With reporting from the California Independent Booksellers Alliance, Alta Journal highlights the bestselling books at independent bookstores across Northern and Southern California for the week ending October 18, 2026. This list includes bestselling fiction, nonfiction, and new releases, offering a snapshot of current book trends, popular authors, and must-read titles across California’s literary scene.
Have a cozy fall weekend with these two charming new releases. Set in 1982, Bonnie Garmus’s Peck & Peck follows recent college graduate Batter Gray, who is struggling to find employment. When he finally lands a job at the prestigious poetry quarterly Peck & Peck, Gray finds it to be a dysfunctional workplace with two warring editors-in-chief. And in the novel Stitched, author Eli McCann offers a glimpse into the world of competitive quilting. As the country’s biggest quilting competition approaches, a group of older women welcomes two young gay men into their circle to help defeat their quilting rivals.
For a full list of titles and categories, visit the California Independent Booksellers Alliance.•
Southern CaliforniaHARDCOVER FICTION
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American Hagwon, Min Jin Lee, Cardinal, $36. Read the Alta review. Threshing Day (Wing and Claw Collection), Rebecca Yarros, Red Tower Books, $25Exit Party, Emily St. John Mandel, Alfred A. Knopf, $32. Read the Alta review. Peck & Peck, Bonnie Garmus, Scribner, $30The Disappearers, Marlon James, Riverhead Books, $32HARDCOVER NONFICTION
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Blockers: Rebels in the Deep State, Michael Lewis, W.W. Norton & Company, $30One Helluva Ride, Michael Douglas, Grand Central Publishing, $35I’ll Believe in Anything: The Making of Heated Rivalry Season 1 (the annotated scripts), Jacob Tierney and Rachel Reid, Little, Brown & Company, $32Roll the Calls: A Memoir, Ari Emanuel, Alfred A. Knopf, $35The Rush: California Gold, the Civil War, and the Making of the Modern World, Nathaniel Philbrick, Viking, $38TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION
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Theo of Golden, Allen Levi, Atria Books, $20East of Eden, John Steinbeck, Penguin, $25Dungeon Crawler Carl, Matt Dinniman, Ace, $20Circe, Madeline Miller, Back Bay, $20Fruit Fly, Josh Silver, Crooked Lane Books, $20TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION
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Bread of Angels: A Memoir, Patti Smith, Random House Trade Paperbacks, $20Raising Hare: A Memoir, Chloe Dalton, Vintage, $21Mother Mary Comes to Me, Arundhati Roy, Scribner, $20Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It, Cory Doctorow, Picador, $20. Watch the Alta event with the author.The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity (30th anniversary edition), Julia Cameron, TarcherPerigee, $24. Read Alta’s feature on the book and the author. Northern CaliforniaHARDCOVER FICTION
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American Hagwon, Min Jin Lee, Cardinal, $36. Read the Alta review. Threshing Day (Wing and Claw Collection), Rebecca Yarros, Red Tower Books, $25Whistler, Ann Patchett, Harper, $30The Pirate Queen, Ariel Lawhon, Doubleday, $32Exit Party, Emily St. John Mandel, Alfred A. Knopf, $32. Read the Alta review. HARDCOVER NONFICTION
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Blockers: Rebels in the Deep State, Michael Lewis, W.W. Norton & Company, $30The Rush: California Gold, the Civil War, and the Making of the Modern World, Nathaniel Philbrick, Viking, $38Ottolenghi Simple Too: A Cookbook, Yotam Ottolenghi, Ten Speed Press, $45One Helluva Ride, Michael Douglas, Grand Central Publishing, $35The American Way of Killing: The Invention of an Epidemic, Malcolm Gladwell, Little, Brown and Company, $34TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION 
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Theo of Golden, Allen Levi, Atria Books, $20Dungeon Crawler Carl, Matt Dinniman, Ace, $20East of Eden, John Steinbeck, Penguin, $25Stitched, Eli McCann, Torrey House Press, $19The Women, Kristin Hannah, St. Martin’s Griffin, $21TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION
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Mother Mary Comes to Me, Arundhati Roy, Scribner, $20Crossing the Wine-Dark Sea: Journeys Through Ancient Literature, Emily Wilson, Liveright, $20Bread of Angels: A Memoir, Patti Smith, Random House Trade Paperbacks, $20Raising Hare: A Memoir, Chloe Dalton, Vintage, $21Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Milkweed Editions, $22
Source: California Independent Booksellers Alliance
Elizabeth Casillas is an associate editor at Alta Journal. A graduate of California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, she has previously written for the Poly Post and Enspire Magazine.