Los Angeles Times bestsellers for Oct. 4, 2009
| Fiction | Weeks on list | |
| 1. | The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown (Doubleday: $25.99) Harvard professor Robert Langdon uses his symbology skills to find a missing Freemason in Washington, D.C. | 2 |
| 2. | The Help by Kathryn Stockett (Putnam: $24.95) The lives of a maid, a cook and a college graduate become intertwined while changing a Mississippi town. | 17 |
| 3. | A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore (Knopf : $25.95) A naive Midwestern college coed takes a job as a nanny for a recently adopted toddler. | 3 |
| 4. | South of Broad by Pat Conroy (Nan A. Talese: $29.95) A gossip columnist’s homage to a close-knit group of friends from Charleston, S.C. | 6 |
| 5. | The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson (Knopf: $25.95) A hacker implicated in two murders must revisit her past to prove her innocence. | 9 |
| 6. | The Last Song by Nicholas Sparks (Grand Central: $24.99) A brother and sister begrudgingly spend the summer with their estranged pianist father and discover the meaning of unconditional love. | 3 |
| 7. | The White Queen by Philippa Gregory (Touchstone: $25.99) The wars of the Plantagenets, who ruled England before the Tudors, enmeshed with the mystery of the missing princes in the Tower of London. | 6 |
| 8. | Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins (Scholastic Press: $17.99) The winners of the annual Hunger Games face the consequences of their victory. | 3 |
| 9. | Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer (Little, Brown: $19.99) Bella must choose between her lover and a friend, between life and death. | 63 |
| 10. | Shanghai Girls by Lisa See (Random House: $25) Two sisters from Shanghai encounter tragedy and heartbreak as they are sold into arranged marriages in 1930s Los Angeles. | 14 |
| 11. | Homer & Langley by E.L. Doctorow (Random House: $26) Two brothers, one blind, the other eccentric, live as reclusive hoarders in a 5th Avenue mansion. | 2 |
| 12. | Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon (Penguin Press: $27.95) Noir meets ‘60s Southern California groovy in a private eye’s psychedelic quest. | 8 |
| 13. | The Anthologist by Nicholson Baker (Simon & Schuster: $25) A poet with writer’s block attempts to pen an introduction for a book of poems while longing for his estranged girlfriend. | 1 |
| 14. | An Echo in the Bone by Diana Gabaldon (Delacorte Press: $30) A romance blooms during colonial times with consequences centuries later. | 1 |
| 15. | Alex Cross’s Trial by James Patterson and Richard DiLallo (Little, Brown: $27.99) Detective Cross tells the story of his great-uncle and a lawyer fighting racism and lynchings in a Southern town at the turn of the 20th century. | 5 |
| Nonfiction | ||
| 1. | True Compass by Edward Kennedy (Twelve: $35) The memoirs of the late Massachusetts statesman. | 1 |
| 2. | Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell (Little, Brown: $27.99) An exploration of the background of high achievers. | 43 |
| 3. | Where Men Win Glory by Jon Krakauer (Doubleday: $27.95) A chronicle of Pat Tillman, the NFL star turned Army ranger whose death in Afghanistan stunned the power structure. | 2 |
| 4. | Crazy for the Storm by Norman Ollestad (Ecco: $25.99) The son of a daredevil tells of his life on the edge and how he survived a deadly plane crash. | 15 |
| 5. | Official Book Club Selection by Kathy Griffin (Ballantine: $25) The comedian and reality show star’s unplugged and uncensored life. | 2 |
| 6. | L.A. Noir by John Buntin (Harmony: $26) Gangster Mickey Cohen and LAPD Chief William Parker battle for control in midcentury Los Angeles. | 4 |
| 7. | Guinness World Records 2010 by Guinness World Records(Guinness: $28.95) Bizarre and unfathomable feats from the first decade of the 21st century. | 1 |
| 8. | Culture of Corruption by Michelle Malkin (Regnery Publishing: $27.95) An investigation into alleged corruption in the Obama administration. | 9 |
| 9. | Character Driven by Derek Fisher (Touchstone: $24.99) The Lakers star shares his life lessons and family devotion along his journey to winning four NBA titles. | 2 |
| 10. | Strength in What Remains by Tracy Kidder (Random House: $26) The saga of a refugee from Burundi, who, with the help of strangers, makes his way to America before going back to start a medical clinic. | 4 |
| 11. | The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch with Jeffrey Zaslow (Hyperion: $21.95) A professor’s terminal cancer inspires a call to seize life’s moments. | 73 |
| 12. | The Possibility of Everything by Hope Edelman (Ballantine: $27.95) The author and her husband seek help from a shaman in Belize to exorcise her daughter’s imaginary friend. | 1 |
| 13. | Golden Dreams by Kevin Starr (Oxford University Press: $34.95) A look at the pivotal postwar period in Southern California from 1950 to 1963. | 3 |
| 14. | The Secret by Rhonda Byrne (Beyond Words: $23.95) Life’s secrets, distilled. | 120 |
| 15. | A Big Little Life by Dean Koontz (Hyperion: $24.99) A retired service dog renews a sense of life in the bestselling author. | 2 |
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