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 November 30, 2025.
This week’s bestsellers list features two new gripping novels. Shadow Ticket by Thomas Pynchon follows private investigator Hicks McTaggart as a simple missing-heiress case spirals into a tangle of Nazis, British spies, and paranormal practitioners. In The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai, two acquaintances are reunited by chance. Set-up long ago by their grandparents, Sonia and Sunny now pursue a relationship on their own terms, while navigating family pressures, social expectations, and a looming curse.
For a full list of titles and categories, visit the California Independent Booksellers Alliance.•
Southern CaliforniaHARDCOVER FICTION
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The Correspondent, Virginia Evans, Crown, $28Heart the Lover, Lily King, Grove Press, $28What We Can Know, Ian McEwan, Knopf, $30Shadow Ticket, Thomas Pynchon, Penguin Press, $30. Read the Alta review. Dog Show: Poems, Billy Collins and Pamela Sztybel (illustrator), Random House, $20HARDCOVER NONFICTION
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Bread of Angels: A Memoir, Patti Smith, Random House, $301929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History—and How It Shattered a Nation, Andrew Ross Sorkin, Viking, $35One 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, $29.99Lessons from Cats for Surviving Fascism, Stewart “Brittlestar” Reynolds, Grand Central Publishing, $13 TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION
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Martyr!, Kaveh Akbar, Vintage, $18. Watch the author speak at a California Book Club event.Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir, Ballantine, $22The Lion Women of Tehran, Marjan Kamali, Gallery Books, $18.99The God of the Woods, Liz Moore, Riverhead Books, $19Hamnet, Maggie O’Farrell, Vintage, $19TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION
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Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Joan Didion, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $18How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen, David Brooks, Random House Trade Paperbacks, $20The Best American Essays 2025, Jia Tolentino and Kim Dana Kupperman, Mariner Books, $18.99The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession, Michael Finkel, Vintage, $18All About Love: New Visions, bell hooks, William Morrow, $16.99Northern CaliforniaHARDCOVER FICTION
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The Correspondent, Virginia Evans, Crown, $28Dog Show: Poems, Billy Collins and Pamela Sztybel (illustrator), Random House, $20Heart the Lover, Lily King, Grove Press, $28What We Can Know, Ian McEwan, Knopf, $30The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, Kiran Desai, Hogarth, $32HARDCOVER NONFICTION
Alta
1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History—and How It Shattered a Nation, Andrew Ross Sorkin, Viking, $35Bread of Angels: A Memoir, Patti Smith, Random House, $30Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, Knopf, $35Good Things: Recipes and Rituals to Share with People You Love, Samin Nosrat, Random House, $45Something from Nothing: A Cookbook, Alison Roman, Clarkson Potter, $37.99TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION 
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The God of the Woods, Liz Moore, Riverhead Books, $19Remarkably Bright Creatures, Shelby Van Pelt, Ecco, $19.99Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir, Ballantine, $22Playground, Richard Powers, W.W. Norton & Company, $19.99Tell Me Everything, Elizabeth Strout, Random House Trade Paperbacks, $18TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION
Alta
The 2026 Old Farmer’s Almanac, Old Farmer’s Almanac, $10.95The Backyard Bird Chronicles, Amy Tan, Knopf, $36. Watch a recap of the California Book Club event. How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen, David Brooks, Random House Trade Paperbacks, $20Fight Oligarchy, Bernie Sanders, Crown, $14.99Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Milkweed Editions, $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.