Southern California Rating:FICTION1 RAVELSTEIN by Saul...
Southern California Rating:
FICTION
1 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: --; Weeks on List: 1
2 ANIL’S GHOST by Michael Ondaatje (Alfred A. Knopf: $25) A forensic anthropologist arrives in Ceylon to investigate the source of the organized campaigns of murder engulfing the island.
Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1
3 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: 4; Weeks on List: 10
4 BIG CITY EYES by Delia Ephron (Putnam: $23.95) A woman moves to a small town on Long Island, where she grapples with guilt, murder and motherhood.
Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1
5 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: --; Weeks on List: 1
6 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: 3; Weeks on List: 2
7 HALF MOON STREET by Anne Perry (Ballantine: $25) The body of a murdered man, dressed in drag, leads Supt. Thomas Pitt yet again into the maze of 19th century English society.
Last Week: 7; Weeks on List: 2
8 LE MARIAGE by Diane Johnson (Dutton: $23.95) American expatriates navigate French high society, not to mention elegant chateaux and jail cells. Reviewed by Merle Rubin, Page 12.
Last Week: 5; Weeks on List: 4
9 LIGHTNING ON THE SUN by Robert Bingham (Doubleday: $23.95) A man, desperate to get out of Phnom Penh, sends an ex-girlfriend a large shipment of heroin.
Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1
10 HOUSE OF LEAVES by Mark Z. Danielewski (Pantheon: $40) A young couple faces terrors inside a surreal house that is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside.
Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 2
11 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: 13; Weeks on List: 4
12 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: 1; Weeks on List: 3
13 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: 9; Weeks on List: 20
14 GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING by Tracy Chevalier (Dutton: $21.95) Who was the girl in Vermeer’s famous painting? A fictionalized life of one of art’s most enigmatic heroines.
Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 7
15 DESTINY by Tim Parks (Arcade: $24.95) An Englishman living in Italy watches as life dissolves around him: a child dies, his marriage ends and an interview with a former prime minister looms.
Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1
NONFICTION
1 GIRLFRIENDS FOREVER by Susan Stewart Branch (Little, Brown: $23.95) With recipes, decorating and wardrobe tips, memories and party ideas, the author describes life with her female friends.
Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1
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: 13
3 MICHAEL PALIN’S HEMINGWAY ADVENTURES by Michael Palin with photographs by Basil Pao (St. Martin’s: $29.95) Tracing Hemingway’s life, from fly-fishing in Michigan to spear throwing in Africa.
Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1
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: 2; Weeks on List: 8
5 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: 4; Weeks on List: 3
6 THE LAST GOOD FREUDIAN by Brenda Webster (Holmes & Meier: $24.95) Webster offers a glimpse into the heyday of American psychotherapy in this memoir of life in analysis.
Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1
7 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: --; Weeks on List: 1
8 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: 14; Weeks on List: 3
9 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: 6; Weeks on List: 9
10 YUKON ALONE by John Balzar (Henry Holt: $25) Times staff writer Balzar tells the story of the Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race, possibly the toughest race on earth.
Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1
11 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: 10; Weeks on List: 5
12 THE DEVIL AND SONNY LISTON by Nick Tosches (Little, Brown: $24.95) The rise and fall of one of America’s greatest boxers, from his beginnings as a prison fighter to his mysterious death.
Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1
13 REASON FOR HOPE by Jane Goodall with Phillip Berman (Warner Books: $26.95) Goodall explains why she has not lost faith, even in the face of environmental destruction.
Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1
14 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: --; Weeks on List: 16
15 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: 120
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 HOUSE OF SAND AND FOG by Andre Dubus III (Vintage: $14) Two families clash over an auctioned house in this tragic tale.
4 THE HANDYMAN by Carolyn See (Ballantine: $12.95) A great artist in the making is a Mr. Fix-it for people’s homes and hearts.
5 A NEW SONG by Jan Karon (Penguin: $12.95) A clergyman and his wife leave their beloved Mitford.
6 CHOCOLAT by Joanne Harris (Penguin: $12.95) A woman and her daughter open a chocolate store in a French village.
7 LAST THINGS by Jenny Offill (Delta: $11.95) A year in the life of an 8-year-old girl.
8 DREAMING SOUTHERN by Linda Bruckheimer (Plume: $12.95) A mother and children on a restless road trip to California.
9 WHERE THE HEART IS by Billie Letts (Warner: $12) A teen starts a new life, and gives birth, in a Wal-Mart.
10 A CUP OF TEA by Amy Ephron (Ballantine: $10) How one glance can ruin another woman’s life.
PAPERBACKS
NONFICTION
1 RICH DAD, POOR DAD by Robert T. Kiyosaki and Sharon L. Lechter (Techpress: $15.95) Fiscal parenting.
2 THE WORST-CASE SCENARIO SURVIVAL HANDBOOK by Joshua Piven and David Borgenicht (Chronicle: $14.95) S-O-S!
3 50 TRAIL RUNS IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA by Stan Swartz, Jim Wolff and Samir Shahin (Mountaineers Books: $16.95)
4 PROJECTIONS 10 edited by Mike Figgis (Faber & Faber: $20) Filmmakers talk about filmmaking.
5 MAZE GOLF by David Schneiderman ( Tallfellow Press: $7.95) Mazes and games disguised as golf courses.
6 WOMAN by Natalie Angier (Doubleday: $15) A celebration of womanhood and the feminine mystique.
7 LINDBERGH by A. Scott Berg (Berkley: $12) Aviator, father, patriot--a true American hero.
8 ALWAYS RUNNING by Luis J. Rodriguez (Touchstone: $12) A memoir of Rodriguez’s gang days and vida loca in East L.A.
9 THE PROFESSOR AND THE MADMAN by Simon Winchester (HarperPerennial: $13) A madman with a flair for words.
10 FATHER TO SON by Henry H. Harrison Jr. (Workman: $7.95) Life lessons on raising a boy.
*
Rankings are based on a Times poll of Southland bookstores.