Southern California Rating:FICTION1. THE TESTAMENT by...
Southern California Rating:
FICTION
1. THE TESTAMENT by John Grisham (Doubleday: $27.95) The 10th richest man in the U.S. is about to die, and his heirs are circling like vultures.
Last Week: 1; Weeks on List: 6
2. SINGLE & SINGLE by John le Carre (Scribner: $26) A story of corrupt liaisons between the new Russian states and the West, and the downfall of two families.
Last Week: 3; Weeks on List: 2
3. 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: 2; Weeks on List: 5
4. 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: 10; Weeks on List: 2
5. 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: --; Weeks on List: 1
6. ASHES TO ASHES by Tami Hoag (Bantam: $24.95) An FBI agent tracks a serial killer of women who makes Jack the Ripper look like a Boy Scout.
Last Week: 13; Weeks on List: 2
7. 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: 8; Weeks on List: 24
8. RIVER’S END by Nora Roberts (Putnam: $23.95) Haunted by her mother’s murder, a woman is helped by a loving man to face her fears--and the killer, just released from prison.
Last Week: 11; Weeks on List: 2
9. DREAMING SOUTHERN by Linda Bruckheimer (Dutton: $23.95) A mother and her children head west on Route 66 to join her husband and get into mishaps along the way.
Last Week: 4; Weeks on List: 11
10. WHILE I WAS GONE by Sue Miller (Knopf: $24) A married woman looks back on the summer of ’68 when a character from that time reappears in her life.
Last Week: 6; Weeks on List: 3
11. THE TESSERACT by Alex Garland (Riverhead: $24.95) Lives of a sea-faring lad, a beach beauty, gangsters and street kids collide in steamy Manila.
Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1
12. 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: 9; Weeks on List: 4
13. 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: --; Weeks on List: 13
14. 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: 15; Weeks on List: 19
15. EVERY TRACE by Gregg Main (HarperCollins: $24) A husband sets out in hot pursuit of his wife, who’s bent on a mysterious mission of revenge.
Last Week: 12; Weeks on List: 2
****
NONFICTION
1. 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: --; Weeks on List: 1
2. 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: 1; Weeks on List: 2
3. 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: 2; Weeks on List: 14
4. 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: 3; Weeks on List: 63
5. 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: --; Weeks on List: 1
6. 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: 10; Weeks on List: 25
7. 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: 4; Weeks on List: 2
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: 14
9. CROOKED CUCUMBER by David Chadwick (Broadway: $26) The life of Shunryu Suzuki, founder of the San Francisco Zen Center and patriarch of American Buddhism.
Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1
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: --; Weeks on List: 40
11. 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: 13; Weeks on List: 4
12. 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: 6; Weeks on List: 4
13. PERFECT MURDER, PERFECT TOWN by Lawrence Schiller (HarperCollins: $26) The flawed investigation of 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey’s murder.
Last Week: 5; Weeks on List: 2
14. 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: --; Weeks on List: 9
15. BLIND MAN’S BLUFF by Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew (PublicAffairs: $25) Revelations about the secret world of American submarine espionage.
Last Week: 15; Weeks on List: 13
Paperbacks
FICTION
1. MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA by Arthur Golden (Vintage: $14) The life and loves of a teahouse entertainer in Kyoto.
2. IMMACULATE RECEPTION by Jerrilyn Farmer (Avon: $5.99) A murder might ruin the pope’s visit to L.A.
3. THE READER by Bernard Schlink (Vintage: $11) A boyhood fling with an older woman and its aftermath.
4. MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE by Nicholas Sparks (Warner: $6.99) A woman seeks the author of a mysterious message.
5. CHARMING BILLY by Alice McDermott (Delta: $12.95) A family reflects on the life of a deceased relative.
6. L.A. CONFIDENTIAL by James Ellroy (Warner: $12.99) Three cops navigate the sordid wasteland of 1950s L.A.
7. THE NOTEBOOK by Nicholas Sparks (Warner: $5.99) An octogenarian conquers illness with old memories of love.
8. AN INSTANCE OF THE FINGERPOST by Iain Pears (Berkley: $7.99) A 17th-century hunt for an Oxford don’s killer.
9. THE DEEP END OF THE OCEAN by Jacquelyn Mitchard (Signet: $7.50) Guilt shatters a family after a child is kidnapped.
10. JEWEL by Bret Lott (Pocket: $14) A first-person epic of one woman’s duel with God.
****
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 restaurateur in the making.
4. FIREWORKS, PICNICS AND FLAGS by James Cross Giblin (Houghton Mifflin: $8.95) What July 4 is all about.
5. PARIS IN THE FIFTIES by Stanley Karnow (Vintage: $14) A journalist’s apprenticeship in postwar Paris.
6. OCTOBER SKY by Homer Hickam (Dell: $6.99) A boy from Coalwood, W. Va., becomes a NASA scientist.
7. SLAVES IN THE FAMILY by Edward Ball (Vintage: $15.95) Intertwined lives of black and white in the South.
8. BIRD BY BIRD by Anne Lamott (Anchor: $12.95) The secrets of a writer, delivered with humor and generosity.
9. HOW THE IRISH SAVED CIVILIZATION by Thomas Cahill (Anchor: $12) What monks did after Rome’s fall.
10. INTO THIN AIR by Jon Krakauer (Anchor Books: $7.99) Risk and recklessness on a deadly Mt. Everest expedition.
Rankings are based on a Times poll of Southland bookstores.