Los Angeles Times Bestsellers

July 14, 2002

FICTION

Southern California Rating: 1

Last Week: 1

Weeks on List: 4

THE EMPEROR OF OCEAN PARK by Stephen L. Carter (Alfred A. Knopf: $26.95) A professor is drawn into the underworld of Washington, D.C., by the secrets of his late father, a federal judge.

*

Southern California Rating: 2

Last Week: 4

Weeks on List: 2

THE LOVELY BONES by Alice Sebold (Little, Brown: $21.95) A murdered girl tells the story of her grieving family, the killer and the detective who hunts him.

*

Southern California Rating: 3

Last Week: 5

Weeks on List: 3

THE BEACH HOUSE by James Patterson and Peter de Jonge (Little, Brown: $26.95) A law student seeks his own justice after his brother’s body is found outside a Long Island manse.

*

Southern California Rating: 4

Last Week: 2

Weeks on List: 18

THE NANNY DIARIES by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus (St. Martin’s: $24.95) The travails of an overworked and underappreciated Park Avenue caregiver.

*

Southern California Rating: 5

Last Week: 3

Weeks on List: 2

HARD EIGHT by Janet Evanovich (St. Martin’s: $25.95) New Jersey’s favorite bounty hunter, Stephanie Plum, faces all kinds of thugs as she hunts for a missing girl and her mother.

*

Southern California Rating: 6

Last Week: 10

Weeks on List: 11

EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED by Jonathan Safran Foer (Houghton Mifflin: $24) A comic novel about a man’s search for his family’s past in Ukraine and the history of a forgotten shtetl.

*

Southern California Rating: 7

Last Week: --

Weeks on List: 8

THE SHELTERS OF STONE by Jean M. Auel (Crown: $28.95) Cavewoman Ayla has to negotiate warring tribes and win over her beloved’s family in the latest “Earth’s Children” installment.

*

Southern California Rating: 8

Last Week: 12

Weeks on List: 5

IN THIS MOUNTAIN by Jan Karon (Viking: $25.95) Father Tim and his wife, Cynthia, receive a warm embrace from the townspeople of Mitford on their return from Whitecap Island.

*

Southern California Rating: 9

Last Week: 6

Weeks on List: 17

ATONEMENT by Ian McEwan (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday: $26) A haunting novel of guilt and redemption that follows several lives through the chaos of England in World War II.

*

Southern California Rating: 10

Last Week: 7

Weeks on List: 3

THE DIVE FROM CLAUSEN’S PIER by Ann Packer (Alfred A. Knopf: $24) A young woman struggles with the meaning of her life after a catastrophe changes her relationship with her fiance.

*

Southern California Rating: 11

Last Week: --

Weeks on List: 1

CHOPPING SPREE by Diane Mott Davidson (Bantam: $23.95) A Colorado caterer putting on a gala for a shopping mall opening gets pulled in to a murder investigation.

*

Southern California Rating: 12

Last Week: --

Weeks on List: 7

THE WAILING WIND by Tony Hillerman (HarperCollins: $25.95) A body found in a parked car helps Navajo police officers Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee solve an old case.

*

Southern California Rating: 13

Last Week: 13

Weeks on List: 2

DEADLY EMBRACE by Jackie Collins (Simon & Schuster: $26) Drugs, sex and mayhem are at the roots of journalist Madison Castelli’s twisted family tree in this sequel to “Lethal Seduction.”

*

Southern California Rating: 14

Last Week: 11

Weeks on List: 4

FIRE ICE by Clive Cussler with Paul Kemprecos (Putnam: $26.95) Old Cold War rivals team up to fight a crazed Russian mobster with czarist aspirations and ecological disaster on his mind.

*

Southern California Rating: 15

Last Week: --

Weeks on List: 1

SUNSET IN ST. TROPEZ by Danielle Steel (Delacorte Press: $19.95) A group of old friends try not to let personal tragedy mar a sojourn on the French Riviera.

*

NONFICTION

Southern California Rating: 1

Last Week: 1

Weeks on List: 19

STUPID WHITE MEN ... AND OTHER SORRY EXCUSES FOR THE STATE OF THE NATION by Michael Moore (ReganBooks: $24.95) Lampooning the Bush administration and more.

*

Southern California Rating: 2

Last Week: 2

Weeks on List: 3

YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS by John McEnroe with James Kaplan (Putnam: $25.95) The brash tennis great serves up career highlights laced with insight.

*

Southern California Rating: 3

Last Week: --

Weeks on List: 1

SLANDER by Ann Coulter (Crown: $25.95) The conservative pundit takes on the media and tells why liberals have been wrong about just about everything.

*

Southern California Rating: 4

Last Week: 3

Weeks on List: 24

SELF MATTERS by Phillip C. McGraw (Simon & Schuster: $25) A self-improvement guru and “Oprah” regular teaches readers how to “create your life from the inside out.”

*

Southern California Rating: 5

Last Week: --

Weeks on List: 46

JOHN ADAMS by David McCullough (Simon & Schuster: $35) The story of our second president, a man Thomas Jefferson called “the colossus of independence.”

*

Southern California Rating: 6

Last Week: 4

Weeks on List: 118

WHO MOVED MY CHEESE? by Spencer Johnson (Putnam: $19.95) The coauthor of “The One-Minute Manager” uses the parable of mice in a maze to discuss managing change.

*

Southern California Rating: 7

Last Week: 10

Weeks on List: 11

BODY-FOR-LIFE by Bill Phillips and Michael D’Orso (HarperCollins: $26) A 12-week program of weightlifting and cardiovascular exercise along with nutrition and motivation tips.

*

Southern California Rating: 8

Last Week: 6

Weeks on List: 9

THE RIGHT WORDS AT THE RIGHT TIME by Marlo Thomas (Pocket Books: $25) The actress and author is joined by a host of luminaries sharing words of wisdom they’ve found useful.

*

Southern California Rating: 9

Last Week: 5

Weeks on List: 4

THE SEXUAL LIFE OF CATHERINE M. by Catherine Millet (Grove Press: $23) A French art critic with a gifted superego looks back on 30 years of indulging her id.

*

Southern California Rating: 10

Last Week: --

Weeks on List: 1

THE HAPPIEST BABY ON THE BLOCK by Harvey Karp (Bantam: $21.95) A pediatrician lays out his methods for soothing babies and helping them to stop crying.

*

Southern California Rating: 11

Last Week: --

Weeks on List: 1

STEEL MY SOLDIERS’ HEARTS by David H. Hackworth and Eilhys England (Rugged Land: $27.95) The retired colonel recounts his tour of duty commanding a battalion in Vietnam.

*

Southern California Rating: 11

Last Week: 11

Weeks on List: 3

GOOD TO GREAT by Jim Collins (HarperCollins: $27.50) How a great product, a healthy corporate culture and a disciplined work force can propel a company to success.

*

Southern California Rating: 13

Last Week: 9

Weeks on List: 2

EXECUTION by Larry Bossidy, Ram Charan and Charles Burck (Crown: $27.50) A recipe for managerial success, from former Honeywell CEO Bossidy and business advisor Charan.

*

Southern California Rating: 14

Last Week: --

Weeks on List: 1

KOBA THE DREAD by Martin Amis (Talk Miramax: $24.95) A history of the mass killings in Lenin’s and Stalin’s Russia with a memoir questioning the Left’s support of the Soviets.

*

Southern California Rating: 15

Last Week: --

Weeks on List: 2

FISH by Stephen C. Lundin, Harry Paul and John Christensen (Hyperion: $19.95) Lessons on management told via the fishmongers at Seattle’s Pike Place Market.