Bestsellers / Paperbacks

Rankings are based on a Times poll of Southland bookstores.

*--* SO. CAL. RATING Fiction 1 The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards (Penguin: $14) A father hides the birth of a twin from his wife.

2 Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See (Random House: $13.95) Two women in 19th century China.

3 The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger (Broadway: $13.95) A college grad enters fashion publishing.

4 The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (Riverhead: $14) A writer returns to Kabul to rescue the son of a childhood friend.

5 Veronica by Mary Gaitskill (Vintage: $13.95) A fashion model recalls a friend who was an early casualty of AIDS.

6 The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho (HarperSanFrancisco: $13) An Andalusian shepherd boy searches for treasure in Egypt.

7 The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly (Warner: $7.99) An attorney for a rich woman’s son fears for his own safety.

8 March by Geraldine Brooks (Penguin: $14) Imagining the Civil War experiences of Mr. March, father of the “Little Women.”

9 The History of Love by Nicole Krauss (W.W. Norton: $13.95) A writer escapes the Nazis but loses his beloved.

10 The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (Penguin: $15) A quest for the truth about a Spanish novelist.

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*--* SO. CAL. RATING Nonfiction 1 An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore (Rodale: $21.95) The former vice president cites the evidence for global warming.

2 1776 by David McCullough (Simon & Schuster: $18) How Colonial forces took on the world’s greatest military power.

3 Night by Elie Wiesel (Hill & Wang: $9) A teenager’s harrowing year spent in four concentration camps.

4 The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson (Vintage: $14.95) A serial killer haunts the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair.

5 Garlic and Sapphires by Ruth Reichl (Penguin: $15) A food critic recalls dining incognito in New York.

6 The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls (Scribner: $14) A memoir of breaking away from dysfunctional parents.

7 The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz (Amber-Allen: $12.95) A code of conduct based on Toltec wisdom.

8 Running With Scissors by Augusten Burroughs (Picador: $14) A boy goes to live with his mother’s psychiatrist.

9 Funny in Farsi by Firoozeh Dumas (Random House: $12.95) An Iranian girl grows up in Newport Beach.

10 Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris (Back Bay: $14.95) Quirky reflections on life in Paris and elsewhere.

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