Southern California Rating:FICTION1 ANIL’S GHOST by...
Southern California Rating:
FICTION
1 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: 6; Weeks on List: 6
2 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: 13; Weeks on List: 4
3 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: 1; Weeks on List: 4
4 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: 5; Weeks on List: 6
5 TEN THOUSAND ISLANDS by Randy Wayne White (Putnam: $23.95) The hunt for an old medallion on Florida’s Gulf Coast ensnares Doc Ford in murder and the supernatural.
Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1
6 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: --; Weeks on List: 7
7 THE INDWELLING by Tim F. Lahaye and Jerry B. Jenkins (Tyndale: $22.95) In Chapter Seven of the “Left Behind” series, the members of Tribulation Force face both judgment and salvation.
Last Week: 3; Weeks on List: 2
8 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: --; Weeks on List: 4
9 CRADLE AND ALL by James Patterson (Little, Brown: $25.95) A former nun turned private investigator, probing a series of seemingly immaculate conceptions, realizes her life is in danger.
Last Week: 9; Weeks on List: 2
10 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: 7; Weeks on List: 5
11 THE TOUGHEST INDIAN IN THE WORLD by Sherman Alexie (Atlantic Monthly: $24) Stories of Native Americans struggling with identity in middle-class America. Reviewed by Jonathan Levi, Page 4.
Last Week: 2; Weeks on List: 3
12 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: 12; Weeks on List: 1413 DAUGHTER OF FORTUNE by Isabel Allende (HarperCollins: $26) A young woman escapes the bonds of her youthful passion to Gold Rush California.
Last Week: 14; Weeks on List: 23
14 WAITING by Ha Jin (Pantheon: $24) An absurd loophole in Chinese law allows a pair of star-crossed lovers to be united after a long separation.
Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 10
15 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: 15; 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: 4; Weeks on List: 8
2 ME TALK PRETTY ONE DAY by David Sedaris (Little, Brown: $22.95) Wisecracking essays on life with his quirky father and the cultural confusion and humiliation of learning French in Paris.
Last Week: 3; Weeks on List: 3
3 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: 7; Weeks on List: 18
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: 6; Weeks on List: 125
5 EXPERIENCE by Martin Amis (Talk Miramax: $23.95) Amis the Younger’s memoir of literary stardom, dental problems and life with his father, Kingsley.
Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1
6 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: 2; Weeks on List: 3
7 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: 5; Weeks on List: 4
8 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: 12; Weeks on List: 58
9 IN THE HEART OF THE SEA by Nathaniel Philbrick (Viking: $24.95) Life and death aboard the Nantucket whaler Essex, which was sunk by a sperm whale in 1821.
Last Week: 10; Weeks on List: 3
10 GOING TO THE TOP by Carol Gallagher with Susan K. Golant (Viking: $24.95) Insights for women on breaking the corporate glass ceiling, based on interviews with 200 female executives.
Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1
11 BOBOS IN PARADISE by David Brooks (Simon & Schuster: $25) The evolution of America’s new upper class, the “bourgeois bohemians,” whose emblems include the SUV and gourmet coffee.
Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1
12 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: 18
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: 14; Weeks on List: 32
14 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: 8; Weeks on List: 13
15 DIGITAL DIARIES by Natacha Merritt (Taschen: $29.99) Photographs, from the explicit to the mundane, of a life lived in front of a digital camera.
Last Week: 13; Weeks on List: 2
PAPERBACKS
FICTION
1 WHILE I WAS GONE by Sue Miller (Ballantine: $12.95) A stranger unsettles a veterinarian’s perfect world.
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 HANNIBAL by Thomas Harris (Dell: $7.99) A cleverly repulsive sequel to “The Silence of the Lambs.”
5 THE GIRLS’ GUIDE TO HUNTING AND FISHING by Melissa Bank (Penguin: $12.95) A young girl’s look for lasting love.
6 THE RED TENT by Anita Diamant (Picador USA: $14) The blossoming of Dinah, Jacob’s only daughter, in Genesis.
7 INTERPRETER OF MALADIES by Jhumpa Lahiri (Mariner: $12) Indian heritage colors the lives of people coping with loss.
8 L.A. REQUIEM by Robert Crais (Ballantine: $6.99) Elvis Cole and his sidekick Joe Pike hunt the unseen killer of Pike’s ex.
9 THE BLUEST EYE by Toni Morrison (Penguin: $12.95) An African American girl seeks racial acceptance by praying for blue eyes.
10 CHOCOLAT by Joanne Harris (Penguin: $12.95) A woman and her daughter open a chocolate store in a French village.
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 PERFECT STORM by Sebastian Junger (HarperPaperback: $13) Fishermen lost in a furious ocean storm.
4 THE PROFESSOR AND THE MADMAN by Simon Winchester (HarperPerennial: $13) A madman with a flair for words.
5 GUNS, GERMS AND STEEL by Jared Diamond (W.W. Norton: $14.95) The part played by this triad in history.
6 THE FIRST WORLD WAR by John Keegan (Vintage: $16) The origins, players and campaigns of “the war to end all wars.”
7 BIRD BY BIRD by Anne Lamott (Anchor: $12.95) A guidebook charting the perils and joys of the writing life.
8 ANGELA’S ASHES by Frank McCourt (Touchstone: $7.99) Sorrow and hope in an Irish childhood during the Depression.
9 BELLA TUSCANY by Frances Mayes (Broadway: $15) Stories of cuisine and Italian life in the villages.
10 ENCORE PROVENCE by Peter Mayle (Vintage: $12) Life in the south of France, where there’s good food and plenty of thyme.
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Rankings are based on a Times poll of Southland bookstores.