5. Martyr!, Kaveh Akbar, Vintage, $18. Watch the author speak at a California Book Club event.

TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION

1. Didion and Babitz, Lili Anolik, Scribner, $20. Read the Alta interview.
2. On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, Timothy Snyder, Crown, $12
3. The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder, David Grann, Vintage, $21
4. All the Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me, Patrick Bringley, Simon & Schuster, $18.99
5. Single-Minded: Finding Purpose and Strength in Your Season of Singleness, Bob Wheatley, Streamline Books, $12.99

Northern California

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. My Friends, Fredrik Backman, Atria Books, $29.99
2. James, Percival Everett, Doubleday, $28. Read an excerpt in Alta.
3. The Emperor of Gladness, Ocean Vuong, Penguin Press, $30
4. Atmosphere: A Love Story, Taylor Jenkins Reid, Ballantine Books, $30
5. Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil, V.E. Schwab, Tor Books, $29.99

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. The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World, Robin Wall Kimmerer and John Burgoyne (illustrator), Scribner, $20
5. One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, Omar El Akkad, Knopf, $28

TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION

1. Remarkably Bright Creatures, Shelby Van Pelt, Ecco, $19.99
2. Tell Me Everything, Elizabeth Strout, Random House Trade Paperbacks, $18
3. The Ministry of Time, Kaliane Bradley, Avid Reader Press, $18.99
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 Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession, Michael Finkel, Vintage, $18
3. The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder, David Grann, Vintage, $21
4. In the Absence of the Ordinary: Soul Work for Times of Uncertainty—Essays on Grief, Change, and Sacred Transitions, Francis Weller, North Atlantic Books, $19.95
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.