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

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

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

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

7 Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See (Random House: $13.95) Two women in 19th century China.

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

9 Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (Penguin: $15) A quest for the truth about a Spanish novelist.

10 Morrigan’s Cross by Nora Roberts (Jove: $7.99) A 12th century Irish sorcerer battles a vampire named Lilith.

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*--* SO. CAL. RATING Nonfiction 1 The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls (Scribner: $14) A memoir of breaking away from dysfunctional parents.

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

3 The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White (Longman: $9.95) The classic manual of good writing.

4 New Rules by Bill Maher (Rodale: $14.95) Riffs and rants from the political satirist and TV host.

5 1776 by David McCullough (Simon & Schuster: $18) How Colonial forces took on the world’s greatest military power.

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

7 A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle (Plume: $14) How transcending ego can end conflict and suffering.

8 The Tender Bar by J.R. Moehringer (Hyperion: $14.95) Finding father figures among the regulars at a Long Island bar.

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

10 A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn (Harper Perennial: $18.95) From 1492 to the present.

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