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 22, 2026.
Look back on American history with two titles from this week’s bestseller’s list. In The Greatest Sentence Ever Written, author Walter Isaacson examines the opening line of the Declaration of Independence— “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal”—in a modern context. In American Struggle, writer Jon Meacham traces the nation’s history from 1619 to today using primary source documents.
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, $28Heart the Lover, Lily King, Grove Press, $28Agnes Aubert’s Mystical Cat Shelter, Heather Fawcett, Del Rey, $29Operation Bounce House, Matt Dinniman, Ace, $32HARDCOVER NONFICTION
Alta
A Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck, Sophie Elmhirst, Riverhead Books, $28Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage, Belle Burden, the Dial Press, $30The Last Kings of Hollywood: Coppola, Lucas, Spielberg—and the Battle for the Soul of American Cinema, Paul Fischer, Celadon Books, $32One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, Omar El Akkad, Knopf, $28American Struggle: Democracy, Dissent, and the Pursuit of a More Perfect Union; An Anthology, Jon Meacham, Random House, $38TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION
Alta
Theo of Golden, Allen Levi, Atria Books, $20Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir, Ballantine, $22Hamnet, Maggie O’Farrell, Vintage, $19Wuthering Heights (movie tie-in), Emily Brontë, Penguin Books, $18Heated Rivalry, Rachel Reid, Carina Press, $18.99TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION
Alta
All About Love: New Visions, bell hooks, William Morrow, $16.99The Lion Beneath the Fade, Sebastian Bastian, Advantage Media Group, $19.99The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma, Bessel van der Kolk, MD, Penguin Books, $19On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, Timothy Snyder, Crown, $12I’m Glad My Mom Died, Jennette McCurdy, Simon and Schuster, $19.99Northern CaliforniaHARDCOVER FICTION
Alta
The Correspondent, Virginia Evans, Crown, $28Vigil, George Saunders, Random House, $28Heart the Lover, Lily King, Grove Press, $28Half His Age, Jennette McCurdy, Ballantine Books, $30The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, Kiran Desai, Hogarth, $32HARDCOVER NONFICTION
Alta
A Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck, Sophie Elmhirst, Riverhead Books, $28The Greatest Sentence Ever Written, Walter Isaacson, Simon & Schuster, $20Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, Knopf, $35American Struggle: Democracy, Dissent, and the Pursuit of a More Perfect Union; An Anthology, Jon Meacham, Random House, $38Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage, Belle Burden, the Dial Press, $30TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION 
Alta
Theo of Golden, Allen Levi, Atria Books, $20Heated Rivalry, Rachel Reid, Carina Press, $18.99Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir, Ballantine, $22Dungeon Crawler Carl, Matt Dinniman, Ace, $20Hamnet, Maggie O’Farrell, Vintage, $19TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION
Alta
On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, Timothy Snyder, Crown, $12Want, Anonymous and Gillian Anderson (editor), Abrams Press, $18All About Love: New Visions, bell hooks, William Morrow, $16.99I’m Glad My Mom Died, Jennette McCurdy, Simon and Schuster, $19.99Breath: 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.