Southern California Rating:FICTION1 HORSE HEAVEN by...

Southern California Rating:

FICTION

1 HORSE HEAVEN by Jane Smiley (Alfred A. Knopf: $26) Life among the trainers, money men, apprentice jockeys and owners who share a love for the sport of kings. Reviewed by Pam Houston, Page 7.

Last Week: 5; Weeks on List: 2

2 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: 2; Weeks on List: 8

3 RED LIGHT by T. Jefferson Parker (Hyperion: $23.95) Two murders, decades apart, shake Merci Rayborn’s world. Reviewed by Eugen Weber, Page 13.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1

4 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: 10

5 JANE AUSTEN’S CHARLOTTE by Julia Barrett (M. Evans & Co.: $21.95) Barrett finishes the novel that Austen began, a satire of the 19th century penchant for seaside resorts.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1

6 BACK ROADS by Tawni O’Dell (Viking: $24.95) Murder, incest and recovered memory in the life of a teen stock boy living in the western Pennsylvania mining country.

Last Week: 12; Weeks on List: 4

7 DAUGHTER OF FORTUNE by Isabel Allende (HarperCollins: $26) A young woman escapes from the bonds of her youthful passion to Gold Rush California.

Last Week: 4; Weeks on List: 18

8 BRIDGET JONES: THE EDGE OF REASON by Helen Fielding (Viking: $24.95) Bridget finds the perfect mate--do they really exist?--in this sequel to the bestselling “Bridget Jones’s Diary.”

Last Week: 1; Weeks on List: 7

9 THE WEDDING by Danielle Steel (Doubleday: $26.95) Anxieties and broken promises linger for a high-powered Hollywood clan as one of its members plans a September wedding.

Last Week: 11; Weeks on List: 2

10 HUGGER MUGGER by Robert B. Parker (Putnam: $23.95) Boston detective Spenser hunts for a racehorse killer among the eccentric members of a Southern family.

Last Week: 3; Weeks on List: 2

11 LE MARIAGE by Diane Johnson (Dutton: $23.95) American expatriates navigate French high society, not to mention Parisian flea markets, elegant chateaus and jail cells.

Last Week: 8; Weeks on List: 2

12 WICKED WIDOW by Amanda Quick (Bantam: $23.95) A woman rumored to have sent her husband on to the afterlife is being haunted by his ghost, which is intent on terrorizing her.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1

13 THE PATIENT by Michael Palmer (Bantam: $24.95) An MIT-trained mechanical engineer- neurosurgeon and an international assassin clash over the use of a robotic surgical device.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1

14 CAROLINA MOON by Nora Roberts (Putnam: $24.95) A young woman haunted by the murder of her childhood friend returns home and discovers her own psychic connection to a killer still at large.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1

15 DAY OF RECKONING by Jack Higgins (Putnam: $25.95) When a magazine reporter’s body is found floating in the East River, her ex-husband, an FBI agent, is intent on revenge.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1

NONFICTION

1 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: 5; Weeks on List: 7

2 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: 1; Weeks on List: 11

3 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: 4; Weeks on List: 6

4 THE CASE AGAINST HILLARY CLINTON by Peggy Noonan (ReganBooks: $24) A former Reagan speech writer’s polemic against the first lady for her Senate bid, Travelgate and taste in husbands.

Last Week: 11; Weeks on List: 3

5 JONBENET: INSIDE THE MURDER INVESTIGATION by Steve Thomas with Don Davis (St. Martin’s: $24.95) The inside story of how the investigation went awry from its lead investigator.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1

6 THE ROCK SAYS by “The Rock” with Joe Layden (ReganBooks: $26) The memoir of a World Wrestling Federation bad guy, describing his struggles in and out of the ring.

Last Week: 10; Weeks on List: 15

7 CONVERSATIONS WITH GOD, BOOK ONE by Neale Donald Walsch (Putnam: $19.95) Divinely channeled messages about good, evil and the meaning of life.

Last Week: 14; Weeks on List: 104

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

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1

9 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: 3; Weeks on List: 118

10 FAIR BALL by Bob Costas (Main Street Books: $21.95) Take me out to the ballgame: A fan offers some advice on how baseball can thrive in the marketplace without losing its traditions.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1

11 DEMOCRACY DERAILED by David S. Broder (Harcourt Brace: $23) How political operatives and moneyed special interest groups are seizing control of the initiative process.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1

12 ASIAN-AMERICAN DREAMS by Helen Zia (Farrar, Straus & Giroux: $26) How many ethnicities have come together as a self-identified racial group to influence every aspect of American society.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1

13 ‘TIS by Frank McCourt (Scribner: $26) A young McCourt arrives from Ireland in New York, with all its peril and promise, in this sequel to “Angela’s Ashes.”

Last Week: 13; Weeks on List: 26

14 GET HAPPY by Gerald Clarke (Random House: $29.95) A look beyond the rainbow at the life and loves of Judy Garland in a biography that includes new source material.

Last Week: 7; Weeks on List: 3

15 CYBILL DISOBEDIENCE by Cybill Shepherd with Aimee Lee Ball (HarperCollins: $26) Anecdotes on TV, film and beauty pageants and how the actress has battled on her own terms.

Last Week: 9; Weeks on List: 2

PAPERBACKS

FICTION

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

2 MOONLIGHT ON THE AVENUE OF FAITH by Gina Nahai (Washington Square: $13.95) Love and magic in Tehran’s Jewish ghetto.

3 AMERICAN PSYCHO by Bret Easton Ellis (Vintage: $14) A handsome serial killer in 1980s New York.

4 A NEW SONG by Jan Karon (Penguin: $12.95) A clergyman and his wife leave their beloved Mitford.

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

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

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

8 THE TESTAMENT by John Grisham (Dell Island: $7.99) A billionaire’s changes to his will shock his greedy heirs.

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

10 THE CIDER HOUSE RULES by John Irving (Ballantine: $7.99) Lives of a doctor and the children at an orphanage in rural Maine.

PAPERBACKS

NONFICTION

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

2 COWBOY by Sara Davidson (HarperPerennial: $13) Every girl needs a cowboy.

3 POSTCARDS FROM THE MOON by William Steinkellner (John Daniel & Co.: $10) A collector’s dream.

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

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

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

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

8 ANGELA’S ASHES by Frank McCourt (Touchstone: $7.99) Overcoming an Irish childhood during the Depression.

9 TENDER AT THE BONE by Ruth Reichl (Broadway: $13) A food expert in the making.

10 THE ORCHID THIEF by Susan Orlean (Ballantine: $14) Centuries of theft, hatred and greed over a delicate flower.