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 December 7, 2025.
This week’s list highlights two quiet, haunting stories about men struggling to make sense of their lives. In Flesh by David Szalay, we meet István, a teenager whose early traumas leave him scarred and isolated. Over the next decades, he crafts a luxurious life for himself, but after an unexpected tragedy, finds himself lost again. Denis Johnson’s Train Dreams, now a Netflix film (read the Alta review), follows Robert Grainer, a railroad laborer, in the American West as he grapples with losing his family while trying to understand a rapidly changing world.
For a full list of titles and categories, visit the California Independent Booksellers Alliance.•
Southern CaliforniaHARDCOVER FICTION
Alta
The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, Kiran Desai, Hogarth, $32The Secret of Secrets, Dan Brown, Doubleday, $38The Correspondent, Virginia Evans, Crown, $28Heart the Lover, Lily King, Grove Press, $28Flesh, David Szalay, Scribner, $28.99HARDCOVER NONFICTION
Alta
Bread of Angels: A Memoir, Patti Smith, Random House, $30A Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck, Sophie Elmhirst, Riverhead Books, $28Lessons from Cats for Surviving Fascism, Stewart “Brittlestar” Reynolds, Grand Central Publishing, $131929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History—and How It Shattered a Nation, Andrew Ross Sorkin, Viking, $35Always Remember: The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, the Horse and the Storm, Charlie Mackesy, Penguin Life, $27TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION
Alta
Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir, Ballantine, $22Hamnet, Maggie O’Farrell, Vintage, $19The God of the Woods, Liz Moore, Riverhead Books, $19Train Dreams, Denis Johnson, Picador, $17The Frozen River, Ariel Lawhon, Vintage, $18TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION
Alta
The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession, Michael Finkel, Vintage, $18Kingmaker: Pamela Harriman’s Astonishing Life of Power, Seduction, and Intrigue, Sonia Purnell, Penguin Books, $22I’m Glad My Mom Died, Jennette McCurdy, Simon and Schuster, $19.99The Best American Essays 2025, Jia Tolentino and Kim Dana Kupperman, Mariner Books, $18.99Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Milkweed Editions, $20Northern CaliforniaHARDCOVER FICTION
Alta
The Correspondent, Virginia Evans, Crown, $28The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, Kiran Desai, Hogarth, $32Dog Show: Poems, Billy Collins and Pamela Sztybel (illustrator), Random House, $20Flesh, David Szalay, Scribner, $28.99The Black Wolf, Louise Penny, Minotaur Books, $30HARDCOVER NONFICTION
Alta
Good Things: Recipes and Rituals to Share with People You Love, Samin Nosrat, Random House, $45Something from Nothing: A Cookbook, Alison Roman, Clarkson Potter, $37.99Bread of Angels: A Memoir, Patti Smith, Random House, $30A Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck, Sophie Elmhirst, Riverhead Books, $281929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History—and How It Shattered a Nation, Andrew Ross Sorkin, Viking, $35TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION 
Alta
The God of the Woods, Liz Moore, Riverhead Books, $19Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir, Ballantine, $22Remarkably Bright Creatures, Shelby Van Pelt, Ecco, $19.99The City and Its Uncertain Walls, Haruki Murakami and Philip Gabriel (translator), Vintage, $19The Frozen River, Ariel Lawhon, Vintage, $18TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION
Alta
The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder, David Grann, Vintage, $21The 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, $20Kingmaker: Pamela Harriman’s Astonishing Life of Power, Seduction, and Intrigue, Sonia Purnell, Penguin Books, $22The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession, Michael Finkel, Vintage, $18
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.