BESTSELLERS

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

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*--* 1 The Rule of Four by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason 2 8 (Dial: $24) Four Princeton roommates use clues from a 15th century manuscript to find a buried Roman treasure.

2 The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (Doubleday: $24.95) A 1 68 Louvre curator’s killing leads to clues hidden in Leonardo’s paintings and a secret society with something to hide.

3 The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler (Putnam: 4 8 $23.95) Five women and a man plumb Austen’s novels, revealing their own foibles and reveries along the way.

4 The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom 5 41 (Hyperion: $19.95) An amusement park maintenance man faces his life, death and afterlife in this three-part parable.

5 Ten Big Ones by Janet Evanovich (St. Martin’s: $25.95) A 3 3 notorious gang is after New Jersey bounty hunter Stephanie Plum after she stumbles upon a convenience store robbery.

6 Bergdorf Blondes by Plum Sykes (Miramax: $23.95) Botoxed, 13 14 peeled and tanned to kill, Park Avenue princesses search for an ATM (rich boyfriend) or a P.H. (potential husband).

7 Sam’s Letters to Jennifer by James Patterson (Little, -- 1 Brown: $24.95) A grieving widow finds a cache of letters tracing her grandmother’s complicated life and is reunited with a dying friend.

8 Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination by Helen 8 4 Fielding (Viking: $24.95) Olivia Joules, international spy, tries to nab an alluring man who may be a terrorist.

9 A Good Year by Peter Mayle (Alfred A. Knopf: $24) An 10 5 ex-financier makes a new life for himself after inheriting a wine-growing estate in Provence.

10 Little Scarlet by Walter Mosley (Little, Brown: $24.95) -- 1 Janitor and sometime-private-eye Easy Rawlins stumbles onto a string of homicides in South Central L.A. in the wake of the 1965 Watts riot.

11 Angels Crest by Leslie Schwartz (Doubleday: $23.95) A -- 1 father seeks his missing 3-year-old son, whom he left asleep in a car seat when he stopped for a closer look at two buck deer.

12 The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (Penguin: -- 3 $24.95) In postwar Barcelona, the son of a bookstore owner tries to unearth the story of a long-dead novelist.

13 Angels & Demons by Dan Brown (Atria: $19.95) A Harvard 9 28 scholar uncovers a vendetta against the Roman Catholic Church by a secret society known as the Illuminati.

14 The Bourne Legacy by Eric Van Lustbader (St. Martin’s: -- 1 $25.95) The ex-CIA hero of three thrillers by the late Robert Ludlum returns to battle the forces of evil.

15 The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah by Stephen King 12 4 (Donald M. Grant/Scribner: $30) A black civil rights activist’s body is hijacked by a pregnant white demon from a parallel world.

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

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*--* 1 My Life by Bill Clinton (Alfred A. Knopf: $35) The former 1 3 president’s memoirs, from his Arkansas childhood through his two terms in the White House. (Reviewed by Ronald Brownstein on Page 8.)

2 Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris 2 6 (Little, Brown: $24.95) Popular humorist recounts childhood experiences with his delightfully dysfunctional family.

3 Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss (Gotham: $17.50) A 3 12 British novelist and journalist offers her zero-tolerance approach to bad punctuation drawn from a pioneering BBC series.

4 Father Joe by Tony Hendra (Random House: $24.95) After an 4 5 adolescent tryst with a neighbor’s wife, Hendra develops a bond with a Benedictine monk who helps him through life’s struggles.

5 The Power of Intention by Wayne W. Dyer (Hay House: 8 15 $24.95) How to spark creativity and get the life you want by drawing on a field of energy that exists all around us.

6 The Purpose-Driven Life by Rick Warren (Zondervan: 9 70 $19.99) How the “God ordained” principles of worship, community, discipleship, ministry and evangelism bring fulfillment.

7 The Shadow Divers by Robert Kurson (Random House: $26.95) -- 1 The story of two deep-sea divers and their seven-year odyssey to trace the origins of a German U-boat hulk found off New Jersey.

8 The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands by Laura 12 27 Schlessinger (HarperCollins: $24.95) The talk show host tells how to manage the “very simple creature” that is man.

9 Big Russ & Me by Tim Russert (Miramax: $22.95) The NBC 6 8 newsman writes a paean to his dad, a World War II veteran who worked two jobs to raise his Irish Catholic family in Buffalo, N.Y.

10 Worse Than Watergate by John W. Dean (Little, Brown: 11 13 $22.95) Former White House counsel argues that President Bush has done more damage to the nation than President Nixon or Watergate.

11 The Automatic Millionaire by David Bach (Broadway Books: 7 13 $19.95) A common-sense guide to financial planning through automatic contributions to retirement plans and investment vehicles.

12 Truth & Beauty by Ann Patchett (HarperCollins: $23.95) A -- 2 memoir of a friendship with the late Lucy Grealy, who wrote “Autobiography of a Face” about her struggle with cancer of the jaw.

13 Imperial America by Gore Vidal (Nation Books: $18) A 10 4 collection of essays arguing against imperialism, the Bush tax cuts and the reach of the Justice Department.

14 The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle (New World Library: -- 77 $21.95) How to improve one’s relationships and find contentment, even happiness, by living in the now.

15 The Importance of Being Famous by Maureen Orth (Henry -- 1 Holt: $25) The Vanity Fair columnist dissects the “Celebrity Industrial Complex” and those who would sacrifice everything for fame.

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