Hardcover: Los Angeles Times bestsellers for Aug. 23, 2009
- Share via
| Fiction | Weeks on list | |
| 1. | Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon (Penguin Press: $27.95) Noir meets ‘60s Southern California groovy in a private eye’s psychedelic quest. | 2 |
| 2. | The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson (Knopf: $25.95) A hacker, implicated in two murders, must revisit her past to prove her innocence. | 3 |
| 3. | The Help by Kathryn Stockett (Putnam: $24.95) The lives of a maid, a cook and a college graduate become intertwined while changing a Mississippi town. | 11 |
| 4. | That Old Cape Magic by Richard Russo (Knopf : $25.95) A Cape Cod wedding spurs a middle-aged man to reflect on his past, marriage, family and what the future holds. | 1 |
| 5. | Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer (Little, Brown: $19.99) Bella must choose between her lover and a friend, between life and death. | 57 |
| 6. | The Angel’s Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafón (Doubleday: $26.95) A novelist in 1920s Barcelona takes a dangerous writing assignment. | 8 |
| 7. | Shanghai Girls by Lisa See (Random House: $25) Two sisters from Shanghai encounter tragedy and heartbreak as they are sold into arranged marriages in 1930s Los Angeles. | 10 |
| 8. | Best Friends Forever by Jennifer Weiner (Atria: $26.99) Two childhood friends on the outs since high school reconnect when one is in trouble. | 4 |
| 9. | The Defector by Daniel Silva (Putnam: $26.95) The disappearance of a Russian defector puts Gabriel Allon in pursuit of a deadly arms dealer. | 4 |
| 10. | Rain Gods by James Lee Burke (Simon & Schuster: $25.99) The sheriff of a tiny Texas town investigates the mass murder of illegal immigrants on the Mexican border. | 3 |
| 11. | Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer (Little, Brown: $22.99) The final book in the “Twilight” saga finds Bella choosing immortality. | 54 |
| 12. | The Last Olympian by Rick Riordan (Disney Hyperion: $17.99) Percy Jackson and his army of demigods battle to stop the Lord of Time. | 10 |
| 13. | Little Bee by Chris Cleave (Simon & Schuster: $24) The lives of two married British journalists and a Nigerian teenager collide. | 12 |
| 14. | Bad Moon Rising by Sherrilyn Kenyon (St. Martin’s Press: $24.95) Werewolf Fang Kattalakis must choose sides when a war erupts among the Lycanthropes. | 1 |
| 15. | Dead and Gone by Charlaine Harris (Ace: $25.95) Sookie Stackhouse finds herself a pawn in a war with a race of unhuman beings. | 7 |
| Nonfiction | ||
| 1. | Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell (Little, Brown: $27.99) An exploration of the background of high achievers. | 37 |
| 2. | The Wilderness Warrior by Douglas Brinkley (Harper: $34.99) Theodore Roosevelt’s crusade to protect America’s wild places and natural resources. | 1 |
| 3. | Zeitoun by Dave Eggers (McSweeney’s: $24) The disappearance of a Syrian-American father and good Samaritan in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. | 3 |
| 4. | Crazy for the Storm by Norman Ollestad (Ecco: $25.99) The son of a daredevil tells of his life on the edge and how he survived a deadly plane crash. | 9 |
| 5. | Culture of Corruption by Michelle Malkin (Regnery Publishing: $27.95) An investigation into alleged corruption in the Obama administration. | 3 |
| 6. | Liberty and Tyranny by Mark R. Levin (Threshold Editions: $25) The talk-radio personality’s call to revitalize the conservative vision in America. | 20 |
| 7. | A Bright and Guilty Place by Richard Rayner (Doubleday: $25) The sagas of an ambitious young lawyer, a prime suspect in a mob murder and a police photographer paint a picture of early 20th century Los Angeles. | 6 |
| 8. | Imperial by William T. Vollmann (Viking: $55) The cultures and subcultures of the California- Mexico border. | 2 |
| 9. | The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch with Jeffrey Zaslow (Hyperion: $21.95) A professor’s terminal cancer inspires a call to seize life’s moments. | 67 |
| 10. | Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man by Steve Harvey ( Amistad: $23.99) The talk-show host lets women inside the mind-set of a man. | 28 |
| 11. | In The President’s Secret Service by Ronald Kessler(Crown: $26) A behind-the-scenes look at the Secret Service and its agents. | 1 |
| 12. | Catastrophe by Dick Morris and Eileen McGann (Harper: $26.99) A call to prevent President Obama from transforming America into a socialist state. | 8 |
| 13. | Excuses Begone by Wayne W. Dyer (Hay House: $24.95) Advice on achieving success and happiness by changing self-defeating habits. | 7 |
| 14. | Bobby and Jackie by C. David Heymann (Atria: $26) The story behind the rumored romantic relationship between the two Kennedys. | 1 |
| 15. | This Is Water by David Foster Wallace (Little, Brown: $14.99) Thoughts and advice from a 2005 commencement speech at Kenyon College. | 6 |
The biggest entertainment stories
Get our big stories about Hollywood, film, television, music, arts, culture and more right in your inbox as soon as they publish.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
