Los Angeles Times Bestsellers

October 21, 2001

FICTION

1 THE CORRECTIONS by Jonathan Franzen (Farrar, Straus & Giroux: $26) The saga of a dysfunctional Midwestern family living at the end of the 20th century.

Last week: 1

Weeks on List: 6

2 BLACK HOUSE by Stephen King and Peter Straub (Random House: $28.95) King and Straub return with the horrific story of parallel worlds first told in their 1984 collaboration, “The Talisman.”

Last week: 6

Weeks on list: 4

3 THE OTHER WIND by Ursula K. Le Guin (Harcourt: $25) The “Earthsea” series continues when the sorcerer Alder seeks help in averting an invasion of his world that he sees in his dreams.

Last Week: --

Weeks on list: 1

4 VALHALLA RISING by Clive Cussler (Putnam: $27.95) A luxury cruise ship sinks, and National Underwater Maritime Administration Director Dirk Pitt must investigate.

Last week: 8

Weeks on list: 8

5 THE PAPER DOORWAY by Dean Koontz (HarperCollins: $17.95) A spooky, funny collection of verse for young readers by the horror master, with illustrations by Phil Parks.

Last week: --

Weeks on list: 1

6 CANE RIVER by Lalita Tademy (Warner: $24.95) A family chronicle about the experiences of four generations of women born into slavery on the Cane River in Louisiana.

Last week: 4

Weeks on list: 13

7 A BEND IN THE ROAD by Nicholas Sparks (Warner: $23.95) A widower’s romance with a small-town schoolteacher is threatened by the unsettling mystery surrounding his wife’s death.

Last week: 5

Weeks on list: 3

8 AFTER THE PLAGUE by T.C. Boyle (Viking: $25.95) Stories of the survival of the meanest and life after an apocalypse, rendered with typical dark humor in Boyle’s fifth collection.

Last week: 3

Weeks on list: 4

9 ANTRAX by Terry Brooks (Del Rey: $26.95) The middle book of the Shannara trilogy follows a band of Druid warriors battling an evil machine intent on cosmic domination.

Last week: 7

Weeks on list: 3

10 THE GOOD GERMAN by Joseph Kanon (Henry Holt: $26) A newsman covering the Potsdam Conference finds murder and intrigue in the rubble and devastation of postwar Berlin.

Last week: --

Weeks on list: 1

11 SHADOWS OF SIN by Rochelle Krich (William Morrow: $25) Detective Jessie Drake copes with family, romance and her newfound Jewish faith as she investigates a plastic surgeon’s murder.

Last week: 15

Weeks on list: 2

12 LAKE WOBEGON SUMMER 1956 by Garrison Keillor (Viking: $24.95) The sorrows of adolescence and the not-so-virtuous beginnings of a young writer in a sleepy Midwestern burg.

Last week: 2

Weeks on list: 5

13 CARTER BEATS THE DEVIL by Glen David Gold (Hyperion: $24.95) A magician comes of age in the surly, seedy world of 1920s San Francisco and is tied to a U.S. president’s death.

Last week: 10

Weeks on list: 3

14 THE NAUTICAL CHART by Arturo Perez-Reverte (Harcourt: $26) A tale replete with lore and old maps about a beautiful museum curator and a smitten sailor hunting for a sunken ship.

Last week: 13

Weeks on list: 2

15 FROM THE DUST RETURNED by Ray Bradbury (William Morrow: $23) The Elliott family returns, proving again that Bradbury is one of the most word-besotted writers in the English language.

Last week: --

Weeks on list: 1

NONFICTION

1 WAR IN A TIME OF PEACE by David Halberstam (Scribner: $28) Halberstam looks at how the lessons of Vietnam have influenced U.S. policy since the Cold War’s end.

Last week: 8

Weeks on list: 3

2 JOHN ADAMS by David McCullough (Simon & Schuster: $35) The story of our second president, a man Thomas Jefferson called “the colossus of independence.”

Last week: 3

Weeks on list: 21

3 GERMS by Judith Miller, Stephen Engelberg and William Broad (Simon & Schuster: $27) Investigative reporters trace how biological warfare became a real threat.

Last week: --

Weeks on list: 1

4 SAVAGE BEAUTY by Nancy Milford (Random House: $29.95) The life of Edna St. Vincent Millay and her reckless pursuit of poetry and seduction in the early years of the 20th century.

Last week: 2

Weeks on list: 5

5 FIRE by Sebastian Junger (W.W. Norton: $24.95) “The Perfect Storm” author spans the globe for extreme situations, from U.S. forest fires and the African diamond trade to war in Afghanistan.

Last week: 4

Weeks on list: 2

6 JACK by Jack Welch with John A. Byrne (Warner: $29.95) The life and times of a respected CEO, from a Massachusetts childhood to his successful reinvention of General Electric.

Last week: 9

Weeks on list: 4

7 HIDDEN POWER by Kati Marton (Pantheon: $25) The saying that behind every successful man is a powerful woman guides this survey of U.S. presidential marriages.

Last week: 14

Weeks on list: 2

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

Last week: 7

Weeks on list: 82

9 THE WILD BLUE by Stephen Ambrose (Simon & Schuster: $26) The story of the men and boys who flew the B-24s over Nazi Germany in World War II.

Last week: 5

Weeks on list: 8

10 HUGHES by Richard Hack (New Millennium: $28) How private memos, diaries and declassified FBI papers throw light onto the ambitions and manias of billionaire Howard Hughes.

Last week: 12

Weeks on list: 2

11 GHOST SOLDIERS by Hampton Sides (Doubleday: $24.95) How a small group of elite American soldiers made a daring rescue of British and American war prisoners in 1945.

Last week: 15

Weeks on list: 20

12 RO L.A. by Patt Morrison (Angel City Press: $30) Tales past and present about Angelenos’ struggles with the Los Angeles River, with photographs by Mark Lamonica.

Last week: 6

Weeks on list: 5

13 POLITICAL FICTIONS by Joan Didion (Alfred A. Knopf: $25) Eight essays on American politics between 1988 and 2000 and a lament over the media’s deception of American voters.

Last week: 1

Weeks on list: 3

14 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: 13

Weeks on list: 182

15 THE LANGUAGE OF CELLS by Spencer Nadler (Random House: $24.95) A surgical pathologist describes his poignant interactions with the people whose illnesses he has diagnosed.

Last week: 11

Weeks on list: 2

PAPERBACK / FICTION

1 THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF KAVALIER & CLAY by Michael Chabon (Picador: $15) Cousins in the comics biz.

2 GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING by Tracy Chevalier (Plume: $12) The woman who inspired a Vermeer painting.

3 BEE SEASON by Myla Goldberg (Vintage: $13) A young girl wins her family’s attention after excelling at spelling bees.

4 THE BLIND ASSASSIN by Margaret Atwood (Anchor: $14) A tale of two sisters and an unpublished sci-fi novel.

5 SHOPGIRL by Steve Martin (Theia: $10.95) Department store clerk Mirabelle meets an older man too good to be true.

6 THE HEIGHT AND DEPTH OF EVERYTHING by Katharine Haake (University of Nevada Press: $17) Women and chaos.

7 ROSES ARE RED by James Patterson (Warner Books: $7.99)

Profiler takes on case of madman turning ever more vicious.

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

9

THE KITCHEN GOD’S WIFE by Amy Tan (Ballantine Books: $7.99) A Chinese American mother speaks to her daughter.

10 HEARTS IN ATLANTIS by Stephen King (Pocket: $7.99) Linked stories of life in a Vietnam-haunted New England town.

PAPERBACK / NONFICTION

1 PERSONAL HISTORY by Katharine Graham (Vintage: $15) A memoir by the late publisher of the Washington Post.

2 TALIBAN by Ahmed Rashid (Yale University Press: $14.95) The rise of Islamic fundamentalism in Afghanistan.

3 OH NO! NOT ANOTHER PROBLEM by Jeanette Griver, Michele Vodrey (Compsych Systems: $12.95) Solving daily dilemmas.

4 BIN LADEN by Yossef Bodansky (Random House, $17.95) A look into what shaped the terrorist leader’s life.

5 BAND OF BROTHERS by Stephen E. Ambrose (Touchstone Books: $16) The elite fighting force Easy Company.

6 JIHAD VS. McWORLD by Benjamin Barber (Ballantine: $12.95) Colliding ideologies and the new world order.

7 PARIS TO THE MOON by Adam Gopnik (Random House: $14.95) Joyous dispatches from the City of Light.

8 EMPIRE by Michael Hardt, Antonio Negri (Harvard University Press: $18.95) The political order of globalization.

9 BECOMING HUMAN by Ian Tattersall (Harvest Books: $14)

A paleontologist looks at the study of human origins.

10 BORROWED DRESS by Cathy Colman (University of Wisconsin Press, $18.95) Poems on love, family and art.