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 February 1, 2026.
This week’s bestsellers list features two new releases. George Saunder’s latest novel Vigil follows Jill Blaine, a dead woman whose job is to console and guide clients into the afterlife. When she meets K.J. Boone, a controversial man who believes he has nothing to regret, Jill’s training is put to the test. Also on the list is Strangers, a memoir by Belle Burden. After her husband leaves their twenty-year marriage with no explanation, Burden revisits the relationship through her writing, searching for clues about what might have been its undoing.
For a full list of titles and categories, visit the California Independent Booksellers Alliance.•
Southern CaliforniaHARDCOVER FICTION
Alta
The Correspondent, Virginia Evans, Crown, $28Vigil, George Saunders, Random House, $28Half His Age, Jennette McCurdy, Ballantine Books, $30Heart the Lover, Lily King, Grove Press, $28Wild Dark Shore, Charlotte McConaghy, Flatiron Books, $28.99HARDCOVER NONFICTION
Alta
One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, Omar El Akkad, Knopf, $28A Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck, Sophie Elmhirst, Riverhead Books, $28Football, Chuck Klosterman, Penguin Press, $32Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage, Belle Burden, The Dial Press, $30The Let Them Theory: A Life-Changing Tool That Millions of People Can’t Stop Talking About, Mel Robbins and Sawyer Robbins, Hay House, $29.99TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION
Alta
Theo of Golden, Allen Levi, Atria Books, $20Hamnet, Maggie O’Farrell, Vintage, $19Heated Rivalry, Rachel Reid, Carina Press, $18.99Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir, Ballantine, $22The God of the Woods, Liz Moore, Riverhead Books, $19TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION
Alta
On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, Timothy Snyder, Crown, $12Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Milkweed Editions, $20Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Joan Didion, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $18The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality, Amanda Montell, Atria/One Signal Publishers, $19All About Love: New Visions, bell hooks, William Morrow, $16.99Northern CaliforniaHARDCOVER FICTION
Alta
The Correspondent, Virginia Evans, Crown, $28Vigil, George Saunders, Random House, $28Half His Age, Jennette McCurdy, Ballantine Books, $30The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, Kiran Desai, Hogarth, $32Heart the Lover, Lily King, Grove Press, $28HARDCOVER NONFICTION
Alta
1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History—and How It Shattered a Nation, Andrew Ross Sorkin, Viking, $35The Let Them Theory: A Life-Changing Tool That Millions of People Can’t Stop Talking About, Mel Robbins and Sawyer Robbins, Hay House, $29.99Good Things: Recipes and Rituals to Share with People You Love, Samin Nosrat, Random House, $45Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage, Belle Burden, The Dial Press, $30One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, Omar El Akkad, Knopf, $28TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION 
Alta
Theo of Golden, Allen Levi, Atria Books, $20Hamnet, Maggie O’Farrell, Vintage, $19Heated Rivalry, Rachel Reid, Carina Press, $18.99Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir, Ballantine, $22The God of the Woods, Liz Moore, Riverhead Books, $19TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION
Alta
On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, Timothy Snyder, Crown, $12Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts, Oliver Burkeman, Picador, $19All About Love: New Visions, bell hooks, William Morrow, $16.99Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Milkweed Editions, $20Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art, James Nestor, Riverhead Books, $20
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.