Southern California Rating:FICTION1 DEMOLITION ANGEL by...
Southern California Rating:
FICTION
1 DEMOLITION ANGEL by Robert Crais (Doubleday: $24.95) Carol Starkey must confront some old demons as she looks into the death by detonation of a former colleague.
Last Week: 6; Weeks on List: 2
2 ANIL’S GHOST by Michael Ondaatje (Alfred A. Knopf: $25) A forensic anthropologist arrives in Ceylon to investigate the source of the organized campaign of murder engulfing the island.
Last Week: 8; Weeks on List: 4
3 THE TOUGHEST INDIAN IN THE WORLD by Sherman Alexie (Atlantic Monthly: $24) Stories of Native Americans caught between their culture and a sometimes hostile American middle-class.
Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1
4 THE EMPTY CHAIR by Jeffrey Deaver (Simon & Schuster: $25) “The Bone Collector’s” foremost criminalist, Lincoln Rhyme, clashes with his sidekick Amelia over a brutal kidnapper’s guilt.
Last Week: 5; Weeks on List: 3
5 BEFORE I SAY GOOD-BYE by Mary Higgins Clark (Simon & Schuster: $26) An ambitious young woman uses gumshoe tactics and psychic powers to probe her late husband’s murky past.
Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 4
6 THE HUMAN STAIN by Philip Roth (Houghton Mifflin: $26) The chronicle of an academic scandal and its impact on the aging faculty dean at its center and on his friend, Nathan Zuckerman.
Last Week: 1; Weeks on List: 3
7 WHITE TEETH by Zadie Smith (Random House: $24.95) The intertwined stories of two North London families capture an empire’s worth of cultural identity, history and hope.
Last Week: 4; Weeks on List: 4
8 EASY PREY by John Sandford (Putnam: $25.95) When a supermodel is found strangled after a party, millionaire Lucas Davenport is called to investigate.
Last Week: 3; Weeks on List: 2
9 RAVELSTEIN by Saul Bellow (Viking: $24.95) An old writer tries to write a memoir of his friend, a college professor who has died of AIDS, in a story that echoes Bellow’s own life.
Last Week: 9; Weeks on List: 4
10 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: --; Weeks on List: 12
11 IN THE FALL by Jeffrey Lent (Atlantic Monthly: $25) A Southern family copes with the legacy of its ancestors, an interracial couple who fell in love in the twilight of the Civil War.
Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1
12 LE MARIAGE by Diane Johnson (Dutton: $23.95) American expatriates navigate French high society, not to mention Parisian flea markets, elegant cha^teaux and jail cells.
Last Week: 14; Weeks on List: 7
13 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.
Last Week: 11; Weeks on List: 6
14 DISGRACE by J.M. Coetzee (Viking: $23.95) Fired from academe, a South African professor pursues the simple life on his daughter’s farm but finds danger in the post-apartheid world.
Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 21
15 RED LIGHT by T. Jefferson Parker (Hyperion: $23.95) Two murders, decades apart, shake Orange County homicide investigator Merci Rayborn’s world and her memories of her deceased lover.
Last Week: 7; Weeks on List: 6
NONFICTION
1 TEN THINGS I WISH I’D KNOWN BEFORE I WENT INTO THE REAL WORLD by Maria Shriver (Warner: $19.95) Notes from life’s trenches, expanded from a commencement speech.
Last Week: 2; Weeks on List: 6
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: 15; Weeks on List: 16
3 ORDINARY RESURRECTIONS by Jonathan Kozol (Crown: $25) Life in the South Bronx through the eyes of the schoolchildren in its most dismal neighborhood.
Last Week: 1; Weeks on List: 2
4 WHO MOVED MY CHEESE? by Spencer Johnson (Putnam: $19.95) This co-author of “The One Minute Manager” advises managers on how to get employees Y2K ready.
Last Week: 8; 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: 9; Weeks on List: 123
6 FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS by James Bradley with Ron Powers (Bantam: $24.95) A son pieces together the history of his father, who helped raise the American flag at Iwo Jima.
Last Week: 7; Weeks on List: 2
7 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: 6; Weeks on List: 11
8 GALILEO’S DAUGHTER by Dava Sobel (Walker & Co.: $25) The story of the famous astronomer and scientist and his daughter, Suor Maria Celeste, a cloistered nun.
Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 18
9 SEX AND SHOPPING by Judith Krantz (St. Martin’s: $25.95) Autobiography of the bestselling author of “Scruples” and “Princess Daisy,” whose writing career began in midlife.
Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1
10 ME TALK PRETTY ONE DAY by David Sedaris (Little, Brown: $22.95) Essays covering topics such as life with his quirky, inventive father and the cultural confusions of learning French in Paris.
Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1
11 ‘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: 12; Weeks on List: 30
12 THE MEASURE OF A MAN by Sidney Poitier (HarperSanFrancisco: $26) A spiritual autobiography; the actor reflects on how he has been shaped by the power of faith.
Last Week: 14; Weeks on List: 3
13 FROM DAWN TO DECADENCE by Jacques Barzun (HarperCollins: $36) A magnum opus from the eminent historian on the rise and fall of Western culture over the last 500 years.
Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1
14 LIFE SO FAR by Betty Friedan (Simon & Schuster: $26) A founder of the women’s movement reflects on its successes as well as the extremism within its ranks that has hurt its mission.
Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1
15 PARENTHOOD BY PROXY by Laura Schlessinger (HarperCollins: $24) Schlessinger exhorts parents to make their children top priority and to change their lives, if necessary, to do so.
Last Week: 11; Weeks on List: 2
PAPERBACKS
FICTION
1 THE RED TENT by Anita Diamant (Picador USA: $14) The blossoming of Dinah, Jacob’s only daughter, in Genesis.
2 THE HOURS by Michael Cunningham (Picador USA: $13) Three stories built around Virginia Woolf’s “Mrs. Dalloway.”
3 WHITE OLEANDER by Janet Fitch (Back Bay Books: $13.95) Her mother in jail, a teenage girl survives in L.A. foster homes.
4 THE GIRLS’ GUIDE TO HUNTING AND FISHING by Melissa Bank (Penguin: $12.95) A young girl’s look for lasting love.
5 INTERPRETER OF MALADIES by Jhumpa Lahiri (Mariner: $12) Indian heritage colors the lives of people coping with loss.
6 MOONLIGHT ON THE AVENUE OF FAITH by Gina Nahai (Washington Square: $13.95) Love and magic in Tehran’s Jewish ghetto.
7 CHOCOLAT by Joanne Harris (Penguin: $12.95) A woman and her daughter open a chocolate store in a French village.
8 HOUSE OF SAND AND FOG by Andre Dubus III (Vintage: $14) Two families clash over an auctioned house in this tragic tale.
9 TEXAS SHORT STORIES 2 edited by Billy Bob Hill and Laurie Champion (Browder Springs: $18.95) The stars at night. . .
10 ENCOUNTER WITH TIBER by Buzz Aldrin and John Barnes (Warner: $6.50) Astronauts face an
advanced alien race.
PAPERBACKS
NONFICTION
1 THE WORST-CASE SCENARIO SURVIVAL HANDBOOK by Joshua Piven and David Borgenicht (Chronicle: $14.95) S-O-S!
2 RICH DAD, POOR DAD by Robert T. Kiyosaki and Sharon L. Lechter (Techpress: $15.95) Fiscal
parenting.
3 THE SEAT OF THE SOUL by Gary Zukav (Fireside: $13) The inward transformation of the human
soul.
4 THE PROFESSOR AND THE MADMAN by Simon Winchester (HarperPerennial: $13) A madman with a flair for words.
5 THE PERFECT STORM by Sebastian Junger (HarperPaperback: $13) Fishermen lost in a furious
ocean storm.
6 BELLA TUSCANY by Frances Mayes (Broadway: $15) Stories of cuisine and Italian life in the
villages.
7 ENCORE PROVENCE by Peter Mayle (Vintage: $12) Life in the south of France, where there’s good food and plenty of thyme.
8 GUNS, GERMS AND STEEL by Jared Diamond (W.W. Norton: $14.95) The part played by this triad in history.
9 TRAVELING MERCIES by Anne Lamott (Anchor: $13) The growth of Lamott’s beliefs and how they helped her overcome grief.
10 IN PHARAOH’S ARMY by Tobias Wolff (Vintage: $12) A Vietnam war memoir of the writer’s time in an obscure, muddy village.
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Rankings are based on a Times poll of Southland bookstores.