BESTSELLERS

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

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*--* 1 Skinny Dip by Carl Hiaasen (Knopf: $24.95) A shady 1 4 Florida marine biologist thinks he’s offed his wife, but she’s only playing dead as she plots her revenge.

2 The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (Doubleday: $24.95) A 2 73 Louvre curator’s killing leads to clues hidden in Leonardo’s paintings and a secret society with something to hide.

3 The Rule of Four by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason 3 13 (Dial: $24) Four Princeton roommates use clues from a 15th century manuscript to find a buried Roman treasure.

4 R Is for Ricochet by Sue Grafton (Putnam: $26.95) A 4 5 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.

5 Star by Pamela Anderson (Atria: $24) Star Wood Leigh -- 1 works by day at a salon, by night at a steak and oyster house until her fresh face and tight T-shirt land her on the cover of a national magazine.

6 The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom 7 46 (Hyperion: $19.95) An amusement park maintenance man faces his life, death and afterlife in this three-part parable.

7 Little Scarlet by Walter Mosley (Little, Brown: $24.95) 5 6 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.

8 Lost City by Clive Cussler with Paul Kemprecos (Putnam: 9 2 $26.95) Kurt Austin wants to know who is killing the harvesters of a life-extending enzyme found in the depths of the North Atlantic.

9 I, Fatty by Jerry Stahl (Bloomsbury: $23.95) Roscoe 8 3 “Fatty” Arbuckle recounts how his acquittal of rape and murder charges doesn’t save his film career in this faux memoir.

10 The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (Penguin: -- 5 $24.95) In postwar Barcelona, the son of a bookstore owner tries to unearth the story of a long-dead novelist.

11 Dark Voyage by Alan Furst (Random House: $24.95) A Dutch -- 1 freighter disguised as a Spanish tramp steamer plies the Swedish coast in a secret Allied intelligence mission during World War II.

12 Sam’s Letters to Jennifer by James Patterson (Little, 11 6 Brown: $24.95) A grieving widow finds a cache of letters tracing her grandmother’s complicated life and is reunited with a dying friend.

13 The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler (Putnam: 6 13 $23.95) Five women and a man plumb Austen’s novels, revealing their own foibles and reveries along the way.

14 Brimstone by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child (Warner: -- 1 $25.95) An art critic dies in the first in a series of deaths that defy every explanation but the supernatural.

15 The Dangerous Hour by Marcia Muller (Mysterious Press: -- 1 $25) San Francisco PI Sharon McCone tries to find out who is working to sabotage her detective agency.

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

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*--* 1 American Soldier by Tommy Franks with Malcolm McConnell 11 2 (ReganBooks: $27.95) The former commander in chief of the U.S. Central Command gives an inside look at the war on terror.

2 Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris 2 11 (Little, Brown: $24.95) Popular humorist recounts childhood experiences with his delightfully dysfunctional family.

3 Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss (Gotham: $17.50) A 3 17 British novelist and journalist offers her zero-tolerance approach to bad punctuation, drawn from her pioneering BBC series.

4 My Life by Bill Clinton (Knopf: $35) The former 1 8 president’s memoirs, from his Arkansas childhood through the highs and lows of his two terms in the White House.

5 Imperial Hubris by Anonymous (Brassey’s: $27.50) A senior 5 2 U.S. intelligence official says it’s not democracy and freedom that rile Islamists, but U.S. military, political and economic policy.

6 Woman Power by Laura Schlessinger (HarperCollins: $22.95) -- 1 Talk show host says to reject feminist tenets and transform your husband, your marriage and your life in just minutes a day.

7 Public Enemies by Bryan Burrough (Penguin: $29.95) J. -- 1 Edgar Hoover’s FBI hunts John Dillinger, Bonnie and Clyde and Baby Face Nelson during a spectacular two-year crime wave in the 1930s.

8 Inside the Kingdom: My Life in Saudi Arabia by Carmen bin -- 1 Laden (Warner: $22.95) Osama bin Laden’s former sister-in-law tells of life in Saudi Arabia and the powerful Bin Laden clan.

9 Losing America by Robert C. Byrd (W.W. Norton: $23.95) 4 3 The West Virginia senator demands a rollback of what he calls the “slow unraveling of the people’s liberties” in President Bush’s war on terror.

10 The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands by Laura 12 30 Schlessinger (HarperCollins: $24.95) The talk show host tells how to manage the “very simple creature” that is man.

11 Bushworld: Enter at Your Own Risk by Maureen Dowd -- 1 (Putnam: $25.95) A decade of the New York Times op-ed columnist’s collected works, especially those on Bush pere and fils.

12 Politics by Hendrik Hertzberg (Penguin: $29.95) New -- 1 Yorker writer and political commentator’s collected essays and editorials covering nearly four decades of elegant and thoughtful observation.

13 The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle (New World Library: -- 78 $21.95) How to improve one’s relationships and find contentment, even happiness, by living in the now.

14 The Purpose-Driven Life by Rick Warren (Zondervan: 7 75 $19.99) How the “God ordained” principles of worship, community, discipleship, ministry and evangelism bring fulfillment.

15 How to Be Lovely by Melissa Hellstern (Dutton: $17.95) A -- 1 behind-the-scenes look at the real Audrey Hepburn -- actress, muse, mother and humanitarian -- through her own words and wisdom.

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