California Bestselling Books for Week Ending November 1, 2026

Among the standout fiction releases is "Public Access Afterworld" by Jane Schoenbrun, the writer and director of the film "I Saw the TV Glow." The novel centers on Bethany Peters, a content moderator at GlobalVill, who investigates a mysterious force drawing victims into the static of TV screens. Additionally, Michael Connelly's "The Hollow" features LAPD detective Harry Bosch as he revisits a cold case involving a boy named Chops, both of whom shared time as wards of the state at the MacLaren Children’s Center.

The bestselling titles in Southern California hardcover fiction include:

- "A Court of Splintered Harmony: The Valkyrie Cycle, Movement I" by Sarah J. Maas, $32

- "American Hagwon" by Min Jin Lee, $36

- "Public Access Afterworld" by Jane Schoenbrun, $33

- "The Hollow: A Harry Bosch Novel" by Michael Connelly, $32

- "Partita" by Barbara Kingsolver, $32

For nonfiction hardcover, the list includes:

- "Simply Ina: A Barefoot Contessa Cookbook" by Ina Garten, $40

- "The American Way of Killing: The Invention of an Epidemic" by Malcolm Gladwell, $34

- "The Rush: California Gold, the Civil War, and the Making of the Modern World" by Nathaniel Philbrick, $38

- "In My Own Time: A Memoir" by Christopher Lloyd, $33

- "Abandoning a Cat: A Personal Story" by Haruki Murakami, translated by Philip Gabriel, $26

Trade paperback fiction bestsellers feature:

- "East of Eden" by John Steinbeck, $25

- "Dungeon Crawler Carl" by Matt Dinniman, $20

- "Theo of Golden" by Allen Levi, $20

- "Fruit Fly" by Josh Silver, $20

- "I Who Have Never Known Men" by Jacqueline Harpman, translated by Ros Schwartz, $17

In trade paperback nonfiction, notable titles include:

- "Raising Hare: A Memoir" by Chloe Dalton, $21

- "The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession" by Michael Finkel, $18

- "The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2026," edited by Randall Munroe and Jaime Green, $19

- "The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity (30th anniversary edition)" by Julia Cameron, $24

- "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It" by Cory Doctorow, $20

In Northern California, the hardcover fiction list mirrors Southern California’s titles, including:

- "A Court of Splintered Harmony: The Valkyrie Cycle, Movement I" by Sarah J. Maas, $32

- "Miss Wolcott’s Ghost" by Louise Penny, $30

- "The Calamity Club" by Kathryn Stockett, $35

For nonfiction in Northern California:

- "Blockers: Rebels in the Deep State" by Michael Lewis, $30

- "Simply Ina: A Barefoot Contessa Cookbook" by Ina Garten, $40

- "The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy" by Gil Durán, $30

Popular trade paperback fiction titles include:

- "Theo of Golden" by Allen Levi, $20

- "Dungeon Crawler Carl" by Matt Dinniman, $20

- "May We Feed the King" by Rebecca Perry, $19

The nonfiction trade paperback list features:

- "Crossing the Wine-Dark Sea: Journeys Through Ancient Literature" by Emily Wilson, $20

- "On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century" by Timothy Snyder, $14

- "The Gales of November: The Untold Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald" by John U. Bacon, $22

This week’s information was compiled by the California Independent Booksellers Alliance. Elizabeth Casillas, an associate editor at Alta Journal, is a graduate of California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, and has written for the Poly Post and Enspire Magazine.