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 41 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 14 (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: 3 6 $27.95) Lawman Alex Cross investigates the disappearance of pretty women and uncovers a sex slave ring run by a Russian mobster.

4 The Pleasure of My Company by Steve Martin (Hyperion: 5 13 $19.95) A man suffering from agoraphobia and obsessive-compulsive disorder copes with the vicissitudes of life.

5 The Murder Room by P.D. James (Knopf: $25.95) Adam 8 6 Dalgliesh investigates the murder of an unpopular museum trustee that echoes a famous homicide depicted in the museum’s Murder Room.

6 Pompeii by Robert Harris (Random House: $24.95) An 13 6 engineer repairing an aqueduct near Mt. Vesuvius in AD 79 notes ominous signs of its imminent eruption.

7 The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri (Houghton Mifflin: $24) An 6 5 immigrant Bengali couple and their son, named for the writer Nikolai Gogol, experience cultural jolts in America.

8 Trojan Odyssey by Clive Cussler (Putnam: $27.95) Dirk 4 5 Pitt rushes to rescue his undersea exploring twins as a mega-hurricane bears down on the Caribbean and a luxury floating hotel.

9 Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz (Bantam: $26.95) A short-order 6 3 cook talks to ghosts and senses the presence of malevolent spirits who threaten his small desert town.

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

11 Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla by Stephen King (Donald -- 7 M. Grant/Scribner: $35) Roland and friends fight to save the Dark Tower in a farm community and Midtown Manhattan.

12 The Great Fire by Shirley Hazzard (Farrar, Straus & 15 4 Giroux: $24) A WWII war hero goes to a town near Hiroshima, where he befriends a teenage girl and her terminally ill brother.

13 Blow Fly by Patricia Cornwell (Putnam: $26.95) Forensic -- 10 pathologist Kay Scarpetta is drawn into a series of gruesome murders in Louisiana bayou country.

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

15 Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes (Ecco Press: $29.95) A -- 1 new translation, by Edith Grossman, of the exploits of the idealistic Spanish knight-errant and his faithful Sancho Panza.

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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 12 $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 20 (Dutton: $24.95) A heaping dose of subversive wit aimed at political leaders and pundits on the right and left.

3 Who’s Looking Out for You? by Bill O’Reilly (Broadway: 7 13 $24.95) Talk-show host mixes outrage at corrupt politics, people and institutions with advice on how to identify whom to trust.

4 Living to Tell the Tale by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Knopf: 3 8 $26.95) The Nobel laureate describes his early life in Colombia and his parents and others who gave rise to his best-known characters.

5 Flyboys by James Bradley (Little, Brown: $29.95) A 4 12 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.

6 The Purpose-Driven Life by Rick Warren (Zondervan: 5 11 $19.99) How the “God-ordained” principles of worship, community, discipleship, ministry and evangelism bring fulfillment.

7 The World According to Mister Rogers by Fred Rogers 6 8 (Hyperion: $16.95) Some of the collected wisdom (and a few songs) from the late, beloved television personality.

8 The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle (New World Library: 11 65 $21.95) How to improve one’s relationships and find contentment and even happiness by living in the now.

9 Schott’s Original Miscellany by Ben Schott (Bloomsbury: 8 13 $14.95) An eclectic compendium of facts, diagrams, symbols and just about everything you always wanted to know.

10 Franklin and Winston by Jon Meacham (Random House: 15 3 $29.95) An intimate portrait of the unique and crucial friendship of two of the greatest leaders of their generation.

11 Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer (Doubleday: -- 1 $26) A study of the nature of radical Mormon sects, centering on a brutal 1984 double murder prompted by “divine revelation.”

12 Benjamin Franklin by Walter Isaacson (Simon & Schuster: -- 14 $30) A new look at the printer turned statesman and Founding Father as both pragmatist and ambitious self-promoter.

13 Audrey Hepburn, Elegant Spirit by Sean Hepburn Ferrer 14 4 (Simon & Schuster: $29.95) A son tells his actress mother’s story, from her youth in war-torn Holland to the heights of Hollywood.

14 Hollywood Then and Now by Rosemary Lord (Thunder Bay: -- 1 $17.98) More than 100 fascinating archival photos of the movie capital contrasted with images of the same scenes today.

15 Inventing a Nation by Gore Vidal (Yale: $22) The -- 3 rivalries, failings and sheer ambition of our Founding Fathers, the most impressive collection of political talent that America has ever produced.

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