BESTSELLERS

*--* SO. CAL. RATING Fiction LAST WEEK WEEKS ON LIST 1 Christ the Lord by Anne 4 10 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.

2 The Lighthouse by P.D. 3 8 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.

3 The Da Vinci Code by Dan 2 139 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.

4 The Hostage by W.E.B. -- 1 Griffin (Putnam: $26.95) A Homeland Security agent tries to foil terrorists who have kidnapped a diplomat’s wife to find a man linked to a U.N. oil-for-food program.

5 S Is for Silence by Sue 1 6 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.

6 Mary, Mary by James 7 8 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.

7 The Constant Princess by 6 4 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.

8 On Beauty by Zadie Smith 8 16 (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 The Truth About Diamonds 10 4 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.

10 All Night Long by Jayne -- 1 Ann Krentz (Putnam: $24.95) A big-city reporter returns to her Napa Valley hometown to find a friend dead and ends up investigating her own parents’ death years earlier.

11 Memories of My Melancholy 12 11 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.

12 Just Rewards by Barbara -- 1 Taylor Bradford (St. Martin’s: $24.95) Descendants of Emma Harte, founder of a British department store chain, vie for love, power and control of the family fortune.

13 Sunstroke by Jesse -- 1 Kellerman (Putnam: $24.95) A secretary at a Los Angeles novelty company goes to Mexico to claim her boss’ body and becomes entangled in a dangerous mystery.

14 The History of Love by 5 10 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.

15 The Lincoln Lawyer by -- 11 Michael Connelly (Little, Brown: $26.95) An L.A. attorney hired to defend a rich woman’s son fears for his own safety after his private investigator is murdered.

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*--* SO. CAL. RATING Nonfiction LAST WEEK WEEKS ON LIST 1 The Year of Magical 1 15 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 My Friend Leonard by James 3 13 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.

3 Bad Childhood, Good Life -- 1 by Laura Schlessinger (HarperCollins: $24.95) How to move past an unhappy childhood, change negative behaviors and thrive.

4 Marley & Me by John Grogan 2 8 (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.

5 Freakonomics by Steven D. 5 33 Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner (William Morrow: $25.95) An economist deconstructs statistics and uses numbers to help explain human behavior.

6 The World Is Flat by 4 39 Thomas L. Friedman (Farrar, Straus & Giroux: $27.50) How technology and the forces of globalization are connecting -- and changing -- the world.

7 Teacher Man by Frank 9 8 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.

8 Love Smart by Phil McGraw 6 4 (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.

9 The Elements of Style 8 10 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.

10 Our Endangered Values by 7 10 Jimmy Carter (Simon & Schuster: $25) The former president writes of his concern about the rise in Christian fundamentalism and its influence in politics.

11 Team of Rivals by Doris 12 11 Kearns Goodwin (Simon & Schuster: $35) How country lawyer and one-term congressman Abraham Lincoln used his savvy to bring political rivals into his Cabinet.

12 Are Men Necessary? by -- 8 Maureen Dowd (Putnam: $25.95) The columnist ponders relations between the sexes, the value of trapping a man and career women as artful minxes.

13 The Black Dahlia Files by -- 1 Donald H. Wolfe (ReganBooks: $26.95) An investigation of the infamous unsolved case of the murder of a woman dubbed the Black Dahlia leads to surprising suspects.

14 State of War by James -- 1 Risen (Free Press: $26) The New York Times reporter delves into the Bush administration, the CIA and the events that led up to the U.S. war with Iraq.

15 PostSecret by Frank Warren -- 1 (ReganBooks: $24.95) A collection of extraordinary and deeply affecting confessions written by ordinary people on postcards.

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