Southern California Rating:FICTION1 WHITE TEETH by...

Southern California Rating:

FICTION

1 WHITE TEETH by Zadie Smith (Random House: $24.95) The intertwined stories of two North London families capture an empire’s worth of cultural identity, history and hope.

Last Week: 6; Weeks on List: 10

2 ANIL’S GHOST by Michael Ondaatje (Alfred A. Knopf: $25) A forensic anthropologist arrives in Ceylon to investigate the source of the organized campaign of murder engulfing the island.

Last Week: 7; Weeks on List: 10

3 HOT SIX by Janet Evanovich (St. Martin’s: $24.95) Arms dealers, thugs and Grandma get in the way of New Jersey bounty hunter Stephanie Plum’s efforts to find a vanished colleague.

Last Week: 1; Weeks on List: 2

4 THE INDWELLING by Tim F. Lahaye and Jerry B. Jenkins (Tyndale: $22.95) In Chapter Seven of the “Left Behind” series, the members of Tribulation Force face both judgment and salvation.

Last Week: 4; Weeks on List: 6

5 HOT SPRINGS by Stephen Hunter (Simon & Schuster: $25) World War II veteran Earl Swagger is hired to clean up an Arkansas town controlled by an oddball gangster.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1

6 CRADLE AND ALL by James Patterson (Little, Brown: $25.95) A former nun turned private investigator, probing a series of seemingly immaculate conceptions, realizes her life is in danger.

Last Week: 8; Weeks on List: 6

7 THE BRETHREN by John Grisham (Doubleday: $27.95) A scam by three former judges doing time in federal prison goes awry and ensnares a powerful man on the outside.

Last Week: 10; Weeks on List: 17

8 HEARTBREAKER by Julie Garwood (Pocket: $24.95) A tangled tale of suspense about a priest who hears the confession of the “Heartbreaker,” a psychopath planning to kill the priest’s sister.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1

9 THE EMPTY CHAIR by Jeffrey Deaver (Simon & Schuster: $25) “The Bone Collector’s” foremostcriminalist, Lincoln Rhyme, clashes with his sidekick Amelia over a brutal kidnapper’s guilt.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 7

10 RAVELSTEIN by Saul Bellow (Viking: $24.95) A writer chronicles the life of his dying professor friend, exposing both of their vices and virtues in the process.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 5

11 THE HUMAN STAIN by Philip Roth (Houghton Mifflin: $26) The chronicle of an academic scandal and its impact on the aging faculty dean at its center and on his friend, Nathan Zuckerman.

Last Week: 9; Weeks on List: 9

12 EASY PREY by John Sandford (Putnam: $25.95) When a supermodel is found strangled after a party, millionaire Lucas Davenport is called to investigate.

Last Week: 11; Weeks on List: 8

13 BEFORE I SAY GOOD-BYE by Mary Higgins Clark (Simon & Schuster: $26) An ambitious young woman uses gumshoe tactics and psychic powers to probe her late husband’s murky past.

Last Week: 12; Weeks on List: 9

14 THE RUN by Stuart Woods (HarperCollins: $26) A likable Georgian senator’s bid for the White House is threatened by a right-wing fanatic with a grudge.

Last Week: 15; Weeks on List: 3

15 BECOMING MADAME MAO by Anchee Min (Houghton Mifflin: $25) Portrait of a Chinese revolutionary, who fled family and foot-binding for the Shanghai theater and the arms of Mao Tse-tung.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 2

NONFICTION

1 ME TALK PRETTY ONE DAY by David Sedaris (Little, Brown: $22.95) Wisecracking essays on lifewith his quirky father and the cultural confusion and humiliation of learning French in Paris.

Last Week: 1; Weeks on List: 7

2 IS THAT A GUN IN YOUR POCKET? by Rachel Abramowitz (Random House: $26.95) An engaging look at how women struggle with and for power in Hollywood.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 3

3 TEN THINGS I WISH I’D KNOWN BEFORE I WENT INTO THE REAL WORLD by Maria Shriver (Warner: $19.95) Notes from life’s trenches, expanded from a commencement speech.

Last Week: 4; Weeks on List: 12

4 FROM DAWN TO DECADENCE by Jacques Barzun (HarperCollins: $36) A magnum opus from the eminent historian on the rise and fall of Western culture over the last 500 years.

Last Week: 2; Weeks on List: 7

5 THE CHIEF by David Nasaw (Houghton Mifflin: $35) Newly discovered letters augment this retelling of the life of media mogul extraordinaire William Randolph Hearst.

Last Week: 8; Weeks on List: 2

6 FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS by James Bradley with Ron Powers (Bantam: $24.95) A son pieces together the history of his father, who helped raise the American flag at Iwo Jima.

Last Week: 3; Weeks on List: 8

7 IN A SUNBURNED COUNTRY by Bill Bryson (Broadway Books: $25) A trek Down Under reveals the hottest, driest weather and the most peculiar and lethal wildlife on the planet.

Last Week: 11; Weeks on List: 4

8 THE GREATEST GENERATION by Tom Brokaw (Random House: $24.95) TV anchor tells the stories ofthe generation that came of age during the Depression and World War II.

Last Week: 9; Weeks on List: 61

9 IN THE HEART OF THE SEA by Nathaniel Philbrick (Viking: $24.95) Life and death aboard the Nantucket whaler Essex, which was sunk by a sperm whale in 1821.

Last Week: 12; Weeks on List: 7

10 A HEARTBREAKING WORK OF STAGGERING GENIUS by Dave Eggers (Simon & Schuster: $23) Memoir of a twentysomething slacker, who must bring up his baby brother when their parents die of cancer.

Last Week: 15; Weeks on List: 21

11 EXPERIENCE by Martin Amis (Talk Miramax: $23.95) Amis the Younger’s memoir of literary stardom, dental problems and life with his father, Kingsley.

Last Week: 5; Weeks on List: 5

12 TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE by Mitch Albom (Doubleday: $19.95) A sportswriter’s empowering story about his weekly visits to see an older dying friend.

Last Week: 6; Weeks on List: 129

13 DON’T MAKE ME STOP THIS CAR! by Al Roker (Scribner: $24) Essays on the adventures of fatherhood by the weatherman of NBC’s “Today” show.

Last Week: 7; Weeks on List: 3

14 WHICH LIE DID I TELL? by William Goldman (Pantheon: $26.95) Further adventures in the screen trade from a veteran screenwriter whose work includes “All the President’s Men.”

Last Week: 10; Weeks on List: 16

15 THE PAYNE STEWART STORY by Larry Guest (Stark Books/Andrews McMeel: $24.95) The rise of the golfing champion, known for his trademark knickers, who died in a 1999 plane crash.

Last Week: 14; Weeks on List: 2

PAPERBACKS

FICTION

1 THE POISONWOOD BIBLE by Barbara Kingsolver (HarperPerennial: $14) A missionary family’s ordeals.

2 THE GIRLS’ GUIDE TO HUNTING AND FISHING by Melissa Bank (Penguin: $12.95) A young girl’s look for lasting love.

3 INTERPRETER OF MALADIES by Jhumpa Lahiri (Mariner: $12) Indian heritage colors the lives of people coping with loss.

4 THE HOURS by Michael Cunningham (Picador USA: $13) Three stories built around Virginia Woolf’s “Mrs. Dalloway.”

5 THE RED TENT by Anita Diamant (Picador USA: $14) The blossoming of Dinah, Jacob’s only daughter, in Genesis.

6 HANNIBAL by Thomas Harris (Dell: $7.99) A cleverly repulsive sequel to “The Silence of the Lambs.”

7 FLEUR DE LEIGH’S LIFE OF CRIME by Diane Leslie (Scribner: $12) A poor little rich girl and her L.A. childhood.

8 BRIDGET JONES’S DIARY by Helen Fielding (Penguin: $12.95) The life of a thirtyish Londoner looking for the ideal man.

9 HOUSE OF SAND AND FOG by Andre Dubus III (Vintage: $14) Two families clash over an auctioned house in this tragic tale.

10 CHOCOLAT by Joanne Harris (Penguin: $12.95) A woman and her daughter open a chocolate store in a French village.

PAPERBACKS

NONFICTION

1 THE PERFECT STORM by Sebastian Junger (HarperPaperback: $13) Fishermen lost in a furious ocean storm in ’91.

2 THE CENTURY AND I by Claud R. Wynegar (Seamount: $12) A 99-year-old resident of Cedar Falls, Iowa, recalls his youth.

3 THE WORST-CASE SCENARIO SURVIVAL HANDBOOK by Joshua Piven and David Borgenicht (Chronicle: $14.95) S-O-S!

4 THE SEAT OF THE SOUL by Gary Zukav (Fireside: $13) The inward transformation of the human soul.

5 GIRL, INTERRUPTED by Susanna Kaysen (Vintage: $12) A memoir of life in a psychiatric institute in 1967.

6 THE HUNGRY OCEAN by Linda Greenlaw (Hyperion: $14) Life on the Hannah Boden with “The Perfect Storm’s” Greenlaw.

7 GUNS, GERMS AND STEEL by Jared Diamond (W.W. Norton: $14.95) The part played by this triad in history.

8 BELLA TUSCANY by Frances Mayes (Broadway: $15) Stories of cuisine and Italian life in the villages.

9 THE PROFESSOR AND THE MADMAN by Simon Winchester (HarperPerennial: $13) A madman with a flair for words.

10 TOPAZ MOON by Chiura Obata (Heyday Books: $19.95) Sketches of 1940s life in Japanese internment camps.

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Rankings are based on a Times poll of Southland bookstores.