<i>Alta Journal</i>’s California Bestsellers List (June 20, 2024) (2024)

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 June 16, 2024.

On the list this week is the highly anticipated The Friday Afternoon Club: A Family Memoir by Griffin Dunne. The memoir takes readers back in time as Dunne describes his childhood in California and later years in New York City. Enjoy a preview of Dunne’s latest work in this Alta excerpt. Also on the list is the biography Miss May Does Not Exist: The Life and Work of Elaine May, Hollywood’s Hidden Genius. Writer Carrie Courogen painstakingly pieces together the life of the beloved comic artist from extensive interviews and new research.

For a full list of titles and categories, visit the California Independent Booksellers Alliance.•

Southern California

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. James, Percival Everett, Doubleday, $28. Read an excerpt in Alta.
2. All Fours, Miranda July, Riverhead Books, $29. Read the Alta review.
3. Table for Two: Fictions, Amor Towles, Viking, $32
4. Eruption, Michael Crichton and James Patterson, Little, Brown and Company, $32
5. The Paris Novel, Ruth Reichl, Random House, $29

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War, Erik Larson, Crown Publishing Group, $35
2. The Friday Afternoon Club: A Family Memoir, Griffin Dunne, Penguin Press, $30. Read an excerpt in Alta.
3. The Creative Act: A Way of Being, Rick Rubin, Penguin Press, $32
4. Miss May Does Not Exist: The Life and Work of Elaine May, Hollywood’s Hidden Genius, Carrie Courogen, St. Martin’s Press, $30
5. The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder, David Grann, Doubleday, $30

TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION

1. Not in Love, Ali Hazelwood, Berkley, $19
2. A Court of Thorns and Roses, Sarah J. Maas, Bloomsbury Publishing, $19
3. Happy Place, Emily Henry, Berkley Books, $19
4. Just for the Summer, Abby Jimenez, Forever, $17.99
5. The Three-Body Problem, Cixin Liu and Ken Liu (translator), Tor Books, $18.99

TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION

1. The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017, Rashid Khalidi, Metropolitan Books, $19.99
2. All About Love: New Visions, bell hooks, William Morrow, $16.99
3. The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity, Julia Cameron, TarcherPerigee, $19
4. Slouching Towards Bethlehem: Essays, Joan Didion, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $18
5. World Travel: An Irreverent Guide, Anthony Bourdain and Laurie Woolever, Ecco, $22

Northern California

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. James, Percival Everett, Doubleday, $28. Read an excerpt in Alta.
2. All Fours, Miranda July, Riverhead Books, $29. Read the Alta review.
3. Eruption, Michael Crichton and James Patterson, Little, Brown and Company, $32
4. Table for Two: Fictions, Amor Towles, Viking, $32
5. The Women, Kristin Hannah, St. Martin’s Press, $30

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War, Erik Larson, Crown, $35
2. The Creative Act: A Way of Being, Rick Rubin, Penguin Press, $32
3. The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder, David Grann, Doubleday, $30
4. The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness, Jonathan Haidt, Penguin Press, $30
5. What This Comedian Said Will Shock You, Bill Maher, Simon & Schuster, $30

TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION

1. Not in Love, Ali Hazelwood, Berkley, $19
2. A Court of Thorns and Roses, Sarah J. Maas, Bloomsbury Publishing, $19
3. Lady Tan’s Circle of Women, Lisa See, Scribner, $18.99
4. Happy Place, Emily Henry, Berkley Books, $19
5. The Midnight Library, Matt Haig, Penguin Books, $18

TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION

1. The Backyard Bird Chronicles, Amy Tan, Knopf, $35
2. The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017, Rashid Khalidi, Metropolitan Books, $19.99
3. What an Owl Knows: The New Science of the World’s Most Enigmatic Birds, Jennifer Ackerman, Penguin Books, $19
4. World Travel: An Irreverent Guide, Anthony Bourdain and Laurie Woolever, Ecco, $22
5. Solito: A Memoir, Javier Zamora, Hogarth, $18. Register for Zamora’s California Book Club event.

Source: California Independent Booksellers Alliance