Southern California Rating:FICTION1 THE BEAR AND THE...

Southern California Rating:

FICTION

1 THE BEAR AND THE DRAGON by Tom Clancy (Putnam: $28.95) CIA warrior and U.S. president Jack Ryan faces brewing trouble in Russia and China and a global struggle for Siberian oil.

Last Week: 1; Weeks on List: 2

2 A PERMANENT TWILIGHT by Chuck Freadhoff (HarperCollins: $25) Reporter and hard-boiled idealist Johnny Rose probes L.A.’s underworld to find out who killed his runaway niece.

Last Week: 2; Weeks on List: 2

3 WINTER SOLSTICE by Rosamunde Pilcher (St. Martin’s Press: $27.95) On the shortest day of the year, five people find themselves in a house in Northern Scotland learning to live with loss.

Last Week: 3; Weeks on List: 5

4 FOUR BLONDES by Candace Bushnell (Atlantic Monthly: $24) Interconnected stories from the “Sex and the City” author about four women caught up in the glitz and glamour of New York.

Last Week: 4; Weeks on List: 2

5 A DENSITY OF SOULS by Christopher Rice (Talk Miramax: $23.95) Coming of age and the cruelties of a New Orleans prep school, from the vampire author’s son.

Last Week: 5; Weeks on List: 2

6 FAITH OF THE FALLEN by Terry Goodkind (Tor: $27.95) Book Six of the Sword of Truth series: Emperor Jagang is rising once again in the Old World.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1

7 OPEN HOUSE by Elizabeth Berg (Random House: $23.95) After her husband leaves, a woman must deal with her loneliness and begin a new life with their 11-year-old son.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1

8 DUST TO DUST by Tami Hoag (Bantam: $25.95) Dirty cops, cover-ups and a luckless detective’s efforts to find the truth behind a colleague’s supposed suicide.

Last Week: 6; Weeks on List: 2

9 STALKER by Faye Kellerman (William Morrow: $25) Cynthia Decker, a young L.A. cop, wonders whether she’s being hazed by her colleagues or pursued by more violent offenders.

Last Week: 13; Weeks on List: 3

10 BEAUTIFUL WASPS HAVING SEX by Dori Carter (William Morrow: $24) Having been stung one time too many, a bitter screenwriter reflects on Hollywood’s push-pull relationship with Jews.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1

11 WILD JUSTICE by Philip Margolin (HarperCollins: $26) A brilliant surgeon with a history of violence and drug abuse, arrested for a heinous crime, hires Portland’s top criminal defense attorney.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1

12 OMERTA by Mario Puzo (Random House: $25.95) A family on the brink of legitimacy in a world of criminals finds itself caught in the middle of one last Mafia war.

Last Week: 9; Weeks on List: 6

13 THE JAMES DEAN AFFAIR by Robert S. Levinson (Forge: $24.95) When a James Dean look-alike kills a soap opera star, amateur sleuths Neil Gulliver and Stevie Marriner decide to investigate.

Last Week: 11; Weeks on List: 3

14 PURPLE CANE ROAD by James Lee Burke (Bantam: $24.95) While helping out an old friend, a man discovers that his mother was murdered by cops 30 years ago .

Last Week: 7; Weeks on List: 5

15 THE SWITCH by Sandra Brown (Warner Books: $25.95) A beautiful identical twin seeking to avenge the murder of her sister runs across a strange cult immersed in a frightening project.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1

NONFICTION

1 WHO MOVED MY CHEESE? by Spencer Johnson (Putnam: $19.95) This co-author of “The One Minute Manager” uses the parable of mice in a maze to show people how to manage change.

Last Week: 1; Weeks on List: 27

2 ME TALK PRETTY ONE DAY by David Sedaris (Little, Brown: $22.95) Wisecracking essays on life with dad and the confusion and humiliation of learning French in Paris.

Last Week: 2; Weeks on List: 16

3 NOTHING LIKE IT IN THE WORLD by Stephen Ambrose (Simon & Schuster: $28) The historian looks at the building of the transatlantic railroad and its impact on the growth of the nation.

Last Week: 9; Weeks on List: 2

4 IT’S NOT ABOUT THE BIKE by Lance Armstrong with Sally Jenkins (Putnam: $24.95) Triumph in the life of a champion cyclist, from overcoming cancer to winning the Tour de France.

Last Week: 3; Weeks on List: 7

5 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: 4; Weeks on List: 64

6 AMERICAN RHAPSODY by Joe Eszterhas (Alfred A. Knopf: $25.95) Speedy ruminations on our national id accompanied by a techno-rave drumbeat of paranoia and sleaze.

Last Week: 5; Weeks on List: 7

7 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: 6; Weeks on List: 21

8 TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE by Mitch Albom (Doubleday: $19.95) A sportswriter’s story of the life lessons he received during weekly visits to an older dying friend.

Last Week: 7; Weeks on List: 135

9 KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL by Anthony Bourdain (Bloomsbury: $24.95) Tools of the culinary trade and tales from the trenches by the acclaimed chef of Les Halles in New York.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 3

10 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: 14; Weeks on List: 14

11 THE BIG TOMORROW by Lary May (University of Chicago: $32.50) How the world presented in Hollywood films was shaped and changed by the Depression, World War II and the Cold War.

Last Week: 11; Weeks on List: 2

12 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: 46

13 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: 12; Weeks on List: 13

14 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: 10; Weeks on List: 16

15 IN A SUNBURNED COUNTRY by Bill Bryson (Broadway Books: $25) A trek Down Under reveals the hottest, driest weather and the most peculiar and lethal wildlife on the planet.

Last Week: 13; Weeks on List: 7

PAPERBACKS

FICTION

1 THE POISONWOOD BIBLE by Barbara Kingsolver (HarperPerennial: $14) A missionary family’s ordeals.

2 THE RED TENT by Anita Diamant (Picador USA: $14) The blossoming of Dinah, Jacob’s only daughter, in Genesis.

3 INTERPRETER OF MALADIES by Jhumpa Lahiri (Mariner: $12) Indian customs color the lives of people coping with loss.

4 TARA ROAD by Maeve Binchy (Dell: $7.99) Heartbreak and disappointment along a Dublin side street.

5 THE GIRLS’ GUIDE TO HUNTING AND FISHING by Melissa Bank (Penguin: $12.95) A young girl’s hunt for lasting love.

6 THE HOURS by Michael Cunningham (Picador USA: $13) Three stories built on Virginia Woolf’s novel “Mrs. Dalloway.”

7 BLACK NOTICE by Patricia Cornwell (Putnam: $25.95) Kay Scarpetta hunts for information in a Paris morgue.

8 BRIDGET JONES’S DIARY by Helen Fielding (Penguin: $12.95) The life of a thirty-ish Londoner looking for the ideal man.

9 WHITE OLEANDER by Janet Fitch (Back Bay Books: $13.95) Her mother in jail, a teenage girl survives in L.A. foster homes.

10 MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA by Arthur Golden (Vintage: $14) The life and loves of a teahouse entertainer in Kyoto.

PAPERBACKS

NONFICTION

1 THE SEAT OF THE SOUL by Gary Zukav (Fireside: $13) Teaching readers to rethink the mind-body connection.

2 THE WORST-CASE SCENARIO SURVIVAL HANDBOOK by Joshua Piven and David Borgenicht (Chronicle: $14.95) S-O-S!

3 RICH DAD, POOR DAD by Robert T. Kiyosaki and Sharon L. Lechter (Techpress: $15.95) Adventures in fiscal parenting.

4 THE TERRIBLE HOURS by Peter Maas (HarperPaperback: $6.99) Rescuing the crew of a sunken sub and the man responsible.

5 NO ONE LEFT TO LIE TO by Christopher Hitchens (Verso: $10) An invective against the Clinton presidency.

6 THE HUNGRY OCEAN by Linda Greenlaw (Hyperion: $14) Life on the Hannah Boden with “The Perfect Storm’s” Greenlaw.

7 LIES MY TEACHER TOLD ME by James W. Loewen (Touchstone: $14) History textbooks that “make students stupid.”

8 THE PROFESSOR AND THE MADMAN by Simon Winchester (HarperPerennial: $13) A madman with a flair for words.

9 THE PERFECT STORM by Sebastian Junger (HarperPaperback: $13) Fishermen lost in a furious ocean storm in ’91.

10 TRAVELING MERCIES by Anne Lamott (Anchor: $13) The growth of Lamott’s beliefs and how they helped her overcome grief.

*

Rankings are based on a Times poll of Southland bookstores.