BESTSELLERS

*--* SO. CAL. RATING Fiction

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*--* 1 The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd (Penguin: $14) A teenage girl is haunted by her mother’s death

2 Life of Pi by Yann Martel (Harvest Books: $14) An Indian boy shares a lifeboat with a tiger on a harrowing trip

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

4 East of Eden by John Steinbeck (Penguin: $16) Cain and Abel come of age in California’s Salinas Valley

5 The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith (Anchor: $11.95) Botswana’s female private eye

6 Three Junes by Julia Glass (Anchor: $14) A Scottish family comes together over three summers

7 In Her Shoes by Jennifer Weiner (Washington Square Press: $14) Two sisters sort through childhood baggage

8 The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus (Griffin: $13.95) The travails of an overworked caregiver

9 Nights in Rodanthe by Nicholas Sparks (Warner: $12) An affair changes two lives in a North Carolina coastal town

10 The Beach House by James Patterson and Peter de Jonge (Warner: $7.99) A man seeks justice in his brother’s death

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*--* SO. CAL. RATING Nonfiction

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*--* 1 Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand (Ballantine: $15.95) How an also-ran thoroughbred became America’s favorite racehorse

2 Dr. Atkins’ New Diet Revolution by Robert C. Atkins (Quill: $13.95) Shedding pounds with a low-carb diet

3 Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert T. Kiyosaki with Sharon L. Lechter (Techpress: $15.95) Fiscal parenting

4 It’s Not About the Bike by Lance Armstrong with Sally Jenkins (Berkley: $13) A cyclist’s race against cancer

5 Excuse Me, Your Life Is Waiting by Lynn Grabhorn (Hampton Roads: $14.95) How being positive gets good results

6 What to Expect When You’re Expecting by Heidi E. Murkoff et al. (Workman: $13.95) The ABCs of pregnancy

7 Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser (HarperCollins: $13.95) The unappetizing practices of the junk-food industry

8 What Not to Wear by Trinny Woodall and Susannah Constantine (Riverhead: $15) Tips for looking terrific, not tarty

9 Snobbery by Joseph Epstein (Mariner Books: $14) A meditation on pretentiousness and its practitioners

10 Lucky by Alice Sebold (Back Bay: $11.95) A memoir of the author’s rape in college and how it plunged her life into chaos

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