California Book Club

Introducing a fresh online book club focused on literature that explores the stories and themes of California.

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Alta Journal’s California Bestsellers List (April 17, 2025)

1 week ago | altaonline.com | Elizabeth Casillas

AltaWith 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 April 13, 2025. Dive into two unique love stories this week. First up is The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley, a new novel about a budding romance between past and present.
Introducing the Special Guest for Ishmael Reed

1 week ago | altaonline.com | Anita Felicelli

One of the interesting challenges of Ishmael Reed’s classic Mumbo Jumbo is how to conceptualize the detective story it is, at least in part, parodying, much as Reed’s earlier novel Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down parodied the Western.
A Chaotic and Dangerous Present

1 week ago | altaonline.com | John Freeman

Imagine if you strolled into a bookstore today and picked up a novel in which the action revolved around a detective investigating the spread of a virus called Jes Grew, a pandemic making people dance and move and become susceptible to Black culture.
Alta Journal’s California Bestsellers List (April 10, 2025)

2 weeks ago | altaonline.com | Elizabeth Casillas

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 April 6, 2025. Explore two captivating works of fiction. Deep Cuts by Holly Brickley follows Percy Marks and Joe Morrow, whose chance meeting in Berkeley kicks off a tumultuous, years-long relationship—both romantic and professional—that may be doing more harm than good.
The Editor’s Cut

2 weeks ago | altaonline.com | Blaise Zerega

When Walter Murch was newly married, he began working late. Initially it was for a night here and there, but soon it became a regular occurrence. His wife grew alarmed: “Do you have a mistress?” she asked. He paused, then replied, “Yes, and her name is Moviola.”Murch, the Academy Award–winning film editor and sound designer of The Godfather Part II, Apocalypse Now, American Graffiti, and Cold Mountain, recounts this exchange in the delightful new documentary Her Name Was Moviola.
Two Prisms onto Oakland

2 weeks ago | altaonline.com | Alexis Madrigal

At a Sunday service in 1869, the Reverend George Mooar, pastor of the First Congregational Church in Oakland, made a startling prediction. After six long years, the transcontinental railroad project was nearing completion, a moment to be memorialized in the driving of the last spike just north of Salt Lake City in the spring of 1869.
Alta Journal’s California Bestsellers List (April 3, 2025)

3 weeks ago | altaonline.com | Elizabeth Casillas

AltaWith 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 March 30, 2025. Make April a time for reflection with these two bestselling memoirs that offer poignant examples of resilience.
The Memory Palace

3 weeks ago | altaonline.com | David Ulin

When is a novel like an archive? Or is it the other way around? On the most basic level, each represents a storage-and-retrieval system for information and memory. And yet, what does that mean in terms of narrative? Both the novelist and the archivist, after all, are storytellers, seeking patterns in the data and the details they have gathered. Both fulfill a necessarily subjective function in that regard.
Alta Journal ’s California Bestsellers List (March 27, 2025)

4 weeks ago | altaonline.com | Elizabeth Casillas

AltaWith 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 March 23, 2025. These two bestsellers tell supernatural stories in completely original ways. First up is The Antidote by Karen Russell, where residents are grappling with the aftermath of a historic dust storm in the fictional town of Uz, Nebraska.
Spiegelworld’s Juggling Act

4 weeks ago | altaonline.com | Lina Abascal

Don’t show up to DiscoShow expecting a circus. There are no cascading acrobats and no animals. There aren’t even seats. The immersive dance performance has its Las Vegas audience—up to 500 people per show—on their feet the entire time. The show is part history lesson, part dance class. At the cavernous Linq Hotel, located across the street from Caesars Palace, floor-to-ceiling screens flash images of 1970s New York City streets and club interiors across the walls.