Los Angeles Times Bestsellers
| Fiction | weeks on list | |
| 1. | Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri (Knopf: $25) Stories of U.S.-born children and their Bengali parents straddling cultures. | 4 |
| 2. | The Miracle at Speedy Motors by Alexander McCall Smith (Pantheon: $22.95) Mma Ramotswe has a new case and a husband with a miracle cure. | 1 |
| 3. | Hold Tight by Harlan Coben (Dutton: $26.95) A teen’s suicide and sadistic killings engulf a troubled New Jersey family. | 1 |
| 4. | Hollywood Crows by Joseph Wambaugh (Little, Brown: $26.99) Two cops become ensnared in a femme fatale’s nasty divorce. | 4 |
| 5. | Lush Life by Richard Price (Farrar, Straus & Giroux: $26) The layered lives of victims and aggressors are explored after a Manhattan shooting. | 7 |
| 6. | Where Are You Now? by Mary Higgins Clark (Simon & Schuster: $25.95) A law school grad seeks her missing brother, who may be linked to dark deeds. | 2 |
| 7. | Our Story Begins by Tobias Wolff (Knopf: $26.95) New short stories reflecting contemporary American life by a master of the form. | 4 |
| 8. | A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini (Riverhead: $25.95) Two Afghan women struggle to survive jihad, civil war and Taliban tyranny. | 47 |
| 9. | The Third Angel by Alice Hoffman (Shaye Areheart: $25) Three London women whose lives are intertwined find themselves at a critical crossroads. | 1 |
| 10. | The Wentworths by Katie Arnoldi (Overlook: $23.95) A wealthy Westside Los Angeles family is warped by power and dysfunction. | 2 |
| 11. | Certain Girls by Jennifer Weiner (Atria: $26.95) Cannie Shapiro juggles her complicated life as her daughter is about to be bat mitzvahed. | 2 |
| 12. | Compulsion by Jonathan Kellerman (Ballantine: $27) A blood stain in a stolen luxury car sets Alex Delaware on the trail of a serial killer. | 4 |
| 13. | The Appeal by John Grisham (Doubleday: $27.95) A billionaire tries to reverse a $41-million jury verdict over toxic-waste dumping. | 12 |
| 14. | Belong to Me by Maria de los Santos (William Morrow: $24.95) Three women negotiate love, loss, trust and betrayal. | 3 |
| 15. | The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz (Riverhead: $24.95) A sci-fi-loving nerd and his immigrant family are haunted by the past. | 13 |
| Nonfiction | ||
| 1. | The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch with Jeffrey Zaslow (Hyperion: $21.95) A professor with terminal cancer urges us to seize life’s moments. | 2 |
| 2. | Beautiful Boy by David Sheff (Houghton Mifflin: $24) A father’s struggle with his son’s meth addiction. | 8 |
| 3. | Home by Julie Andrews (Hyperion: $26.95) The star of stage and screen tells of life before “Mary Poppins.” | 3 |
| 4. | Just Who Will You Be? by Maria Shriver (Hyperion: $14.95) Ask who, not what, you want to be. | 1 |
| 5. | Bonk by Mary Roach (W.W. Norton: $24.95) What science tells us about sex. | 2 |
| 6. | Girls Like Us by Sheila Weller (Atria: $27.95) Tracking a generation of women through icons Carole King, Joni Mitchell and Carly Simon. | 2 |
| 7. | The Secret by Rhonda Byrne (Beyond Words: $23.95) Life’s secrets distilled from oral tradition, literature, religion and philosophy. | 69 |
| 8. | Bad Money by Kevin Phillips (Viking: $25.95) How debt, shaky financial markets and misguided policies are damaging the nation. | 1 |
| 9. | The Soloist by Steve Lopez (Putnam: $25.95) The L.A. Times columnist befriends a mentally ill homeless musician. | 1 |
| 10. | Ladies of Liberty by Cokie Roberts (William Morrow: $26.95) Portraits of the women who helped shape the young American nation. | 2 |
| 11. | Maps and Legends by Michael Chabon (McSweeney’s: $24) The novelist defends his love of genre fiction, of comics, thrillers, horror and myth. | 2 |
| 12. | The Sum of Our Days by Isabel Allende (Harper: $26.95) The novelist discusses her life, loves, friendships and grief over her daughters death. | 2 |
| 13. | What Now? by Ann Patchett (Harper: $14.95) Reflections on life’s journey, on finding joy and meeting new challenges. | 1 |
| 14. | Escape by Carolyn Jessop with Laura Palmer (Broadway: $24.95) A woman’s tale of escaping the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints. | 1 |
| 15. | Human Smoke by Nicholson Baker (Simon & Schuster: $30) A revisionist look at the run-up to World War II. | 4 |
Rankings are based on a Times poll of Southland bookstores.
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