Southern California Rating:FICTION1 HOT SIX by...

Southern California Rating:

FICTION

1 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: 3; Weeks on List: 3

2 BE THE ONE by April Smith (Alfred A. Knopf: $24) A Dodger scout signs a “phenom” from the Dominican Republic and soon finds herself in the midst of blackmail, extortion and voodoo.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1

3 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: 1; Weeks on List: 11

4 NO GOOD-BYES by Elaine Kagan (William Morrow: $24) The lives of three women in Hollywood overlap as they search for their true selves and those they have lost.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1

5 MIDDLE OF NOWHERE by Ridley Pearson (Hyperion: $23.95) As the blue flu fells most of the Seattle Police Department, a police lieutenant must deal with an increasing crime wave.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1

6 LIAR’S GAME by Eric Jerome Dickey (Dutton: $23.95) In order for their new relationship to blossom, a thirtysomething African American couple must be honest about the details of their past.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1

7 OMERTA by Mario Puzo (Random House: $25.95) A family on the brink of legitimacy in a world of criminals finds itself caught in the middle of one last Mafia war.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1

8 GETTING OVER IT by Anna Maxted (ReganBooks: $25) A young woman changes her ways after a telephone call informing her of her father’s death interrupts a life of frivolity.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1

9 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: 2

10 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: 11; Weeks on List: 10

11 HOUSE OF LEAVES by Mark Z. Danielewski (Pantheon: $40) A young couple faces terrors inside a surreal house that is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 3

12 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: 2; Weeks on List: 11

13 MAGIC TERROR by Peter Straub (Random House: $24.95) Seven scary stories of heartbreak, savagery, terror and despair demonstrate the range of the horror genre.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1

14 WAITING by Ha Jin (Pantheon: $24) An absurd loophole in Chinese law allows a pair of star-crossed lovers to be united after a long separation.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 12

15 BEOWULF by Seamus Heaney (Farrar, Straus & Giroux: $25) An Irish poet breathes new life into an Anglo-Saxon masterpiece with his new translation of the epic poem.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 15

NONFICTION

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

Last Week: 1; Weeks on List: 8

2 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: 5; Weeks on List: 3

3 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: 4; Weeks on List: 8

4 JON JERDE IN JAPAN by Cathie Gandel (Balcony Press: $29.95) A Japanese real estate developer and an American architect partner in the largest private real estate development in Japan.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1

5 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: 11; Weeks on List: 6

6 WHO MOVED MY CHEESE? by Spencer Johnson (Putnam: $19.95) This co-author of “The One Minute Manager” uses the parable of mice in a maze to show people how to manage change.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 20

7 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: 10; Weeks on List: 22

8 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: 3; Weeks on List: 13

9 THE DEBT by Randall Robinson (Dutton: $23.95) An influential lobbyist argues that African Americans should be compensated by the government for institutionalized racism.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 4

10 THE HAPPY BOTTOM RIDING CLUB by Lauren Kessler (Random House: $24.95) The turbulent life and times of Pancho Barnes, a pioneering female pilot and hostess extraordinaire.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 2

11 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: 14; Weeks on List: 16

12 THE OPERATOR by Tom King (Random House: $25.95) The patience, cunning and unbridled egotism behind David Geffen’s transformation into a powerful media mogul.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 12

13 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: 6; Weeks on List: 9

14 IT’S NOT ABOUT THE BIKE by Lance Armstrong with Sally Jenkins (Putnam: $24.95) Life, love, illness, recovery and the quest for the maillot jaune from last year’s Tour de France champion.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1

15 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: 7; Weeks on List: 5

PAPERBACKS

FICTION

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

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

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

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

5 HOW TO BE A CHICANA ROLE MODEL by Michele Serros (Riverhead: $12.95) Interconnected stories of women on the verge.

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

7 TEARS OF THE MOON by Nora Roberts (Berkley: $7.99) A woman uses Irish magic to make her romantic dreams come true.

8 WHITE OLEANDER by Janet Fitch (Back Bay Books: $13.95) Her mother in jail, a teenage girl survives in L.A. foster homes.

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

10 WHILE I WAS GONE by Sue Miller (Ballantine: $12.95) A stranger unsettles a veterinarian’s perfect world.

PAPERBACKS

NONFICTION

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

2 VENUS ON WHEELS by Gelya Frank (University of California Press: $19.95) Disability and femininity in America.

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

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

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

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

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

8 A WALK IN THE WOODS by Bill Bryson (Broadway: $13) A memoir and a meditation on American wilderness.

9 RICH DAD, POOR DAD by Robert T. Kiyosaki and Sharon L. Lechter (Techpress: $15.95) Fiscal parenting.

10 TRAVELING MERCIES by Anne Lamott (Anchor: $13) The growth of Lamott’s beliefs and how they helped her overcome grief.

*

Rankings are based on a Times poll of Southland bookstores.