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 January 4, 2026.
Begin the year with two powerful stories featuring women tested by isolation. In Isola by Allegra Goodman, we meet young Marguerite—a privileged girl who is suddenly orphaned. When Marguerite’s guardian takes her inheritance and abandons her on a small island, she must learn to fend for herself. In Wild Dark Shore, author Charlotte McConaghy tells the story of a family devoted to the preservation of a remote island. When a woman washes ashore under mysterious circumstances, the family must decide who to trust.
For a full list of titles and categories, visit the California Independent Booksellers Alliance.•
Southern CaliforniaHARDCOVER FICTION
Alta
Heart the Lover, Lily King, Grove Press, $28The Correspondent, Virginia Evans, Crown, $28What We Can Know, Ian McEwan, Knopf, $30Wild Dark Shore, Charlotte McConaghy, Flatiron Books, $28.99Flesh, David Szalay, Scribner, $28.99HARDCOVER NONFICTION
Alta
A Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck, Sophie Elmhirst, Riverhead Books, $28One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, Omar El Akkad, Knopf, $28The Let Them Theory: A Life-Changing Tool That Millions of People Can’t Stop Talking About, Mel Robbins and Sawyer Robbins, Hay House, $29.991929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History—and How It Shattered a Nation, Andrew Ross Sorkin, Viking, $35Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection, John Green, Crash Course Books, $28TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION
Alta
Heated Rivalry, Rachel Reid, Carina Press, $18.99Hamnet, Maggie O’Farrell, Vintage, $19The Housemaid, Freida McFadden, Grand Central, $18.99I Who Have Never Known Men, Jacqueline Harpman and Ros Schwartz (translator), Transit Books, $16.95Remarkably Bright Creatures, Shelby Van Pelt, Ecco, $19.99TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION
Alta
Fight Oligarchy, Bernie Sanders, Crown, $14.99I’m Glad My Mom Died, Jennette McCurdy, Simon and Schuster, $19.99All About Love: New Visions, bell hooks, William Morrow, $16.99Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art, James Nestor, Riverhead Books, $20The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity, Julia Cameron, TarcherPerigee, $24Northern CaliforniaHARDCOVER FICTION
Alta
The Correspondent, Virginia Evans, Crown, $28Heart the Lover, Lily King, Grove Press, $28The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, Kiran Desai, Hogarth, $32Dog Show: Poems, Billy Collins and Pamela Sztybel (illustrator), Random House, $20Flesh, David Szalay, Scribner, $28.99HARDCOVER NONFICTION
Alta
1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History—and How It Shattered a Nation, Andrew Ross Sorkin, Viking, $35Good Things: Recipes and Rituals to Share with People You Love, Samin Nosrat, Random House, $45Always Remember: The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, the Horse and the Storm, Charlie Mackesy, Penguin Life, $27The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World, Robin Wall Kimmerer and John Burgoyne (illustrator), Scribner, $20A Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck, Sophie Elmhirst, Riverhead Books, $28TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION 
Alta
Heated Rivalry, Rachel Reid, Carina Press, $18.99Dungeon Crawler Carl, Matt Dinniman, Ace, $20The God of the Woods, Liz Moore, Riverhead Books, $19Hamnet, Maggie O’Farrell, Vintage, $19Isola, Allegra Goodman, Dial Press Trade Paperback, $19TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION
Alta
Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art, James Nestor, Riverhead Books, $20Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Milkweed Editions, $20I’m Glad My Mom Died, Jennette McCurdy, Simon and Schuster, $19.99The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder, David Grann, Vintage, $21All About Love: New Visions, bell hooks, William Morrow, $16.99
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.