Southern California Rating:

FICTION

1. SINGLE & SINGLE by John le Carre (Scribner: $26) Corrupt liaisons between the new Russian states and the West and of the downfall of two families.

Last Week: 1; Weeks on List: 4

2. COWBOY by Sara Davidson (Cliff Street Books: $24) Every girl needs a cowboy. Especially if she is over 40 and thinks her days of passion are fading fast.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1

3. TESTAMENT by John Grisham (Doubleday: $27.95) The 10th richest man in the United States has died, and his greedy heirs are circling like hungry vultures.

Last Week: 2; Weeks on List: 8

4. BE COOL by Elmore Leonard (Delacorte: $24.95) Fresh from his movie success, Chili Palmer faces a pack of punks, thugs and other Tinsel Town toughies when he enters the music biz.

Last Week: 3; Weeks on List: 7

5. MOONLIGHT ON THE AVENUE OF FAITH by Gina B. Nahai (Harcourt Brace: $24.) A little girl’s search for her magical missing mother in a Tehran ghetto.

Last Week: 6; Weeks on List: 2

6. A MAN IN FULL by Tom Wolfe (Farrar, Straus and Giroux: $28.95) The story of a real estate tycoon’s crash and burn and the sleaze who warm themselves by the fire.

Last Week: 10; Weeks on List: 21

7. WHILE I WAS GONE by Sue Miller (Alfred A. Knopf: $24) A married woman looks back on the summer of ’68 when a character from that time reappears in her life.

Last Week: 7; Weeks on List: 5

8. THE POISONWOOD BIBLE by Barbara Kingsolver (HarperCollins: $27.50) An evangelical Baptist missionary takes his wife and children to the Belgian Congo in 1959.

Last Week: 4; Weeks on List: 26

9. HUSH MONEY by Robert B. Parker (Putnam: $22.95) Spenser and Hawk help a professor with tenure trouble and a melodramatic damsel in distress.

Last Week: 8; Weeks on List: 3

10. VITTORIO THE VAMPIRE by Anne Rice (Alfred A. Knopf: $19.95) Another Vampire tale, set in Florence, in the orbit of the Medicis and the painter Fra Filippo Lippi.

Last Week: 9; Weeks on List: 2

11. TARA ROAD by Maeve Binchy (Delacorte: $24.95) People facing heartbreak and disappointment are drawn to a Victorian home on a shabby Dublin street.

Last Week: 5; Weeks on List: 4

12. FACE DOWN IN THE PARK by Leonard Foglia and David Richards (Pocket Books: $23) A protagonist with amnesia is saved by an aerobics instructor.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1

13. A SUDDEN CHANGE OF HEART by Barbara Taylor Bradford (Doubleday: $24) A story of child abuse, terminal cancer, bisexuality, divorce, art theft and the Holocaust.

Last Week: 12; Weeks on List: 6

14. AMSTERDAM by Ian McEwan (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday: $21) A journalist, composer and politician ease feelings of emptiness by sabotaging one another’s careers.

Last Week: 13; Weeks on List: 15

15. HANDYMAN by Carolyn See (Random House: $22.95) The picaresque adventures of a $10-an-hour handyman, drifter and painter in L.A who fixes hearts as well as cabinets.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 2

NONFICTION

1. MONICA’S STORY by Andrew Morton (St. Martin’s Press: $24.95) Monica Lewinsky’s account of the real nature of her relationship with President Clinton.

Last Week: 2; Weeks on List: 4

2. ALL TOO HUMAN by George Stephanopoulos (Little, Brown: $27.95) Behind the scenes in the Oval Office with one of President Clinton’s best and brightest.

Last Week: 1; Weeks on List: 3

3. THE COURAGE TO BE RICH by Suze Orman (Riverhead: $24.95) Attention, fraidy-cats: Dump that savings account earning 2% and look for better investments.

Last Week: 4; Weeks on List: 3

4. THE GREATEST GENERATION by Tom Brokaw (Random House: $24.95) TV anchor tells the stories of the generation that came of age during the Depression and World War II.

Last Week: 5; Weeks on List: 16

5. TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE by Mitch Albom (Doubleday: $19.95) A sportswriter’s empowering story about his weekly visits to see an older dying friend.

Last Week: 6; Weeks on List: 65

6. THE ELEGANT UNIVERSE by Brian Greene (W.W. Norton: $27.95) Is the universe a symphony played by strings? String theory for the general public.

Last Week: 7; Weeks on List: 6

7. IN THE GARDEN OF OUR DREAMS by Shirlee T. Haizlip and Harold C. Haizlip (Kodansha: $24) Memoirs of a marriage; the shocking tale of a perfectly happy couple.

Last Week: 3; Weeks on List: 11

8. THE CENTURY by Peter Jennings and Todd Brewster (Doubleday: $60) The story of our last 100 years; a companion to an upcoming ABC special.

Last Week: 11; Weeks on List: 16

9. PERFECT MURDER, PERFECT TOWN by Lawrence Schiller (HarperCollins: $26) The flawed investigation of 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey’s murder.

Last Week: 13; Weeks on List: 4

10. THE NINE STEPS TO FINANCIAL FREEDOM by Suze Orman (Crown: $23) Practical tips for avoiding stress, making good savings plans and managing money.

Last Week: 10; Weeks on List: 42

11. TRAVELING MERCIES by Anne Lamott (Pantheon: $23) The growth of Lamott’s beliefs and how they helped her overcome grief, alcoholism and bad hair days.

Last Week: 8; Weeks on List: 6

12. THE GROSS by Peter Bart (St. Martin’s: $24.95) A former studio exec looks at summer ‘98’s blockbusters and the need for higher artistic standards.

Last Week: 12; Weeks on List: 4

13. BLIND MAN’S BLUFF by Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew (PublicAffairs: $2 5) Revelations about the secret world of American submarine espionage.

Last Week: 15; Weeks on List: 15

14. VULGAR FAVORS by Maureen Orth (Delacorte: $24.95) A meticulously researched account of Andrew Cunanan’s 1997 cross-country killing spree.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1

15. THE PROFESSOR AND THE MADMAN by Simon Winchester (HarperCollins: $22) The editor of the Oxford English Dictionary was helped by a brilliant mental patient.

Last Week: 14; Weeks on List: 27

Paperbacks

FICTION

1. THE READER by Bernhard Schlink (Vintage: $11) A boyhood fling with an older woman and its aftermath.

2. MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA by Arthur Golden (Vintage: $14) The life and loves of a teahouse entertainer in Kyoto.

3. CHARMING BILLY by Alice McDermott (Delta: $12.95) A family reflects on the life of a deceased relative.

4. THE NOTEBOOK by Nicholas Sparks (Warner: $5.99) An octogenarian conquers illness with old memories of love.

5. AN INSTANCE OF THE FINGERPOST by Iain Pears (Berkley: $7.99) A 17th century hunt for an Oxford don’s killer.

6. JEWEL by Bret Lott (Pocket: $14) A first-person epic of one woman’s duel with God.

7. L.A. CONFIDENTIAL by James Ellroy (Warner: $12.99) Three cops navigate the sordid wasteland of 1950s L.A.

8. MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE by Nicholas Sparks (Warner: $6.99) A woman seeks the author of a mysterious message.

9. THE DEEP END OF THE OCEAN by Jacquelyn Mitchard (Signet: $7.50) Guilt shatters a family after a child is kidnapped.

10. THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS by Arundhati Roy (Perennial: $13) The rise and fall of an Indian family.

NONFICTION

1. CRIME WAVE by James Ellroy (Vintage: $12) Essays, plus two stories, about L.A.’s seamy, undead past.

2. MY DARK PLACES by James Ellroy (Vintage: $14) The film noir circumstances surrounding his mother’s murder.

3. TENDER AT THE BONE by Ruth Reichl (Broadway: $13) A food expert in the making.

4. BIRD BY BIRD by Anne Lamott (Anchor: $12.95) The secrets of a writer, delivered with humor and generosity.

5. OCTOBER SKY by Homer Hickam (Dell: $6.99) A boy from Coalwood, W. Va., becomes a NASA scientist.

6. THE ARTIST’S WAY by Julia Cameron (Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam: $13.95) Tapping into your creativity.

7. CITY OF QUARTZ by Mike Davis (Vintage: $15) How L.A.’s history and power structures will shape the city’s future.

8. HOW THE IRISH SAVED CIVILIZATION by Thomas Cahill (Anchor: $12) What monks did after Rome’s fall.

9. UNDERGROUND LOS ANGELES edited by Pleasant Gehman . The dark seamy underbelly of the city of noir.

10. PARIS IN THE FIFTIES by Stanley Karnow (Vintage: $14) A journalist’s apprenticeship in postwar Paris.

Rankings are based on a Times poll of Southland bookstores.