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 28, 2025.
Check out two new fantastical releases this week. Ian McEwan’s latest novel What We Can Know opens in 2014 with the reading of a poem at a dinner party. More than a century later, in 2119, researcher Thomas Metcalfe, obsessed with the early twenty-first century, searches for the original poem, uncovering truths about a history he thought he understood. Alchemised, by SenLinYu, tells the story of alchemist Helena Marino in the aftermath of a long war. Suspected of collusion by the corrupt government, Helena is sent to work with a necromancer who may be the key to unlocking the secrets of her past.
For a full list of titles and categories, visit the California Independent Booksellers Alliance.•
Southern CaliforniaHARDCOVER FICTION
Alta
Alchemised, SenLinYu, Del Rey, $35What We Can Know, Ian McEwan, Knopf, $30The Secret of Secrets, Dan Brown, Doubleday, $38The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, Kiran Desai, Hogarth, $32Katabasis (deluxe limited edition), R.F. Kuang, Harper Voyager, $35HARDCOVER NONFICTION
Alta
107 Days, Kamala Harris, Simon & Schuster, $30All the Way to the River: Love, Loss, and Liberation, Elizabeth Gilbert, Riverhead Books, $35Faithonomics: The Wealth is in the Kingdom, the Legacy is in the Story, Jerry Lopez, Jerry Lopez (publisher), $28.99Good Things: Recipes and Rituals to Share with People You Love, Samin Nosrat, Random House, $45Poems & Prayers, Matthew McConaughey, Crown, $29TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION
Alta
Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir, Ballantine, $22The City and Its Uncertain Walls, Haruki Murakami and Philip Gabriel (translator), Vintage, $19Remarkably Bright Creatures, Shelby Van Pelt, Ecco, $19.99I Who Have Never Known Men, Jacqueline Harpman and Ros Schwartz (translator), Transit Books, $16.95All Fours, Miranda July, Riverhead Books, $19. Read the Alta review.TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION
Alta
Alignment: A Montessori Approach to Reimagining Work-Life Balance, Katie Keller Wood, Page Two, $18.95All About Love: New Visions, bell hooks, William Morrow, $16.99The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity, Julia Cameron, TarcherPerigee, $24Didion and Babitz, Lili Anolik, Scribner, $20. Read the Alta interview. Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World, Anne Applebaum, Vintage, $18Northern CaliforniaHARDCOVER FICTION
Alta
The Secret of Secrets, Dan Brown, Doubleday, $38What We Can Know, Ian McEwan, Knopf, $30Alchemised, SenLinYu, Del Rey, $35The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, Kiran Desai, Hogarth, $32My Friends, Fredrik Backman, Atria Books, $29.99HARDCOVER NONFICTION
Alta
107 Days, Kamala Harris, Simon & Schuster, $30Good Things: Recipes and Rituals to Share with People You Love, Samin Nosrat, Random House, $45All the Way to the River: Love, Loss, and Liberation, Elizabeth Gilbert, Riverhead Books, $35Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy, Mary Roach, W.W. Norton & Company, $28.99Strong Ground: The Lessons of Daring Leadership, the Tenacity of Paradox, and the Wisdom of the Human Spirit, Brené Brown, Random House, $32TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION 
Alta
Remarkably Bright Creatures, Shelby Van Pelt, Ecco, $19.99The City and Its Uncertain Walls, Haruki Murakami and Philip Gabriel (translator), Vintage, $19Martyr!, Kaveh Akbar, Vintage, $18. Watch the author speak at a California Book Club event.Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir, Ballantine, $22Tell Me Everything, Elizabeth Strout, Random House Trade Paperbacks, $18TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION
Alta
On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, Timothy Snyder, Crown, $12The Backyard Bird Chronicles, Amy Tan, Knopf, $36. Read a recap of the California Book Club event. The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession, Michael Finkel, Vintage, $18All About Love: New Visions, bell hooks, William Morrow, $16.99The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth, Zoë Schlanger, Harper Perennial, $19.99
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.