Introducing the L.A. Times bestseller database

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Michael Connelly is No.1. Jonathan Franzen is No. 2. And David Sedaris is No. 3 -- for now. Those are the standings on the L.A. Times hardcover fiction bestseller list for the week ending Oct. 24 -- you can see them in the paper on Friday, or online now.

In addition to appearing in print, the L.A. Times bestseller list is now online as a searchable database. See each week’s list or use the search box at right to search by author or by title.

Want to know if musician Pat Benetar ever made our bestseller list? In the ‘Explore bestseller lists’ box on the right, search by her name, or click on ‘author’ and see the names of every author who’s appeared on the bestseller list so far.

For now, the database includes details going back only to April 2010, which will probably remain our starting point; each week, the new titles, authors and rankings are added.

The L.A. Times bestseller list is based on reporting from more than 170 southland bookstores. Each week, we print our top standings in the Sunday books pages; online, you’ll find our extended lists, in fiction and nonfiction, paperback and hardcover.

Online, there is a record of those books that have reached the top spot. Once a book makes it to the top of the bestseller list, it gets an icon saying so at the top of its page. After a stunning 72 weeks on the bestseller list, Kathryn Stockett’s ‘The Help’ has slipped to No. 11 -- but the record of the book having been at No. 1 remains.

In some ways, this is finished, ready for you to take a look and explore. In others, it’s a work in progress. If you have suggestions, we’d be delighted to hear them -- please leave them in the comments.

-- Carolyn Kellogg

[Updated at 6:10 p.m.: An earlier version of this post said the database goes back to April 2009; it goes back to April 2010.]