BESTSELLERS / Paperback

*--* SO. CAL. RATING Fiction 1 The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd (Penguin: $14) A teenage girl is haunted by her mother’s death

2 Life of Pi by Yann Martel (Harvest Books: $14) An Indian boy shares a lifeboat with a tiger on a harrowing trip

3 Three Junes by Julia Glass (Anchor: $14) A Scottish family comes together over three summers

4 Angels & Demons by Dan Brown (Pocket Books: $7.99) A Harvard scholar uncovers a vendetta against the Catholic Church

5 The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith (Anchor: $11.95) Botswana’s female private eye

6 Beach House by James Patterson and Peter de Jonge (Warner: $7.99) A man seeks justice in his brother’s death

7 East of Eden by John Steinbeck (Penguin: $16) Cain and Abel come of age in California’s Salinas Valley

8 Atonement by Ian McEwan (Anchor: $14) A haunting novel of guilt and redemption in World War II England

9 Hard Eight by Janet Evanovich (St. Martin’s: $7.99) A bounty hunter looks for a missing girl and her mother

10 Bel Canto by Ann Patchett (HarperPaperbacks: $13.95) Opera mingles with mayhem in South America 1 Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand (Ballantine: $15) How a thoroughbred horse went from also-ran to sports icon

2 Dr. Atkins’ New Diet Revolution by Robert C. Atkins (Quill: $13.95) Shedding pounds with a low-carb diet

3 Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser (HarperCollins: $13.95) The unappetizing practices of the junk-food industry

4 The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz (Amber-Allen: $12.95) A code of conduct based on Toltec wisdom

5 How to Lose Friends & Alienate People by Toby Young (DaCapo: $14.95) The Manhattan social scene

6 Running With Scissors by Augusten Burroughs (Picador: $14) A boy goes to live with his mother’s psychiatrist

7 Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert T. Kiyosaki with Sharon L. Lechter (Techpress: $15.95) Fiscal parenting

8 Lucky by Alice Sebold (Back Bay: $11.95) A memoir of the author’s rape in college and how it plunged her life into chaos

9 Self Matters by Phillip C. McGraw (Free Press: $14) The self-help guru teaches how to “create your life from the inside out.”

10 Fixed Ideas: America Since 9.11 by Joan Didion (New York Review of Books: $7.95) Why dissent isn’t unpatriotic

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