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 September 14, 2025.
Add two compelling September releases to your fall TBR. In All the Way to the River, Elizabeth Gilbert reflects on her relationship with her former partner, Rayya Elias. The memoir traces how their bond was marred by addiction, with both women feeding into each other’s self-destructive tendencies. And photographer Sally Mann offers a candid look at her creative life in Art Work. Through journal entries, letters, and photographs, she shares the lessons she has learned from a remarkable career behind the lens.
For a full list of titles and categories, visit the California Independent Booksellers Alliance.•
Southern CaliforniaHARDCOVER FICTION
Alta
The Secret of Secrets, Dan Brown, Doubleday, $38Katabasis (deluxe limited edition), R.F. Kuang, Harper Voyager, $35Buckeye, Patrick Ryan, Random House, $30Clown Town, Mick Herron, Soho Crime, $29.95My Friends, Fredrik Backman, Atria Books, $29.99HARDCOVER NONFICTION
Alta
All the Way to the River: Love, Loss, and Liberation, Elizabeth Gilbert, Riverhead Books, $35Invest Like a Billionaire: Unlocking the Wealth Secrets of the Ultra-Rich, Bob Fraser and Ben Fraser, Maxwell Leadership, $28Art Work: On the Creative Life, Sally Mann, Abrams Press, $35The Let Them Theory: A Life-Changing Tool That Millions of People Can’t Stop Talking About, Mel Robbins and Sawyer Robbins, Hay House, $29.99The Little Frog’s Guide to Self-Care: Affirmations, Self-Love and Life Lessons According to the Internet’s Beloved Mushroom Frog, Maybell Eequay, Summersdale, $11.99TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION
Alta
Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir, Ballantine, $22All Fours, Miranda July, Riverhead Books, $19. Read the Alta review.The Frozen River, Ariel Lawhon, Vintage, $18The Life Impossible, Matt Haig, Penguin, $19I Who Have Never Known Men, Jacqueline Harpman and Ros Schwartz (translator), Transit Books, $16.95TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION
Alta
On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, Timothy Snyder, Crown, $12The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity, Julia Cameron, TarcherPerigee, $20The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession, Michael Finkel, Vintage, $18All the Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me, Patrick Bringley, Simon & Schuster, $18.99Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World, Anne Applebaum, Vintage, $18Northern CaliforniaHARDCOVER FICTION
Alta
The Secret of Secrets, Dan Brown, Doubleday, $38Katabasis (deluxe limited edition), R.F. Kuang, Harper Voyager, $35My Friends, Fredrik Backman, Atria Books, $29.99Buckeye, Patrick Ryan, Random House, $30James, Percival Everett, Doubleday, $28. Read an excerpt in Alta.HARDCOVER NONFICTION
Alta
All the Way to the River: Love, Loss, and Liberation, Elizabeth Gilbert, Riverhead Books, $35Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America, Robert B. Reich, Knopf, $30Mother Mary Comes to Me, Arundhati Roy, Scribner, $30Art Work: On the Creative Life, Sally Mann, Abrams Press, $35It Doesn’t Have to Hurt: Your Smart Guide to a Pain-Free Life, Sanjay Gupta, MD, Simon & Schuster, $30TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION 
Alta
The Life Impossible, Matt Haig, Penguin, $19Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir, Ballantine, $22Martyr!, Kaveh Akbar, Vintage, $18. Watch the author speak at a California Book Club event.Remarkably Bright Creatures, Shelby Van Pelt, Ecco, $19.99The City and Its Uncertain Walls, Haruki Murakami and Philip Gabriel (translator), Vintage, $19TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION
Alta
Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World, Anne Applebaum, Vintage, $18On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, Timothy Snyder, Crown, $12On Our Best Behavior: The Price Women Pay to Be Good, Elise Loehnen, Dial Press Trade Paperback, $20The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession, Michael Finkel, Vintage, $18Didion and Babitz, Lili Anolik, Scribner, $20. Read the Alta interview.
Source: California Independent Booksellers Alliance
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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.