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 29 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 2 (Hyperion: $19.95) An amusement park maintenance man faces his life, death and afterlife in this three-part parable.

3 Split Second by David Baldacci (Warner Books: $26.95) Two -- 1 disgraced Secret Service agents join forces to solve two campaign trail crimes.

4 Bleachers by John Grisham (Doubleday: $19.95) A former 4 5 NFL player returns home to join a vigil for his dying high school football coach and meets a woman he abandoned years before.

5 The Pleasure of My Company by Steve Martin (Hyperion: -- 1 $19.95) A man suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder copes with the vicissitudes of life.

6 Stone Cold by Robert B. Parker (Putnam: $24.95) Troubled 11 2 detective Jesse Stone follows his TV journalist wife to Paradise, Mass., where he tries to nab a serial-killing duo and solve a rape.

7 Death by Hollywood by Steven Bochco (Random House: 10 4 $24.95) A screenwriter on the skids witnesses a murder and turns it into a screenplay.

8 The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri (Houghton Mifflin: $24) A 3 7 Bengali couple and their son, named for the Russian writer Gogol, experience cultural jolts after leaving Calcutta for America.

9 Last Car to Elysian Fields by James Lee Burke (Simon & 9 2 Schuster: $24.95) A homicide detective’s friend is stalked by a hit man in this thriller set in New Orleans and New Iberia, La.

10 The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem (Doubleday: 7 3 $26) The tale of a white boy in a black and Puerto Rican neighborhood in 1970s Brooklyn.

11 Blacklist by Sara Paretsky (Penguin: $24.95) Private eye -- 1 V.I. Warshawski investigates a murder with links to the anti-Communist hysteria of the 1950s.

12 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark -- 11 Haddon (Doubleday: $22.95) Falsely accused, an autistic teen looks for the real murderer of a neighbor’s poodle.

13 Lost Boy Lost Girl by Peter Straub (Random House: $24.95) -- 1 Novelist Underhill and private eye Pasmore together again on the trail of a missing teenager and a serial killer.

14 Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson (William Morrow: $27.95) A 5 2 small-town antiques dealer is targeted by a ruthless killer for a share of a 60-year-old multimillion-dollar diamond heist.

15 The Wedding by Nicholas Sparks (Warner: $23.95) His 8 4 daughter’s wedding offers a workaholic lawyer a golden opportunity to revive his own marriage.

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*--* SO. CAL. RATING Nonfiction LAST WEEK WEEKS ON LIST

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*--* 1 Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them by Al Franken 1 8 (Dutton: $24.95) A heaping dose of subversive wit aimed at political leaders and pundits on the right and left.

2 Who’s Looking Out for You? by Bill O’Reilly (Broadway 2 2 Books: $24.95) Talk show host mixes outrage at corrupt people and institutions with practical advice.

3 Kate Remembered by A. Scott Berg (Putnam: $25.95) -- 12 Katharine Hepburn reveals more about her legendary life in this book, postponed until after her death.

4 Where I Was From by Joan Didion (Knopf: $23) A California 3 2 native daughter recasts the once promising Golden State as a place of wasteful extravagance and greed, built on federal funding.

5 The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle (New World Library: 6 56 $21.95) How to improve all of one’s relationships, encourage happiness and find contentment by living in the now.

6 True Notebooks by Mark Salzman (Knopf: $24) A writer 8 3 teaches his craft to juvenile hall inmates, eventually enabling them to write sometimes remarkable prose.

7 Stillness Speaks by Eckhart Tolle (New World Library: -- 5 $17) A guide to embracing life in the here and now and gaining spiritual insight by mastering the art of “inner stillness.”

8 Benjamin Franklin by Walter Isaacson (Simon & Schuster: -- 13 $30) A new look at the printer turned statesman and Founding Father as both pragmatist and ambitious self-promoter.

9 The Purpose-Driven Life by Rick Warren (Zondervan: 7 31 $19.99) How the “God-ordained” principles of worship, community, discipleship, ministry and evangelism bring fulfillment.

10 Shut Up and Sing by Laura Ingraham (Regnery: $27.95) 15 3 Conservative writer attacks “elites” she defines as antiwar protesters, secularists, internationalists, academics and others.

11 After Life by John Edward (Hay House: $23.95) The popular -- 1 psychic medium shares his thoughts during a tour of Australia and the United States.

12 The Lord Is My Shepherd by Harold Kushner (Knopf: $19.95) -- 2 A rabbi explores the 23rd Psalm and its 57 Hebrew words as a theology of life, loss and healing wisdom.

13 Madame Secretary by Madeleine Albright (Miramax: $27) The 5 3 first female secretary of State recounts her life from European refugee to hard-driving diplomat.

14 The Great Unraveling by Paul Krugman (W.W. Norton: -- 3 $25.95) The Princeton economist and New York Times op-ed columnist attacks the fiscal policies of the Bush administration.

15 Flyboys by James Bradley (Little Brown: $25.95) A history -- 1 of combat in the Pacific during World War II, centered on a formidable group of U.S. Navy and Marine aviators.

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