Southern California Rating:FICTION1 THE HUMAN STAIN ...

Southern California Rating:

FICTION

1 THE HUMAN STAIN by Philip Roth (Houghton Mifflin: $26) The chronicle of an academic scandal and its impact on the aging faculty dean at its center. Reviewed by Jonathan Levi, Page 2.

Last Week: 6; Weeks on List: 2

2 BEFORE I SAY GOOD-BYE by Mary Higgins Clark (Simon & Schuster: $26) An ambitious young woman uses gumshoe tactics and psychic powers to probe her late husband’s murky past.

Last Week: 7; Weeks on List: 4

3 EASY PREY by John Sandford (Putnam: $25.95) When a supermodel is found strangled after a party, millionaire Lucas Davenport is called to investigate.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1

4 WHITE TEETH by Zadie Smith (Random House: $24.95) The intertwined stories of two North London families capture an empire’s worth of cultural identity, history and hope.

Last Week: 8; Weeks on List: 3

5 THE EMPTY CHAIR by Jeffrey Deaver (Simon & Schuster: $25) “The Bone Collector’s” foremost criminalist, Lincoln Rhyme, clashes with his sidekick Amelia over a brutal kidnapper’s guilt.

Last Week: 10; Weeks on List: 2

6 DEMOLITION ANGEL by Robert Crais (Doubleday: $24.95) Carol Starkey must confront some old demons as she looks into the death-by-detonation of a former colleague.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1

7 RED LIGHT by T. Jefferson Parker (Hyperion: $23.95) Two murders, decades apart, shake Orange County homicide investigator Merci Rayborn’s world and her memories of her deceased lover.

Last Week: 15; Weeks on List: 5

8 ANIL’S GHOST by Michael Ondaatje (Alfred A. Knopf: $25) A forensic anthropologist arrives in Ceylon to investigate the source of the organized campaign of murder engulfing the island.

Last Week: 5; Weeks on List: 3

9 RAVELSTEIN by Saul Bellow (Viking: $24.95) An old writer tries to write a memoir of his friend, a college professor who has died of AIDS, in a story that echoes Bellow’s own life.

Last Week: 14; Weeks on List: 3

10 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: --; Weeks on List: 12

11 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.

Last Week: 9; Weeks on List: 5

12 BLONDE by Joyce Carol Oates (Ecco Press: $27.50) The story of Norma Jeane Baker’s transformation into Marilyn Monroe, as seen through the imagined eyes of the doomed starlet.

Last Week: 1; Weeks on List: 413 FIERCE INVALIDS HOME FROM HOT CLIMATES by Tom Robbins (Bantam: $27.50) A philosophical, hedonistic CIA agent gets zapped by a shaman’s spell and then travels the globe trying to shake it.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1

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

Last Week: 3; Weeks on List: 6

15 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: --; Weeks on List: 4

NONFICTION

1 ORDINARY RESURRECTIONS by Jonathan Kozol (Crown: $25) Life in the South Bronx through the eyes of the schoolchildren in its most dismal neighborhood.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1

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

Last Week: 3; Weeks on List: 5

3 NOW THIS by Judy Muller (Putnam: $23.95) Adventures in radio, television and the real world, as a single mother balances her career as a reporter with raising two girls after a divorce.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1

4 ROGER CORMAN by Beverly Gray (Renaissance Books: $23.95) An unauthorized biography of the man who filled the silver screen with bloodsucking vampires and rampaging biker gangs.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1

5 THE END OF FASHION by Teri Agins (William Morrow: $25) The death of the rag trade? An in-depth look at how haute couture has fallen victim to name-brand marketing.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1

6 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: 107 FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS by James Bradley with Ron Powers (Bantam: $24.95) A son pieces together the history of his father, who helped raise the American flag at Iwo Jima.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1

8 WHO MOVED MY CHEESE? by Spencer Johnson (Putnam: $19.95) This co-author of “The One Minute Manager” advises managers on how to get employees Y2K ready.

Last Week: 5; Weeks on List: 15

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: 6; Weeks on List: 122

10 IN THE HEART OF THE SEA by Nathaniel Philbrick (Viking: $24.95) Life and death aboard the Nantucket whaler Essex, which was sunk by a sperm whale in 1821.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1

11 PARENTHOOD BY PROXY by Laura Schlessinger (HarperCollins: $24) Schlessinger exhorts parents to make their children top priority and to change their lives, if necessary, to do so.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1

12 ‘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: 10; Weeks on List: 29

13 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: 2; Weeks on List: 11

14 THE MEASURE OF A MAN by Sidney Poitier (HarperSanFrancisco: $26) A spiritual autobiography; the actor reflects on how he has been shaped by the power of faith.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 2

15 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: 15

PAPERBACKS

FICTION

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

2 INTERPRETER OF MALADIES by Jhumpa Lahiri (Mariner: $12) Indian heritage colors the lives of people coping with loss.

3 TEXAS SHORT STORIES 2 edited by Billy Bob Hill and Laurie Champion (Browder Springs: $18.95) The stars at night. . . .

4 WHITE OLEANDER by Janet Fitch (Back Bay Books: $13.95) Her mother in jail, a teenage girl survives in L.A. foster homes.

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

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

7 THE GIRLS’ GUIDE TO HUNTING AND FISHING by Melissa Bank (Penguin: $12.95) A young girl’s look for lasting love.

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

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

10 KILLING ME SOFTLY by Nicci French (Warner: $7.50) A British girl becomes obsessed with a mysterious mountaineer.

PAPERBACKS

NONFICTION

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

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

3 THE PERFECT STORM by Sebastian Junger (HarperPaperback: $13) Fishermen lost in a furious ocean storm.

4 LIES MY TEACHER TOLD ME by James W. Loewen (Touchstone: $14) History textbooks that “make students stupid.”

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

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

7 IRAQ UNDER SIEGE edited by Anthony Arnove (South End Press: $16) Evaluating the impact of sanctions and war.

8 AMAZING GRACE by Jonathan Kozol (HarperPerennial: $14) The portrait of a ghetto through the lives of its children.

9 SAVAGE INEQUALITIES by Jonathan Kozol (HarperPerennial: $14) The separate, unequal school system for America’s poor.

10 WOMAN by Natalie Angier (Doubleday: $15) A celebration of womanhood and the feminine mystique.

Rankings are based on a Times poll of Southland bookstores.