BESTSELLERS / PAPERBACKS

Rankings are based on a Times poll of Southland bookstores.

*--* SO. CAL. RATING Fiction 1 The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards (Penguin: $14) A father hides the birth of a twin from his wife.

2 On Beauty by Zadie Smith (Penguin: $15) Dueling Rembrandt scholars clash in a Massachusetts college town.

3 The Sea by John Banville (Vintage: $12.95) A recent widower visits the coastal town where he spent time as a boy.

4 The Black Dahlia by James Ellroy (Mysterious Press: $13.99) Two cops investigate the brutal slaying of a young woman.

5 The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho (HarperSanFrancisco: $13) An Andalusian shepherd boy searches for treasure in Egypt.

6 The History of Love by Nicole Krauss (W.W. Norton: $13.95) A writer escapes the Nazis but loses his beloved.

7 March by Geraldine Brooks (Penguin: $14) Imagining the Civil War experiences of Mr. March, father of the “Little Women.”

8 The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (Riverhead: $14) A writer returns to Kabul to rescue the son of a childhood friend.

9 Consent to Kill by Vince Flynn (Pocket Star: $9.99) CIA assassin Mitch Rapp battles a Saudi billionaire bent on revenge.

10 The Camel Club by David Baldacci (Warner Vision: $7.99) Conspiracy theorists are plunged into a real conspiracy.

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*--* SO. CAL. RATING Nonfiction 1 1776 by David McCullough (Simon & Schuster: $18) How Colonial forces took on the world’s greatest military power.

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

3 The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls (Scribner: $14) A memoir of breaking away from dysfunctional parents.

4 An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore (Rodale: $21.95) The former vice president cites the evidence for global warming.

5 Night by Elie Wiesel (Hill & Wang: $9) A teenager’s harrowing year spent in four concentration camps.

6 The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle (New World Library: $14) How to attain enlightenment by living in the now.

7 Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins (Plume: $15) How the U.S. pressures poor countries.

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

9 The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson (Vintage: $14.95) A serial killer haunts the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair.

10 Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert T. Kiyosaki with Sharon L. Lechter (TechPress/Warner: $16.95) Fiscal parenting.

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