Bestsellers

*--* SO. CAL. RATING Fiction LAST WEEK WEEKS ON LIST

*--*

*--* 1 The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (Doubleday: $24.95) A 1 28 Louvre curator’s killing leads to clues hidden in Leonardo’s paintings and a secret society with something to hide.

2 The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom -- 1 (Hyperion: $19.95) An amusement park maintenance man faces his life, death and afterlife in this three-part parable.

3 The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri (Houghton Mifflin: $24) A 2 6 Bengali couple and their son, named for the Russian writer Gogol, experience cultural jolts after leaving Calcutta for America.

4 Bleachers by John Grisham (Doubleday: $19.95) A former 3 4 NFL player returns home to join a vigil for his dying high school football coach and meets a woman he abandoned years before.

5 Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson (William Morrow: $27.95) A -- 1 small-town antiques dealer is targeted by a ruthless killer for a share of a 60-year-old multimillion-dollar diamond heist.

6 The Teeth of the Tiger by Tom Clancy (Putnam: $27.95) 7 8 Young Jack Ryan Jr. enters the covert world to track down terrorists in a far more dangerous world than his father ever knew.

7 The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem (Doubleday: 4 2 $26) The tale of a white boy in a black and Puerto Rican neighborhood in 1970s Brooklyn.

8 The Wedding by Nicholas Sparks (Warner: $23.95) His 8 3 daughter’s wedding offers a workaholic lawyer and his wife a golden opportunity to revive their marriage.

9 Last Car to Elysian Fields by James Lee Burke (Simon & -- 1 Schuster: $24.95) A homicide detective’s priest friend is stalked by an Irish hit man in this gumbo of a thriller set in New Orleans and New Iberia, La.

10 Death by Hollywood by Steven Bochco (Random House: 10 3 $24.95) A screenwriter on the skids witnesses a murder and turns it into a screenplay.

11 Stone Cold by Robert B. Parker (Putnam: $24.95) Troubled -- 1 detective Jesse Stone follows his TV journalist wife to Paradise, Mass., where he tries to nab a serial-killing duo and solve a rape.

12 The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger (Doubleday: 13 24 $21.95) A recent college grad puts up with a nightmare of a boss at a high-fashion magazine.

13 The Devil’s Banker by Christopher Reich (Delacorte Press: -- 4 $25.95) A forensic accountant is on the tangled trail of a terrorist money transfer when a bomb kills his four colleagues.

14 Jamesland by Michelle Huneven (Knopf: $24) A tightknit 14 2 community of troubled eccentrics in Los Angeles’ Los Feliz area struggles with faith and self-acceptance.

15 The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold (Little, Brown: $21.95) -- 66 A murdered girl tells the story of her grieving family still learning to cope, the killer and the detective who hunts him.

*--*

*--* SO. CAL. RATING Nonfiction LAST WEEK WEEKS ON LIST

*--*

*--* 1 Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them by Al Franken 1 7 (Dutton: $24.95) A heaping dose of subversive wit aimed at political leaders and pundits on the right and left.

2 Who’s Looking Out for You? by Bill O’Reilly (Broadway -- 1 Books: $24.95) Talk show host mixes outrage at corrupt people and institutions with practical advice.

3 Where I Was From by Joan Didion (Knopf: $23) A -- 1 California native daughter recasts the once promising Golden State as a place of wasteful extravagance and greed, built on federal funding.

4 Reagan: A Life in Letters (Free Press: $35) The story of -- 1 Ronald Reagan’s life and times is traced in this collection of more than 1,000 letters from 1922 to 1994.

5 Madame Secretary by Madeleine Albright (Miramax: $27) 3 2 The first female secretary of State recounts her life from European refugee to hard-driving diplomat.

6 The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle (New World Library: 10 55 $21.95) How to improve all of one’s relationships, encourage happiness and find contentment by living in the now.

7 The Purpose-Driven Life by Rick Warren (Zondervan: 7 30 $19.99) How the “God-ordained” principles of worship, community, discipleship, ministry and evangelism bring fulfillment.

8 True Notebooks by Mark Salzman (Knopf: $24) A writer 11 2 teaches his craft to juvenile hall inmates, eventually freeing them to write sometimes remarkable prose.

9 Thieves in High Places by Jim Hightower (Viking: $24.95) -- 2 Pundit blasts corporate malfeasance, governmental abuse, the militarization of society and Bush administration empire building.

10 Bushwhacked by Molly Ivins (Random House: $24.95) -- 1 Syndicated columnist and critic of George W. Bush dissects his first term as president, finding he’s pursued “crony capitalism” to extremes.

11 Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer (Doubleday: 4 11 $26) Two Mormon fundamentalists kill their brother’s family on what they believe are God’s orders.

12 Finding a Husband After 35 Using What I Learned at -- 1 Harvard Business School by Rachel Greenwald (Ballantine: $22.95) A 15-step marketing plan of action.

13 Fairy Tales Can Come True by Rikki Klieman (Regan Books: -- 1 $25.95) Court TV’s anchor describes 20-hour workdays, networking and finding happiness in her third marriage.

14 Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson (Putnam: $19.95) -- 155 The co-author of “The One-Minute Manager” on managing change so it’s a blessing, not a curse.

15 Shut Up and Sing by Laura Ingraham (Regnery: $27.95) 15 2 Conservative writer attacks “elites” she defines as antiwar protesters, secularists, internationalists, academics and others.

*--*