BESTSELLERS

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

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*--* 1 R is for Ricochet by Sue Grafton (Putnam: $26.95) A 10 2 wealthy father is concerned when his daughter is released from prison only to fall into the arms of the man who put her there in the first place.

2 Skinny Dip by Carl Hiaasen (Alfred A. Knopf: $24.95) A -- 1 shady Florida marine biologist thinks he’s offed his wife, but she’s only playing dead as she plots her revenge.

3 The Rule of Four by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason 1 10 (Dial: $24) Four Princeton roommates use clues from a 15th century manuscript to find a buried Roman treasure.

4 Little Scarlet by Walter Mosley (Little, Brown: $24.95) 4 3 Janitor and sometime-private-eye Easy Rawlins stumbles onto a string of homicides in South-Central L.A. in the wake of the 1965 Watts riot.

5 The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (Doubleday: $24.95) A 2 70 Louvre curator’s killing leads to clues hidden in Leonardo’s paintings and a secret society with something to hide.

6 The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom 3 43 (Hyperion: $19.95) An amusement park maintenance man faces his life, death and afterlife in this three-part parable.

7 The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler (Putnam: 5 10 $23.95) Five women and a man plumb Austen’s novels, revealing their own foibles and reveries along the way.

8 Bergdorf Blondes by Plum Sykes (Miramax: $23.95) Botoxed, 7 16 peeled and tanned to kill, Park Avenue princesses search for an ATM (rich boyfriend) or a P.H. (potential husband).

9 Sam’s Letters to Jennifer by James Patterson (Little, 8 3 Brown: $24.95) A grieving widow finds a cache of letters tracing her grandmother’s complicated life and is reunited with a dying friend.

10 Angels & Demons by Dan Brown (Atria: $19.95) A Harvard 13 30 scholar uncovers a vendetta against the Roman Catholic Church by a secret society known as the Illuminati.

11 The Lemon Table by Julian Barnes (Alfred A. Knopf: -- 1 $22.95) Love, the role of memory and the looming call of death lace this often-wry collection of stories.

12 Can You Keep a Secret? by Sophie Kinsella (Dial Books: -- 9 $21.95) A marketing whiz bares her soul to the stranger next to her on a plane before finding out he’s the company’s elusive CEO.

13 Little Children by Tom Perrotta (St. Martin’s: $24.95) -- 9 Some 30ish parents confront their fears and family dysfunction as they raise their suburban offspring.

14 Garden of Beasts by Jeffery Deaver (Simon & Schuster: -- 1 $24.95) A mobster hit man goes undercover for the feds who want him to assassinate one of Hitler’s henchmen in Nazi Berlin.

15 A Good Year by Peter Mayle (Alfred A. Knopf: $24) An -- 6 ex-financier makes a new life for himself after inheriting a wine-growing estate in Provence.

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

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*--* 1 My Life by Bill Clinton (Alfred A. Knopf: $35) The former 1 5 president’s memoirs, from his Arkansas childhood through the highs and lows of his two terms in the White House.

2 Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris 2 8 (Little, Brown: $24.95) Popular humorist recounts childhood experiences with his delightfully dysfunctional family.

3 The Shadow Divers by Robert Kurson (Random House: $26.95) 4 3 The story of two deep-sea divers and their seven-year odyssey to trace the origins of a German U-boat hulk found off New Jersey.

4 Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss (Gotham: $17.50) A 3 14 British novelist and journalist offers her zero-tolerance approach to bad punctuation drawn from a pioneering BBC series.

5 Inside the Kingdom by Carmen bin Laden (Warner: $23.95) A -- 1 look at Saudi society, its treatment of women and the Bin Laden family by the woman once married to Osama’s older brother.

6 The Purpose-Driven Life by Rick Warren (Zondervan: 6 72 $19.99) How the “God ordained” principles of worship, community, discipleship, ministry and evangelism bring fulfillment.

7 Worse Than Watergate by John W. Dean (Little, Brown: 11 15 $22.95) Former White House counsel argues that President Bush has done more damage to the nation than President Nixon or Watergate.

8 Generation Kill by Evan Wright (Putnam: $24.95) Embedded -- 1 with an elite Marine unit, Wright recounts the soldiers’ stories, from landing in Iraq through the fall of Baghdad to the guerrilla war.

9 Southern Californialand by Charles Phoenix (Angel City -- 1 Press: $35) A midcentury look at culture in Kodachrome.

10 My Personal Best by John Wooden with Steve Jamison -- 2 (McGraw-Hill: $19.95) The iconic former UCLA basketball coach recounts life lessons he’s learned along the way.

11 Burro Genius by Victor Villasenor (Rayo/HarperCollins: -- 1 $24.95) A memoir of a boy whose vision of growing up in 1940s America is quashed by discrimination and an unforgiving school system.

12 House of Bush, House of Saud by Craig Unger (Scribner: 8 6 $26) The courting of the Bush family network by the Saudi royal family and how it has affected U.S. government policy.

13 Wooden by John Wooden with Steve Jamison -- 2 (McGraw-Hill/Contemporary Books: $18.95) The man who won 10 national basketball championships in 12 years at UCLA offers some advice.

14 Father Joe by Tony Hendra (Random House: $24.95) After an 5 7 adolescent tryst with a neighbor’s wife, Hendra develops a bond with a Benedictine monk who helps him through life’s struggles.

15 The Automatic Millionaire by David Bach (Broadway Books: 13 15 $19.95) A common-sense guide to financial planning, including automatic contributions, retirement plans and investments.

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