Los Angeles Time Bestsellers

February 17, 2002

Southern California Rating

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: 23

2 THE MILLIONAIRES by Brad Meltzer (Warner: $25.95) Two brothers who loot the account of a deceased client at a private bank get more than they bargained for.

Last week: 3

Weeks on List: 4

3 TISHOMINGO BLUES by Elmore Leonard (William Morrow: $25.95) A high diver plunges into the Delta drug trade and the Dixie Mafia after witnessing a murder from atop his rig.

Last week: --

Weeks on List: 1

4 UP COUNTRY by Nelson Demille (Warner: $26.95) A U.S. Army investigator travels to Vietnam to probe a 30-year-old murder in which the only living eyewitness is an enemy soldier.

Last week: --

Weeks on List: 1

5 BASKET CASE by Carl Hiaasen (Alfred A. Knopf: $25.95) Once a hotshot reporter, an obituary writer for a small paper unravels the bizarre causes for the death of a rock star.

Last week: 2

Weeks on List: 5

6 ROSCOE by William Kennedy (Viking: $24.95) Politico Roscoe Conway oils the machine of 1940s Albany, trying to keep his Democrats one step ahead of Republican investigators.

Last week: 5

Weeks on List: 2

7 HATESHIP, FRIENDSHIP, COURTSHIP, LOVESHIP, MARRIAGE by Alice Munro (Alfred A. Knopf: $24) Stories tracing the nuanced lives of women and their relationships.

Last week: 4

Weeks on List: 10

8 ONE DOOR AWAY FROM HEAVEN by Dean Koontz (Bantam: $26.95) UFO-ology hovers over this tale of the FBI’s pursuit of an unusual boy and a woman’s efforts to save a girl from her parents.

Last week: 6

Weeks on List: 5

9 HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE by J.K. Rowling (Scholastic: $25.95) Harry competes in the great Triwizard Tournament and is pursued by the sinister Lord Voldemort.

Last week: --

Weeks on List: 12

10 I’LL LET YOU GO by Bruce Wagner (Villard: $25.95) A Dickens-inspired fable in which an eccentric family, one of L.A.’s filthy rich, encounters the city’s very poor.

Last week: --

Weeks on List: 1

11 THE VIKING FUNERAL by Stephen J. Cannell (St. Martin’s: $24.95) An LAPD detective stumbles upon a bunch of rogue cops who faked their own deaths to work on criminal enterprises.

Last week: 11

Weeks on List: 2

12 UNDER FIRE by W.E.B. Griffin (Putnam: $26.95) A Marine captain tries in vain to alert top brass of an impending invasion by the North at the outset of the Korean War.

Last week: 7

Weeks on List: 2

13 EMBERS by Sandor Marai (Alfred A. Knopf: $21) A celebrated Hungarian novelist’s tale of two old men who meet to recall their long-dead friendship and the secret at its heart.

Last week: --

Weeks on List: 1

14 THE OATH by John Lescroart (Dutton: $25.95) A lawyer and a cop sense that something, besides bad medicine, is to blame for several deaths at a San Francisco HMO.

Last week: 9

Weeks on List: 3

15 THE PASSION OF ARTEMISIA by Susan Vreeland (Viking: $24.95) A female painter in 17th century Italy recalls her successes and the trials of being a creative, independent woman in a man’s age.

Last week: --

Weeks on List: 2

NONFICTION

1 SELF MATTERS by Phillip C. McGraw (Simon & Schuster: $25) A self-improvement guru and “Oprah” regular teaches readers how to “create your life from the inside out.”

Last week: 2

Weeks on List: 3

2 BIAS by Bernard Goldberg (Regnery: $27.95) A veteran CBS reporter argues that the mainstream media have been seriously damaged by a liberal, closed-minded worldview.

Last week: 1

Weeks on List: 7

3 SACRED CONTRACTS by Caroline Myss (Harmony: $25) Lessons in decoding symbols, myths, intuition and coincidences to understand your purpose in life.

Last week: --

Weeks on List: 1

4 SATISFACTION by Kim Cattrall and Mark Levinson (Warner: $24.95) A star of HBO’s “Sex and the City” and her husband draw on viewer feedback for this guide to pleasing women.

Last week: --

Weeks on List: 1

5 WHAT WENT WRONG by Bernard Lewis (Oxford University: $23) An esteemed historian describes the Islamic Middle East’s fall from enlightenment into repression and tyranny.

Last week: --

Weeks on List: 1

6 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: 8

Weeks on List: 38

7 JOURNEY THROUGH HEARTSONGS by Mattie J.T. Stepanek (Hyperion: $14.95) A new collection of poetry from a boy struggling with a rare form of muscular dystrophy.

Last week: 3

Weeks on List: 2

8 BEST-LOVED POEMS OF JACQUELINE KENNEDY ONASSIS Edited by Caroline Kennedy (Hyperion: $21.95) A selection of Jackie’s favorite verse and some of her own, introduced by her daughter.

Last week: 15

Weeks on List: 15

9 THE UNIVERSE IN A NUTSHELL by Stephen Hawking (Bantam: $35) The celebrated physicist offers up a look at space, time and the origin and future of the universe.

Last week: --

Weeks on List: 11

10 EVERY BREATH YOU TAKE by Ann Rule (The Free Press: $25) A master of thrillers and suspense tells the true-crime story of a woman pursued by her obsessed ex-husband.

Last week: --

Weeks on List: 1

11 THE FINAL DAYS by Barbara Olson (Regnery: $25.95) The Clintons’ last actions in the White House, from pardons to executive orders, with commentary from the late Olson.

Last week: --

Weeks on List: 14

12 THE DEATH OF THE WEST by Patrick J. Buchanan (Dunne Books: $25.95) How falling First World birthrates, anti-Western sentiment and other factors signal a dangerous shift in world power.

Last week: --

Weeks on List: 1

13 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 discuss managing change.

Last week: 4

Weeks on List: 98

14 CRASHING THE PARTY by Ralph Nader (St. Martin’s: $24.95) On the road with the outspoken advocate during his 2000 Green Party candidacy for the U.S. presidency.

Last week: --

Weeks on List: 2

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

Last week: --

Weeks on List: 9

PAPERBACKS

FICTION

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

2 A PAINTED HOUSE by John Grisham (Dell Island: $7.99) Violence looms over a boyhood in rural Arkansas in 1952.

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

4 THE BONESETTER’S DAUGHTER by Amy Tan (Ballantine: $7.99) A ghostwriter uncovers her family’s anguished past.

5 1st TO DIE by James Patterson (Warner Vision: $7.99) Four women track a killer with a penchant for newlyweds.

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

7 A WALK TO REMEMBER by Nicholas Sparks (Warner: $6.99) A man recalls the bittersweet love story of his youth.

8 FALL ON YOUR KNEES by Ann-Marie MacDonald (Scribner: $14) The travails of a family in coal-mining Nova Scotia.

9 CORDINA’S CROWN JEWEL by Nora Roberts (Silhouette: $4.50) A princess goes undercover to woo a curmudgeon.

10 THE LAST TIME THEY MET by Anita Shreve (Little, Brown: $13.95) Two poets share a lifelong passion.

PAPERBACKS

NONFICTION

1 A BEAUTIFUL MIND by Sylvia Nasar (Touchstone: $16 ) A brilliant mathematics professor’s battle with schizophrenia.

2 THE FOUR AGREEMENTS by Don Miguel Ruiz (Amber-Allen: $12.95) Life lessons based on ancient Toltec wisdom.

3 BLACK HAWK DOWN by Mark Bowden (Signet: $7.99) A gritty account of a disastrous 1993 military operation in Somalia.

4 FAST FOOD NATION by Eric Schlosser (HarperCollins: $13.95) The unappetizing practices of the junk food industry.

5 HEARTSONGS by Mattie J.T. Stepanek (Vacation Spot: $11.50) Musings on life by a boy with muscular dystrophy.

6 THE WRINKLE CURE by Nicholas Perricone (Warner: $13.95) Using antioxidants to keep the skin looking young.

7 PARIS TO THE MOON by Adam Gopnik (Random House: $14.95) Dispatches from Paris by a New Yorker writer.

8 ME TALK PRETTY ONE DAY by David Sedaris (Little, Brown: $14.95) Wisecracking essays on life in Paris and elsewhere.

9 THE BLESSING OF A SKINNED KNEE by Wendy Mogel (Penguin: $14) Applying Jewish thought to raising children.

10 LIFE STRATEGIES by Phillip C. McGraw (Hyperion, $12.95) How to take responsibility for your life in order to change it.

*

Rankings are based on a Times poll of Southland bookstores.