BESTSELLERS / PAPERBACKS

*--* SO. CAL. RATING Fiction

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

2 Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon (Vintage: $12) An autistic teen seeks a killer.

3 Angels & Demons by Dan Brown (Pocket Books: $7.99) A Harvard scholar uncovers a vendetta against the Catholic Church.

4 The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri (Mariner: $14) A Bengali couple and their son try to find their way in America.

5 The Known World by Edward P. Jones (Amistad: $13.95) Love and betrayal on a black slave owner’s plantation.

6 Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides (Picador: $15) A Greek family embraces the American dream.

7 The Big Bad Wolf by James Patterson (Warner: $7.99) Alex Cross uncovers a sex-slave ring run by a Russian mobster.

8 The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck (Washington Square: $14) A farming couple’s struggle in pre-revolutionary China.

9 The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (Harvest: $14) A time traveler falls in love with a teen heiress.

10 The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory (Touchstone: $15) Two sisters vie for the love of Henry VIII.

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*--* SO. CAL. RATING Nonfiction

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*--* 1 Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi (Random House: $13.95) A professor keeps literature alive for her students.

2 The 9/11 Commission Report by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks (Norton: $10) The report.

3 Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert T. Kiyosaki and Sharon L. Lechter (TechPress/Warner: $15.95) Fiscal parenting.

4 Friday Night Lights by H. G. Bissinger (Da Capo Press: $15.95) A Texas town rallies round its high school football team.

5 The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson (Vintage: $14.95) How a serial killer haunted the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair.

6 Destination: Morgue! by James Ellroy (Vintage: $13.95) Crime, real and imagined, in this latest Ellroy collection.

7 A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson (Broadway: $15.95) From the primordial to the present.

8 1,000 Places to See Before You Die by Patricia Schultz (Workman: $18.95) Trotting the globe.

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

10 Pen on Fire by Barbara DeMarco-Barrett (Harvest Books: $13) Exercises and ideas to help spark the writing flame.

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