Southern California Rating:FICTION1. THE TESTAMENT by...

Southern California Rating:

FICTION

1. THE TESTAMENT by John Grisham (Doubleday: $27.95) The 10th richest man in the U.S. is about to die, and his heirs are circling like vultures.

Last Week: 2; Weeks on List: 5

2. BE COOL by Elmore Leonard (Delacorte: $24.95) Fresh from his movie success, Chili Palmer faces a pack of punks, thugs and other Tinsel Town toughies when he enters the music biz.

Last Week: 1; Weeks on List: 4

3. SINGLE & SINGLE by John Le Carre (Scribner: $26) A story of corrupt liaisons between the new Russian states and the West, and the downfall of two families.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1

4. DREAMING SOUTHERN by Linda Bruckheimer (Dutton: $23.95) A mother and her children head west on Route 66 to join her husband and get into mishaps along the way.

Last Week: 9; Weeks on List: 10

5. AMSTERDAM by Ian McEwan (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday: $21) A journalist, composer and politician ease feelings of emptiness by sabotaging one another’s careers.

Last Week: 3; Weeks on List: 13

6. WHILE I WAS GONE by Sue Miller (Knopf: $24) A married woman looks back on the summer of ’68 when a character from that time reappears in her life.

Last Week: 4; Weeks on List: 2

7. THE HANDYMAN by Carolyn See (Random House: $22.95) The story of a great painter’s formative years in the suburbs of L.A., fixing things and mending lives.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1

8. THE POISONWOOD BIBLE by Barbara Kingsolver (HarperCollins: $27.50) An evangelical Baptist missionary takes his wife and children to the Belgian Congo in 1959.

Last Week: 12; Weeks on List: 23

9. A SUDDEN CHANGE OF HEART by Barbara Taylor Bradford (Doubleday: $24) A story of child abuse, terminal cancer, bisexuality, divorce, art theft and the Holocaust.

Last Week: 5; Weeks on List: 3

10. TARA ROAD by Maeve Binchy (Delacorte: $24.95) People facing heartbreak and disappointment are drawn to a Victorian home on a shabby Dublin street.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1

11. RIVER’S END by Nora Roberts (Putnam: $23.95) Haunted by her mother’s murder, a woman is helped by a loving man to face her fears--and the killer, just released from prison.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1

12. EVERY TRACE by Gregg Main (HarperCollins: $24) A husband sets out in hot pursuit of his wife, who’s bent on a mysterious mission of revenge.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1

13. ASHES TO ASHES by Tami Hoag (Bantam: $24.95) An FBI agent tracks a serial killer of women who makes Jack the Ripper look like a Boy Scout.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1

14. SOUTHERN CROSS by Patricia Cornwell (Putnam: $25.95) Cornwell takes a close look at the personal and professional lives of big-city police.

Last Week: 6; Weeks on List: 8

15. A MAN IN FULL by Tom Wolfe (Farrar, Straus and Giroux: $28.95) The story of a real estate tycoon’s crash and burn and the sleaze who warm themselves by the fire.

Last Week: 8; Weeks on List: 18

****

NONFICTION

1. MONICA’S STORY by Andrew Morton (St. Martin’s Press: $24.95) Mars and Venus at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Reviewed by Renata Adler, Page 3.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1

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

Last Week: 1; Weeks on List: 13

3. 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: 62

4. THE GROSS by Peter Bart (St. Martin’s: $24.95) A former studio exec looks at summer ‘98’s blockbusters and the need for higher artistic standards.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1

5. PERFECT MURDER, PERFECT TOWN by Lawrence Schiller (HarperCollins: $26) The flawed investigation of 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey’s murder.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1

6. TRAVELING MERCIES by Anne Lamott (Pantheon: $23) The growth of Lamott’s beliefs and how they helped her overcome grief, alcoholism and bad hair days.

Last Week: 2; Weeks on List: 3

7. ELEGY FOR IRIS by John Bayley (St. Martin’s: $22.95) A portrait of the love affair, and marriage, of novelists Iris Murdoch and John Bayley.

Last Week: 4; Weeks on List: 5

8. LINDBERGH by A. Scott Berg (Putnam: $30) Courageous aviator, loving father, isolationist and, finally, fallen hero: a dramatic American story.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 16

9. THE RIGHT TO WRITE by Julia Cameron (Tarcher/Putnam: $19.95) Insights into the spiritual component of the writing life and how to develop your own creativity.

Last Week: 15; Weeks on List: 9

10. THE PROFESSOR AND THE MADMAN by Simon Winchester (HarperCollins: $22) The editor of the Oxford English Dictionary was helped by a brilliant mental patient.

Last Week: 13; Weeks on List: 24

11. THE CENTURY by Peter Jennings and Todd Brewster (Doubleday: $60) The story of our last 100 years; a companion to an upcoming ABC special.

Last Week: 11; Weeks on List: 13

12. BEAUTY FADES, DUMB IS FOREVER by Judy Sheindlin (Cliff Street: $22) Tough advice from TV’s “Judge Judy,” who draws on courtroom experience to teach self-esteem.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 2

13. THE ELEGANT UNIVERSE by Brian Greene (W.W. Norton: $27.95) Is the universe a symphony played by strings? String theory for the general public.

Last Week: 12; Weeks on List: 3

14. THE BRUIN 100 by Scott Howard-Cooper (Addax: $29.95) Stories about some of the most memorable games in the history of UCLA basketball.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1

15. BLIND MAN’S BLUFF by Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew (PublicAffairs: $2 5) Revelations about the secret world of American submarine espionage.

Last Week: 9; Weeks on List: 12

Paperbacks

FICTION

1. MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA by Arthur Golden (Vintage: $14) The life and loves of a teahouse entertainer in Kyoto.

2. THE READER by Bernard Schlink (Vintage: $11) A boyhood fling with an older woman and its aftermath.

3. CHARMING BILLY by Alice McDermott (Delta: $12.95) A family reflects on the life of a deceased relative.

4. THE BEACH by Alex Garland (Riverhead: $13) A drifter hunts for an elusive Eden near Thailand.

5. ESPERANZA’S BOX OF SAINTS by Maria Amparo Escandon (Scribner:$12) A widow’s search for her child.

6. MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE by Nicholas Sparks (Warner: $6.99) A woman seeks the author of a mysterious message.

7. DIVINE SECRETS OF THE YA-YA SISTERHOOD by Rebecca Wells (HarperPerennial: $13) Sisterhood in the South.

8. SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard (Hyperion: $10.95) The Bard finds his Juliet.

9. WHERE THE HEART IS by Billie Letts (Warner: $12) A teen starts a new life, and gives birth, in a Wal-Mart.

10. JEWEL by Bret Lott (Pocket: $14) A first-person epic of one woman’s duel with God.

****

NONFICTION

1. CRIME WAVE by James Ellroy (Random House: $12) Essays, plus two stories, about L.A.’s seamy, undead past.

2. PARIS IN THE FIFTIES by Stanley Karnow (Random House: $14) A journalist’s apprenticeship in postwar Paris.

3. INTO THIN AIR by Jon Krakauer (Anchor Books: $7.99) Risk and recklessness on a deadly Mt. Everest expedition.

4. OCTOBER SKY by Homer Hickam (Dell: $6.99) A boy from Coalwood, W. Va., becomes a NASA scientist.

5. HOW THE IRISH SAVED CIVILIZATION by Thomas Cahill (Anchor: $12) What monks did after Rome’s fall.

6. CITY OF QUARTZ by Mike Davis (Vintage: $15) How L.A.’s history and power structures will shape the city’s future.

7. A CHILD CALLED “IT” by Dave Pelzer (Health Communications: $9.95) A survivor’s tale of child abuse.

8. SLAVES IN THE FAMILY by Edward Ball (Random House: $15.95) Intertwined lives of black and white in the South.

9. MY DARK PLACES by James Ellroy (Vintage: $14) The film noir circumstances surrounding his mother’s murder.

10. BIRD BY BIRD by Anne Lamott (Anchor: $12.95) The secrets of a writer, delivered with humor and generosity.

Rankings are based on a Times poll of Southland bookstores.