Bestsellers

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

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*--* 1 The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (Doubleday: $24.95) A 1 40 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 2 13 (Hyperion: $19.95) An amusement park maintenance man faces his life, death and afterlife in this three-part parable.

3 The Big Bad Wolf by James Patterson (Little, Brown: 5 5 $27.95) Lawman Alex Cross investigates the disappearance of pretty women and uncovers a sex slave ring run by a Russian mobster.

4 Trojan Odyssey by Clive Cussler (Putnam: $27.95) Dirk 3 4 Pitt rushes to rescue his undersea exploring twins as a mega-hurricane bears down on the Caribbean and a luxury floating hotel.

5 The Pleasure of My Company by Steve Martin (Hyperion: 9 12 $19.95) A man suffering from agoraphobia and obsessive-compulsive disorder copes with the vicissitudes of life.

6 Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz (Bantam: $26.95) A short-order 7 2 cook talks to ghosts and senses the presence of malevolent spirits who threaten his small desert town.

7 The Hornet’s Nest by Jimmy Carter (Simon & Schuster: $27) 6 5 Two Southern families caught up in the American Revolution as it was fought in Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas.

8 The Murder Room by P.D. James (Knopf: $25.95) Adam 4 5 Dalgliesh investigates the murder of an unpopular museum trustee that echoes a famous homicide depicted in the museum’s Murder Room.

9 Bleachers by John Grisham (Doubleday: $19.95) An NFL 15 14 player returns home to join a vigil for his dying high school football coach and meets a woman he abandoned years before.

10 Old School by Tobias Wolff (Knopf: $22) A New England 14 7 prep school scholarship student with literary ambitions tries to win an audience with Ernest Hemingway.

11 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark -- 15 Haddon (Doubleday: $22.95) Falsely accused, an autistic teen looks for the real murderer of a neighbor’s poodle.

12 The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri (Houghton Mifflin: $24) An 13 12 immigrant Bengali couple and their son, named for the writer Nikolai Gogol, experience cultural jolts in America.

13 Pompeii by Robert Harris (Random House: $24.95) An 10 5 engineer repairing an aqueduct near Mt. Vesuvius in AD 79 notes ominous signs of its imminent eruption.

14 Rumpole and the Primrose Path by John Mortimer (Viking: -- 1 $24.95) The mysterious death of a fellow patient at his rest home draws Rumpole’s attention in the title tale of this six-story collection.

15 The Great Fire by Shirley Hazzard (Farrar, Straus & -- 3 Giroux: $24) A WWII war hero goes to a town near Hiroshima, where he befriends a teenage girl and her terminally ill brother.

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

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*--* 1 Dude, Where’s My Country? by Michael Moore (Warner Books: 1 11 $24.95) Advice from the veteran gadfly on how to take back the country from the conservative forces currently running it.

2 Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them by Al Franken 2 19 (Dutton: $24.95) A heaping dose of subversive wit aimed at political leaders and pundits on the right and left.

3 Living to Tell the Tale by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Knopf: 9 7 $26.95) The Nobel laureate describes his early life in Colombia and his parents and others who gave rise to his best-known characters.

4 Flyboys by James Bradley (Little, Brown: $29.95) A 5 11 history of combat in the Pacific during World War II, centered on a group of U.S. Navy and Marine aviators captured by the Japanese.

5 The Purpose-Driven Life by Rick Warren (Zondervan: 9 10 $19.99) How the “God-ordained” principles of worship, community, discipleship, ministry and evangelism bring fulfillment.

6 The World According to Mister Rogers by Fred Rogers 4 7 (Hyperion: $16.95) Some of the collected wisdom (and a few songs) from the late, beloved television personality.

7 Who’s Looking Out for You? by Bill O’Reilly (Broadway: 3 12 $24.95) Talk-show host mixes outrage at corrupt politics, people and institutions with advice on how to identify whom to trust.

8 Schott’s Original Miscellany by Ben Schott (Bloomsbury: 8 12 $14.95) An eclectic compendium of facts, diagrams, symbols and just about everything you always wanted to know.

9 Hegemony or Survival by Noam Chomsky (Metropolitan: $22) 10 4 A critique of America’s quest for global supremacy from the 1950s to the present, by the MIT professor of philosophy and linguistics.

10 The Present by Spencer Johnson (Doubleday: $19.95) Advice 6 2 on attaining happiness and success by learning from the past, living in the here-and-now and planning for the future.

11 The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle (New World Library: -- 64 $21.95) How to improve one’s relationships and find contentment and even happiness by living in the now.

12 Bushwhacked by Mollie Ivins (Random House: $24.95) The -- 5 syndicated columnist and critic of George W. Bush dissects his presidency and contends that he has pursued crony capitalism to extremes.

13 Sea of Glory by Nathaniel Philbrick (Viking: $30) A 11 3 chronicle of the Great United States Exploring Expedition, commanded by Lt. Charles Wilkes, and its mid-19th century circumnavigation of the globe.

14 Audrey Hepburn, Elegant Spirit by Sean Hepburn Ferrer -- 3 (Simon & Schuster: $29.95) A son tells his actress mother’s story from her youth in war-torn Holland to the heights of Hollywood.

15 Franklin and Winston by Jon Meacham (Random House: -- 2 $29.95) An intimate portrait of the unique and crucial friendship of two of the greatest leaders of their generation.

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