Southern California Rating:FICTION1 HORSE HEAVEN by...
Southern California Rating:
FICTION
1 HORSE HEAVEN by Jane Smiley (Alfred A. Knopf: $26) Life among the trainers, money men, apprentice jockeys and owners who share a love for the sport of kings. Reviewed by Pam Houston, Page 7.
Last Week: 5; Weeks on List: 2
2 BEOWULF by Seamus Heaney (Farrar, Straus & Giroux: $25) An Irish poet breathes new life into an Anglo-Saxon masterpiece with his new translation of the epic poem.
Last Week: 2; Weeks on List: 8
3 RED LIGHT by T. Jefferson Parker (Hyperion: $23.95) Two murders, decades apart, shake Merci Rayborn’s world. Reviewed by Eugen Weber, Page 13.
Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1
4 THE BRETHREN by John Grisham (Doubleday: $27.95) A scam by three former judges doing time in federal prison goes awry and ensnares a powerful man on the outside.
Last Week: 10; Weeks on List: 10
5 JANE AUSTEN’S CHARLOTTE by Julia Barrett (M. Evans & Co.: $21.95) Barrett finishes the novel that Austen began, a satire of the 19th century penchant for seaside resorts.
Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1
6 BACK ROADS by Tawni O’Dell (Viking: $24.95) Murder, incest and recovered memory in the life of a teen stock boy living in the western Pennsylvania mining country.
Last Week: 12; Weeks on List: 4
7 DAUGHTER OF FORTUNE by Isabel Allende (HarperCollins: $26) A young woman escapes from the bonds of her youthful passion to Gold Rush California.
Last Week: 4; Weeks on List: 18
8 BRIDGET JONES: THE EDGE OF REASON by Helen Fielding (Viking: $24.95) Bridget finds the perfect mate--do they really exist?--in this sequel to the bestselling “Bridget Jones’s Diary.”
Last Week: 1; Weeks on List: 7
9 THE WEDDING by Danielle Steel (Doubleday: $26.95) Anxieties and broken promises linger for a high-powered Hollywood clan as one of its members plans a September wedding.
Last Week: 11; Weeks on List: 2
10 HUGGER MUGGER by Robert B. Parker (Putnam: $23.95) Boston detective Spenser hunts for a racehorse killer among the eccentric members of a Southern family.
Last Week: 3; Weeks on List: 2
11 LE MARIAGE by Diane Johnson (Dutton: $23.95) American expatriates navigate French high society, not to mention Parisian flea markets, elegant chateaus and jail cells.
Last Week: 8; Weeks on List: 2
12 WICKED WIDOW by Amanda Quick (Bantam: $23.95) A woman rumored to have sent her husband on to the afterlife is being haunted by his ghost, which is intent on terrorizing her.
Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1
13 THE PATIENT by Michael Palmer (Bantam: $24.95) An MIT-trained mechanical engineer- neurosurgeon and an international assassin clash over the use of a robotic surgical device.
Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1
14 CAROLINA MOON by Nora Roberts (Putnam: $24.95) A young woman haunted by the murder of her childhood friend returns home and discovers her own psychic connection to a killer still at large.
Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1
15 DAY OF RECKONING by Jack Higgins (Putnam: $25.95) When a magazine reporter’s body is found floating in the East River, her ex-husband, an FBI agent, is intent on revenge.
Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1
NONFICTION
1 THE OPERATOR by Tom King (Random House: $25.95) The patience, cunning and unbridled egotism behind David Geffen’s transformation into a powerful media mogul.
Last Week: 5; Weeks on List: 7
2 A HEARTBREAKING WORK OF STAGGERING GENIUS by Dave Eggers (Simon & Schuster: $23) Memoir of a twentysomething slacker, who must bring up his baby brother when their parents die of cancer.
Last Week: 1; Weeks on List: 11
3 WHICH LIE DID I TELL? by William Goldman (Pantheon: $26.95) Further adventures in the screen trade from a veteran screenwriter whose work includes “All the President’s Men.”
Last Week: 4; Weeks on List: 6
4 THE CASE AGAINST HILLARY CLINTON by Peggy Noonan (ReganBooks: $24) A former Reagan speech writer’s polemic against the first lady for her Senate bid, Travelgate and taste in husbands.
Last Week: 11; Weeks on List: 3
5 JONBENET: INSIDE THE MURDER INVESTIGATION by Steve Thomas with Don Davis (St. Martin’s: $24.95) The inside story of how the investigation went awry from its lead investigator.
Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1
6 THE ROCK SAYS by “The Rock” with Joe Layden (ReganBooks: $26) The memoir of a World Wrestling Federation bad guy, describing his struggles in and out of the ring.
Last Week: 10; Weeks on List: 15
7 CONVERSATIONS WITH GOD, BOOK ONE by Neale Donald Walsch (Putnam: $19.95) Divinely channeled messages about good, evil and the meaning of life.
Last Week: 14; Weeks on List: 104
8 TEN THINGS I WISH I’D KNOWN BEFORE I WENT INTO THE REAL WORLD by Maria Shriver (Warner Books: $19.95) Notes from life’s trenches, expanded from a commencement speech.
Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1
9 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: 118
10 FAIR BALL by Bob Costas (Main Street Books: $21.95) Take me out to the ballgame: A fan offers some advice on how baseball can thrive in the marketplace without losing its traditions.
Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1
11 DEMOCRACY DERAILED by David S. Broder (Harcourt Brace: $23) How political operatives and moneyed special interest groups are seizing control of the initiative process.
Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1
12 ASIAN-AMERICAN DREAMS by Helen Zia (Farrar, Straus & Giroux: $26) How many ethnicities have come together as a self-identified racial group to influence every aspect of American society.
Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1
13 ‘TIS by Frank McCourt (Scribner: $26) A young McCourt arrives from Ireland in New York, with all its peril and promise, in this sequel to “Angela’s Ashes.”
Last Week: 13; Weeks on List: 26
14 GET HAPPY by Gerald Clarke (Random House: $29.95) A look beyond the rainbow at the life and loves of Judy Garland in a biography that includes new source material.
Last Week: 7; Weeks on List: 3
15 CYBILL DISOBEDIENCE by Cybill Shepherd with Aimee Lee Ball (HarperCollins: $26) Anecdotes on TV, film and beauty pageants and how the actress has battled on her own terms.
Last Week: 9; Weeks on List: 2
PAPERBACKS
FICTION
1 THE HOURS by Michael Cunningham (Picador USA: $13) Three stories built around Virginia Woolf’s “Mrs. Dalloway.”
2 MOONLIGHT ON THE AVENUE OF FAITH by Gina Nahai (Washington Square: $13.95) Love and magic in Tehran’s Jewish ghetto.
3 AMERICAN PSYCHO by Bret Easton Ellis (Vintage: $14) A handsome serial killer in 1980s New York.
4 A NEW SONG by Jan Karon (Penguin: $12.95) A clergyman and his wife leave their beloved Mitford.
5 CHOCOLAT by Joanne Harris (Penguin: $12.95) A woman and her daughter open a chocolate store in a French village.
6 HOUSE OF SAND AND FOG by Andre Dubus III (Vintage: $14) Two families clash over an auctioned house in this tragic tale.
7 THE RED TENT by Anita Diamant (Picador USA: $14) The blossoming of Dinah, Jacob’s only daughter, in Genesis.
8 THE TESTAMENT by John Grisham (Dell Island: $7.99) A billionaire’s changes to his will shock his greedy heirs.
9 THE POISONWOOD BIBLE by Barbara Kingsolver (HarperPerennial: $14) A missionary family’s ordeals.
10 THE CIDER HOUSE RULES by John Irving (Ballantine: $7.99) Lives of a doctor and the children at an orphanage in rural Maine.
PAPERBACKS
NONFICTION
1 THE WORST-CASE SCENARIO SURVIVAL HANDBOOK by Joshua Piven and David Borgenicht (Chronicle: $14.95) S-O-S!
2 COWBOY by Sara Davidson (HarperPerennial: $13) Every girl needs a cowboy.
3 POSTCARDS FROM THE MOON by William Steinkellner (John Daniel & Co.: $10) A collector’s dream.
4 THE PROFESSOR AND THE MADMAN by Simon Winchester (HarperPerennial: $13) A madman with a flair for words.
5 BELLA TUSCANY by Frances Mayes (Bantam: $15) Stories of cuisine and Italian life in the villages.
6 GIRL, INTERRUPTED by Susanna Kaysen (Vintage: $12) A memoir of life in a psychiatric institute in 1967.
7 RICH DAD, POOR DAD by Robert T. Kiyosaki and Sharon L. Lechter (Techpress: $15.95) Fiscal parenting.
8 ANGELA’S ASHES by Frank McCourt (Touchstone: $7.99) Overcoming an Irish childhood during the Depression.
9 TENDER AT THE BONE by Ruth Reichl (Broadway: $13) A food expert in the making.
10 THE ORCHID THIEF by Susan Orlean (Ballantine: $14) Centuries of theft, hatred and greed over a delicate flower.