BESTSELLERS

*--* SO. CAL. RATING Fiction LAST WEEK WEEKS ON LIST 1 S Is for Silence by Sue 1 5 Grafton (Putnam: $26.95) Kinsey Millhone is hired to find out what happened to a woman who disappeared 34 years earlier from a Central California agricultural town.

2 The Da Vinci Code by Dan 10 138 Brown (Doubleday: $24.95) A Louvre curator’s killing leads to clues hidden in Leonardo’s paintings and a secret society with something to hide.

3 The Lighthouse by P.D. 3 7 James (Knopf: $25.95) Cmdr. Adam Dalgliesh is called to the Cornish coast to solve the murder of an acclaimed novelist who had upset his very prominent neighbors.

4 Christ the Lord by Anne 2 9 Rice (Knopf: $25.95) A 7-year-old Jesus returns to Nazareth after the death of King Herod and gradually discovers his power to heal and raise the dead.

5 The History of Love by -- 9 Nicole Krauss (W.W. Norton: $23.95) A writer escapes the Nazis but loses his beloved and the will to create. A teenager named for one of his characters helps her bereaved mother.

6 The Constant Princess by -- 3 Philippa Gregory (Touchstone: $24.95) Catherine of Aragon endures the loss of a husband, treachery and poverty in her quest to become queen of England.

7 Mary, Mary by James 4 7 Patterson (Little, Brown: $27.95) FBI Agent Alex Cross seeks the killer of an A-list actress, her chauffeur and a female movie producer as fear sweeps through Hollywood.

8 On Beauty by Zadie Smith 14 15 (Penguin: $25.95) Identity crises, adultery, racial conflict and religious zealotry afflict two families whose lives are a 21st century parallel to E.M. Forster’s “Howards End.”

9 Snow Flower and the Secret 15 23 Fan by Lisa See (Random House: $21.95) Two women in the cloistered society of 19th century China forge a close friendship that is threatened by misunderstanding.

10 The Truth About Diamonds -- 3 by Nicole Richie (ReganBooks: $23.95) A rock legend’s adopted daughter, part of Hollywood’s new elite, faces a best friend’s betrayal and a greedy birth father.

11 The Brooklyn Follies by -- 1 Paul Auster (Henry Holt: $24) A retired salesman returns to his childhood neighborhood where he gets involved in a scheme to sell a fake manuscript of “The Scarlet Letter.”

12 Memories of My Melancholy 5 10 Whores by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Knopf: $20) A nonagenarian journalist who falls for a 14-year-old virgin prostitute reflects on his life and loves.

13 Every Breath You Take by -- 1 Judith McNaught (Ballantine: $25.95) A romantic liaison leads to Kate Donovan becoming a suspect in the murder of a Chicago philanthropist’s favorite grandson.

14 Forever Odd by Dean Koontz 11 5 (Bantam: $27) Odd Thomas is back, still seeing ghosts as he tries to solve the murder of his friend’s stepfather and foil a wealthy porn entrepreneur.

15 The Sea by John Banville -- 8 (Knopf: $23) A widower struggles to rid himself of the yoke of memory by visiting the coastal town where he spent time as a boy.

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*--* SO. CAL. RATING Nonfiction LAST WEEK WEEKS ON LIST 1 The Year of Magical 1 14 Thinking by Joan Didion (Knopf: $23.95) The author explores the nature of grief and survival in the months after her writer-husband’s sudden death.

2 Marley & Me by John Grogan 4 7 (William Morrow: $21.95) A columnist recalls how Marley, an incorrigible Labrador retriever, flunked obedience school, terrorized a pet sitter and won over his family.

3 My Friend Leonard by James 14 12 Frey (Penguin: $24.95) The former cocaine addict’s sequel to “A Million Little Pieces” celebrates the mobster who helped him turn his life around.

4 The World Is Flat by 6 38 Thomas L. Friedman (Farrar, Straus & Giroux: $27.50) How technology and the forces of globalization are connecting -- and changing -- the world.

5 Freakonomics by Steven D. 9 32 Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner (William Morrow: $25.95) An economist deconstructs statistics and uses numbers to help explain human behavior.

6 Love Smart by Phil McGraw -- 3 (Free Press: $26) How to take control of your love life, whether it’s finding a mate or holding on to the one you already have.

7 Our Endangered Values by 3 9 Jimmy Carter (Simon & Schuster: $25) The former president writes of his concern about the rise in Christian fundamentalism and its influence in politics.

8 The Elements of Style 10 9 Illustrated by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White (Penguin Press: $24.95) The classic manual of good writing, updated with fanciful illustrations by Maira Kalman.

9 Teacher Man by Frank 5 7 McCourt (Scribner: $26) In his third memoir in a series that began with “Angela’s Ashes,” the Irish immigrant plumbs 30 years of teaching high school English in New York City.

10 Consider the Lobster by -- 1 David Foster Wallace (Little, Brown: $25.95) Essays on politics, pornography, sports, writing and lobster-trawling in Maine.

11 The Lost Painting by -- 2 Jonathan Harr (Random House: $24.95) The story behind the 1992 discovery of a missing Caravaggio masterpiece covered in grime in a Jesuit residence.

12 Team of Rivals by Doris 2 10 Kearns Goodwin (Simon & Schuster: $35) How country lawyer and one-term congressman Abraham Lincoln used his savvy to bring political rivals into his Cabinet.

13 1776 by David McCullough 8 23 (Simon & Schuster: $32) The historian examines how Colonial forces took on the world’s greatest military power in the first battles of the American Revolution.

14 The City of Falling Angels -- 12 by John Berendt (Penguin: $25.95) The author of “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” uses a fire that guts a Venice opera house to find the heart of the Italian city.

15 A Man Without a Country by 12 14 Kurt Vonnegut (Seven Stories Press: $23.95) The writer’s collection of recent essays skewering the powerful and noting his personal foibles.

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