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 14, 2025.
This week’s bestsellers list brings two stories of women navigating emotional upheaval and change. In Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood, the unnamed narrator leaves her home in Sydney, Australia to return to the place she grew up in—where she is forced to face what she left behind. In The Correspondent by Virginia Evans, Sybil Van Antwerp spends years writing and sending letters to everyone from her brother to Joan Didion. When a note arrives from someone from her past, Sybil must face what she’s tried to forget.
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, $30Flesh, David Szalay, Scribner, $28.99Stone Yard Devotional, Charlotte Wood, Riverhead Books, $28HARDCOVER NONFICTION
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The Uncool: A Memoir, Cameron Crowe, Avid Reader Press, $35Bread 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, $35Good Things: Recipes and Rituals to Share with People You Love, Samin Nosrat, Random House, $45TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION
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Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir, Ballantine, $22Hamnet, Maggie O’Farrell, Vintage, $19The Frozen River, Ariel Lawhon, Vintage, $18Playground, Richard Powers, W.W. Norton & Company, $19.99Train Dreams, Denis Johnson, Picador, $17. Read the Alta review of the Netflix adaptation.TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION
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The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder, David Grann, Vintage, $21The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession, Michael Finkel, Vintage, $18The Backyard Bird Chronicles, Amy Tan, Knopf, $36. Read a recap of the California Book Club event. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Milkweed Editions, $20On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, Timothy Snyder, Crown, $12Northern CaliforniaHARDCOVER FICTION
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The Correspondent, Virginia Evans, Crown, $28The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, Kiran Desai, Hogarth, $32Buckeye, Patrick Ryan, Random House, $30What We Can Know, Ian McEwan, Knopf, $30Heart the Lover, Lily King, Grove Press, $28HARDCOVER NONFICTION
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Good Things: Recipes and Rituals to Share with People You Love, Samin Nosrat, Random House, $451929: 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, $30Something from Nothing: A Cookbook, Alison Roman, Clarkson Potter, $37.99Always Remember: The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, the Horse and the Storm, Charlie Mackesy, Penguin Life, $27TRADE 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, $19.99Hamnet, Maggie O’Farrell, Vintage, $19TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION
Alta
On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, Timothy Snyder, Crown, $12The Backyard Bird Chronicles, Amy Tan, Knopf, $36. Read a recap of the California Book Club event. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Milkweed Editions, $20The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder, David Grann, Vintage, $21Fight Oligarchy, Bernie Sanders, Crown, $14.99
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.