Fiction

Southern California ranking: (1) THE CHRISTMAS BOX by Richard Paul Evans. (Simon & Schuster: $12.95.) A young family learns the true meaning of Christmas. (1)

Last Week: 3

Weeks on List: 5

****

Southern California ranking: (2) POLITICALLY CORRECT HOLIDAY STORIES by James Finn Garner. (Macmillan: $9.95.) Five Christmas classics stripped of all sexism, ageism and religious imperialism.(7)

Last Week: 5

Weeks on List: 5

****

Southern California ranking: (3) THE TIGER IN THE GRASS by Harriet Doerr. (Viking: $19.95.) Mexico again figures largely in this latest story collection by the author of “Consider This, Senora.”

Last Week: 9

Weeks on List: 3

****

Southern California ranking: (4) THE LOST WORLD by Michael Crichton. (Knopf: $25.95.) What’s extinction? Six years after Jurassic Park, and something has survived.(2)

Last Week: 1

Weeks on List: 12

****

Southern California ranking: (5) THE HUNDRED SECRET SENSES by Amy Tan. (Putnam: $24.95.) Another tale of a woman caught between East and West.(4)

Last Week: 7

Weeks on List: 8

****

Southern California ranking: (6) THE CHILDREN’S BOOK OF VIRTUES edited by William J. Bennett. (Simon & Schuster: $20.) Classic stories about being good for kids through grade 3.

Last Week: -

Weeks on List: 1

****

Southern California ranking: (7) THE BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES OF 1995 edited by Jane Smiley and Katrina Kenison. (Houghton Mifflin: $24.95.)

Last Week: -

Weeks on List: 1

****

Southern California ranking: (8) FIVE DAYS IN PARIS by Danielle Steel. (Delacorte: $15.95.) Business exec and senator’s wife remedy their boring lives back home with some “infidelite conjugale.”(3)

Last Week: 2

Weeks on List: 4

****

Southern California ranking: (9) MORALITY PLAY by Barry Unsworth. (Doubleday: $22.50.) A medieval troupe’s dangerous reenactment of a murder.

Last Week: 8

Weeks on List: 3

****

Southern California ranking: (10) THE HORSE WHISPERER by Nicholas Evans. (Delacorte Press: $23.95.) A beautiful journalist escapes New York to find love on the range in Montana.(6)

Last Week: 6

Weeks on List: 14

Nonfiction

Southern California ranking: (1) THE SEVEN SPIRITUAL LAWS OF SUCCESS by Deepak Chopra. (Amber-Allen Publishing: $12.95.)(5)

Last Week: 3

Weeks on List: 37

****

Southern California ranking: (2) CHARLES KURALT’S AMERICA by Charles Kuralt. (Putnam: $24.95.) Bringing to page what he did on TV.(3)

Last Week: 2

Weeks on List: 7

****

Southern California ranking: (3) THE ROAD AHEAD by Bill Gates. (Penguin: $29.95.) Rev up your home computer for the book’s accompanying CD ROM disk and see how one tycoon envisions the computer future.(1)

Last Week: 5

Weeks on List: 3

****

Southern California ranking: (4) MISS AMERICA by Howard Stern. (ReganBooks: $27.50.) America’s No.1 “shock jock” pokes more fun at the world, plus nifty color photos.(2)

Last Week: 1

Weeks on List: 5

****

Southern California ranking: (5) MR. WILSON’S CABINET OF WONDER by Lawrence Weschler. (Pantheon: $21.) A look at the odd scientific world of a local curator and his Museum of Jurassic Technology.

Last Week: -

Weeks on List: 1

****

Southern California ranking: (6) MY AMERICAN JOURNEY by Colin Powell with Joseph E. Persico. (Random House: $25.95.) The modest beginnings of an American hero.(4)

Last Week: 4

Weeks on List: 12

****

Southern California ranking: (7) LINCOLN by David Herbert Donald. (Simon & Schuster: $35.) An absorbing look at the deft politician behind the mythic persona.(9)

Last Week: 10

Weeks on List: 4

****

Southern California ranking: (8) BLACK SEA by Neal Acherson. (Hill and Wang/Farrar, Straus & Giroux: $23.) The various roles played by the Black Sea region in history.

Last Week: -

Weeks on List: 1

****

Southern California ranking: (9) DAVID BRINKLEY: A MEMOIR by David Brinkley. (Knopf: $25.) Political antics, life in the South and other anecdotes by one of the men who gave newscasting a personality.(7)

Last Week: 9

Weeks on List: 5

****

Southern California ranking: (10) EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE by Daniel Goleman. (Bantam Doubleday Dell: $23.95.)(8)

Last Week: 7

Weeks on List: 11

Rankings are based on The Times’ poll of local bookstores. National rankings (parentheses) are those of Publishers Weekly. For information on Times bestsellers, call (213) 237-4336 after 11 a.m. on Wednesdays.

Paperbacks

FICTION

1. SNOW FALLING ON CEDARS by David Guterson. (Vintage: $12.)

2. THE STONE DIARIES by Carol Shields. (Penguin: $10.95.)

3. ROBIN’S DIARY by Judith Pinsker. (ABC Daytime/Chilton: $9.95.)

4. HIDDEN JEWEL by V.C. Andrews. (Pocket: $6.99.)

5. WAITING TO EXHALE by Terry McMillan. (Pocket: $6.99.)

****

NONFICTION

1. THE CALVIN AND HOBBES TENTH ANNIVERSARY BOOK by Bill Watterson. (Andrews & McMeel: $14.95.)

2. THE 1996 WORLD ALMANAC AND BOOK OF FACTS edited by Robert Famighetti. (World Almanac Books/Funk & Wagnalls: $9.95.)

3. CHICKEN SOUP FOR THE SOUL edited by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen. (Health Communications: $12.95.)

4. TEN STUPID THINGS WOMEN DO TO MESS UP THEIR LIVES by Laura C. Schlessinger. (Harper Perennial: $10.)

5. BARBARA BUSH: A MEMOIR by Barbara Bush. (St. Martin’s: $6.99.)

Rankings based on Times’ poll of local bookstores. For information on Times bestsellers, call (213) 237-4336 after 11 a.m. on Wednesdays.