Southern California Rankings:FICTION1. A MAN IN FULL...

Southern California Rankings:

FICTION

1. A MAN IN FULL by Tom Wolfe (Farrar, Straus & Giroux: $28.95) The story of a real estate tycoon’s crash and burn and the sleaze who warm themselves by the fire.

Last Week: 1; Weeks on List: 3

2. THE POISONWOOD BIBLE by Barbara Kingsolver (HarperCollins: $27.50) An evangelical Baptist missionary takes his wife and children to the Belgian Congo in 1959.

Last Week: 5; Weeks on List: 7

3. MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA by Arthur Golden (Alfred A. Knopf: $25) The life and loves of a fisherman’s daughter who becomes a teahouse entertainer in Kyoto before and during WWII.

Last Week: 3; Weeks on List: 53

4. THE VAMPIRE ARMAND by Anne Rice (Alfred A. Knopf: $26.95) Is Lestat dead? As vampires from around the globe gather near his body, Armand tells his own story.

Last Week: 4; Weeks on List: 6

5. PARABLE OF THE TALENTS by Octavia E. Butler (Seven Stories Press: $24.95) Survival in a dangerous new world in early-21st century California.

Last Week: 2; Weeks on List: 2

6. THE LOVE OF A GOOD WOMAN by Alice Munro (Alfred A. Knopf: $24) Eight new stories from Munro deal with love, passion, chaos and human desire.

Last Week: 12; Weeks on List: 2

7. BLUE LIGHT by Walter Mosley (Little, Brown: $23) Flashes of blue light fall to Earth in the 1960s, and several Northern Californians gain superhuman powers.

Last Week: 13; Weeks on List: 4

8. ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT by Mary Higgins Clark (Simon and Schuster: $17) A Christmas suspense story, complete with abandoned baby and jewel thief.

Last Week: 8; Weeks on List: 5

9. THE HOURS by Michael Cunningham (Farrar, Straus & Giroux: $22) A novel built on Virginia Woolf’s novel, “Mrs. Dalloway”; like Woolf’s, a study of the female spirit.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1

10. BLINDNESS by Jose Saramago (Harcourt Brace: $22) A morality tale about inhumanity arising in a city struck by a blindness that affects the sight and soul.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 2

11. WHEN THE WIND BLOWS by James Patterson (Little, Brown: $25) An astonishing discovery in the woods brings together a recently widowed veterinarian and a troubled FBI agent.

Last Week: 11; Weeks on List: 3

12. THE HAMMER OF EDEN by Ken Follett (Crown: $25.95) A young FBI agent must track down a terrorist group with the power to create earthquakes.

Last Week: 6; Weeks on List: 5

13. THE STARGAZEY by Martha Grimes (Henry Holt: $25) Sleuth Richard Jury probes a mysterious death linking the elegant Fulham Palace with an old English pub.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1

14. THE SIMPLE TRUTH by David Baldacci (Warner: $25) Twenty-five years ago, Rufus Harms was convicted of a murder he knows he committed. Suddenly, he’s not guilty, or is he?

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1

15. AHMED & THE OBLIVION MACHINES by Ray Bradbury (Avon: $14) A fable for the present, set in the future from the master of science fiction and prophecy.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1

****

NONFICTION

1. CONVERSATIONS WITH GOD, BOOK THREE by Neale Donald Walsch (Hampton Roads: $22.95) Further dispatches on life and death dictated by the Man Upstairs.

Last Week: 1; Weeks on List: 3

2. 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: 2; Weeks on List: 47

3. WHITEOUT by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair (Verso: $24.95) Uncovering the part played by the CIA in the distribution of cocaine on American streets.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1

4. THE PROFESSOR AND THE MADMAN by Simon Winchester (HarperCollins: $22) The editor of the Oxford English Dictionary was helped by a brilliant mental patient.

Last Week: 4; Weeks on List: 10

5. MEN OF COLOR by Lloyd Boston (Artisan: $35) African American male trendsetters in fashion and style, from Nat King Cole to Denzel Washington.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1

6. KING LEOPOLD’S GHOST by Adam Hochschild (Houghton Mifflin: $26) How a Belgian king’s rule of terror in the Congo led to the deaths of 4 million indigenous people.

Last Week: 6; Weeks on List: 2

7. WORK IN PROGRESS by Michael Eisner with Tony Schwartz (Random House: $27.50) The corporate rise and rise of Disney’s No. 1 mouseketeer.

Last Week: 7; Weeks on List: 6

8. LINDBERGH by A. Scott Berg (Putnam: $30) Daring aviator, loving father, isolationist and, finally, fallen hero--a dramatic American story.

Last Week: 8; Weeks on List: 10

9. CONFESSIONS OF A LATE-NIGHT TALK SHOW HOST by Garry Shandling and David Rensin (Simon and Schuster: $22) The autobiography of Larry Sanders.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1

10. MOSES: A LIFE by Jonathan Kirsch (Ballantine: $27) A biography of the legendary lawgiver that combines ancient lore, mythology and archeological data.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 2

11. KADDISH by Leon Wieseltier (Alfred A. Knopf: $27.50) A son’s reflection on the “mourner’s kaddish” he recites in the year after his father’s death.

Last Week: 11; Weeks on List: 6

12. KING OF THE WORLD by David Remnick (Random House: $25) From Cassius Clay to Muhammad Ali--the story of the world’s greatest prizefighter.

Last Week: 12; Weeks on List: 2

13. IN THE GARDEN OF OUR DREAMS by Shirlee T. Haizlip and Harold C. Haizlip (Kodansha: $24) Memoirs of a marriage--the shocking tale of a perfectly happy couple.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1

14. JUST JACKIE by Edward Klein (Ballantine: $25.95) New details on what lay beneath the glamour and glitter of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.

Last Week: 14; Weeks on List: 6

15. FOR THE LOVE OF THE GAME by Michael Jordan (Crown: $50) An antidote to the NBA strike: a career restrospective--with 200 photos--from the Bulls star.

Last Week: 15; Weeks on List: 2

Paperbacks

FICTION

1. DIVINE SECRETS OF THE YA-YA SISTERHOOD by Rebecca Wells (Harper Collins: $13) Sisterhood in the South.

2. COLD MOUNTAIN by Charles Frazier (Vintage: $13) A Confederate soldier quits the Civil War.

3. BELOVED by Toni Morrison (Plume: $12.95) Remarkable occurrences in the life of an ex-slave.

4. THE READER by Bernhard Schlink (Vintage: $11) A boyhood interlude with an older woman and its aftermath.

5. CHARMING BILLY by Alice McDermott (Dell: $12.95) The realistic and mythical aspects of Irish-American life.

6. MIDWIVES by Chris Bohjalian (Vintage: $13) The moral dilemmas of a New England midwife.

7. THE WINNER by David Baldacci (WarnerVision: $7.99) A man, a woman and a crooked lottery scheme.

8. WHAT LOOKS LIKE CRAZY ON AN ORDINARY DAY by Pearl Cleage (Avon: $12) Love in unlikely places.

9. THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS by Arundhati Roy (HarperPerennial: $13) Rise and fall of an Indian family.

10. THE BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES 1998 edited by Garrison Keillor (Houghton Mifflin: $13) New and familiar voices.

****

NONFICTION

1. THE SEAT OF THE SOUL by Gary Zukav (Fireside: $12) Insights into creating the spirituality of daily life.

2. THE VIRTUES OF AGING by Jimmy Carter (Ballantine: $9.95) Reasons why “the golden years” should be so golden.

3. THE MAN WHO ATE EVERYTHING by Jeffrey Steingarten (Vintage: $14) Eating his way across the globe.

4. INTO THIN AIR by Jon Krakauer (Anchor Books: $7.99) Risk and recklessness on a Mt. Everest expedition.

5. THE PERFECT STORM by Sebastian Junger (HarperPerennial: $13) Fisherman trapped in a storm.

6. HOLIDAYS ON ICE by David Sedaris (Little, Brown: $8.25) Department store Santas and other oddities.

7. NAKED by David Sedaris (Little, Brown: $12.95) Autobiographical essays from the NPR commentator.

8. UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN by Frances Mayes (Broadway: $13) Making a home in a glorious Italian landscape.

9. A CIVIL ACTION by Jonathan Harr (Vintage: $13) David vs. an industrial Goliath in a Massachusetts town.

10. INTO THE WILD by Jon Krakauer (Anchor Books: $12.95) A young man’s journey and death in the wilderness.

Rankings are based on a Times poll of Southland bookstores.