Los Angeles Times bestsellers for March 8, 2009
| Fiction | weeks on list | |
| 1. | Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw by Jeff Kinney (Amulet: $12.95) Greg’s dad enlists him in organized sports in order to toughen him up. | 6 |
| 2. | Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer (Little, Brown: $19.99) Bella must choose between her lover and a friend, between life and death. | 33 |
| 3. | The Associate by John Grisham (Doubleday : $27.95) A dark secret forces a law school graduate to work for a corrupt law firm, putting his life in danger. | 4 |
| 4. | Fool by Christopher Moore (William Morrow: $26.99) King Lear’s jester and an apprentice set out to save the kingdom in this comedy of errors. | 2 |
| 5. | Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer (Little, Brown: $22.99) The final book in the “Twilight” saga finds Bella choosing immortality. | 30 |
| 6. | The Women by T.C. Boyle (Viking: $27.95) Frank Lloyd Wright’s life as told through the experiences of the four women who loved him. | 3 |
| 7. | The Renegades by T. Jefferson Parker (Dutton: $26.95) A sheriff sets out to find the gunman who shot his new partner. | 2 |
| 8. | The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows (Dial Press: $22) A writer corresponds with islanders after German occupation. | 30 |
| 9. | The Piano Teacher by Janice Y.K. Lee (Viking: $25.95) A tale of romance in Hong Kong along with a WWII plot line revealing a lover’s past. | 4 |
| 10. | Run for Your Life by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge (Little, Brown: $27.99) A killer called “The Teacher” is offing the elite in NYC. | 3 |
| 11. | Heart and Soul by Maeve Binchy (Knopf: $26.95) A visiting doctor becomes entrenched in the lives of the staff at a community clinic in Dublin. | 1 |
| 12. | Drood by Dan Simmons (Little, Brown: $26.95) An imagining of Charles Dickens’ last years and his obsession with the dark side of London. | 2 |
| 13. | The Host by Stephenie Meyer (Little, Brown: $25.99) Aliens take over the minds of humans. | 29 |
| 14. | The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson (Knopf: $24.95) A journalist explores the cold-case disappearance of a Swedish teen heiress. | 8 |
| 15. | Beat the Reaper by Josh Bazell (Little, Brown: $24.99) A hit man in a witness protection program is discovered working as a doctor by a former mob associate. | 4 |
| Nonfiction | ||
| 1. | Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell (Little, Brown: $27.99) An exploration of the background of high achievers. | 15 |
| 2. | The Yankee Years by Joe Torre (Doubleday: $26.95) Behind the scenes of what it really took to try to keep the Yankees on top of the baseball world. | 4 |
| 3. | 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. | 43 |
| 4. | Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man by Steve Harvey ( Amistad: $23.99) The talk-show host lets women inside the mind-set of a man. | 4 |
| 5. | The Inaugural Address 2009 by Barack Obama (Penguin: $12) A keepsake edition commemorating the inauguration of the 44th president with the words of Abraham Lincoln and Ralph Waldo Emerson. | 3 |
| 6. | Angels & Ages by Adam Gopnik (Knopf: $24.95) A search for the men behind the myths, Lincoln and Darwin, both born on the same day. | 2 |
| 7. | Dewey by Vicki Myron with Bret Witter (Grand Central: $19.99) The impact that a cat named Dewey Readmore Books had on an Iowa library and its patrons. | 22 |
| 8. | A. Lincoln by Ronald C. White Jr. (Random House: $35) A biography of the 16th president, including analysis of his principal speeches and writings. | 4 |
| 9. | The Secret by Rhonda Byrne (Beyond Words: $23.95) Life’s secrets, distilled. | 99 |
| 10. | Obama: The Historic Journey by the New York Times staff (Callaway: $40) The road to the White House. | 1 |
| 11. | President Obama edited by Adi Ignatius (Time: $19.95) A chronicle of the path of the president from Hawaii to Indonesia to Pennsylvania Avenue. | 4 |
| 12. | How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer (Houghton Mifflin: $25) Insight and understanding of human decision-making. | 2 |
| 13. | Breakthrough by Suzanne Somers (Crown: $25.95) Advice on healthy living and the newest treatments for longevity. | 7 |
| 14. | The Gamble by Thomas E. Ricks (Penguin Press: $27.95) Gen. David Petraeus and the military in Iraq, 2006-08. | 2 |
| 15. | Wesley the Owl by Stacey O’Brien (Free Press: $23) A Caltech biologist’s 19-year relationship with a rescued barn owl. | 1 |
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