BOOK REVIEW

PAPERBACKS

Fiction

*--* Fiction weeks on list 1. The Associate by John Grisham (Doubleday : $27.95) A 1 dark secret forces a law school graduate to take a job that could cost him his life. 2. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw by Jeff Kinney 3 (Amulet: $12.95) Greg’s dad enlists him in organized sports in order to toughen him up. 3. Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer (Little, Brown: $19.99) Bella 30 must choose between her lover and a friend, between life and death. 4. The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski (Ecco: 29 $25.95) A mute dog breeder is banished by his uncle a la “Hamlet.” 5. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by 27 Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows (Dial Press: $22) A writer corresponds with islanders after German occupation. 6. Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer (Little, Brown: $22.99) 27 The final book in the “Twilight” saga finds Bella choosing immortality. 7. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson (Knopf: 7 $24.95) A journalist explores the cold-case disappearance of a Swedish teen heiress. 8. Plum Spooky by Janet Evanovich (St. Martin’s Press: 5 $27.95) A bounty hunter tracks a killer lurking in the woods of New Jersey. 9. Agincourt by Bernard Cornwell (Harper: $27.99) A 2 commoner, a king and a nation’s army fight a medieval battle immortalized in Shakespeare’s “Henry V.” 10. The Host by Stephenie Meyer (Little, Brown: $25.99) 26 Aliens take over the minds of humans. *--*

*--* Nonfiction 1. Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell (Little, Brown: $27.99) 12 An exploration of the background of high achievers. 2. The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch with Jeffrey Zaslow 40 (Hyperion: $21.95) A professor’s terminal cancer inspires a call to seize life’s moments. 3. Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man by Steve Harvey 1 (Amistad : $23.99) The talk show host lets women inside the mind-set of a man. 4. Dewey by Vicki Myron with Bret Witter (Grand Central: 19 $19.99) The effect that a cat named Dewey Readmore Books had on an Iowa library and its patrons. 5. Breakthrough by Suzanne Somers (Crown: $25.95) Advice 5 on healthy living and the newest treatments for longevity. 6. The Yankee Years by Joe Torre (Doubleday: $26.95) 1 Behind the scenes of what it really took to keep the Yankees on top of the baseball world. 7. President Obama edited by Adi Ignatius (Time: $19.95) 3 A chronicle of the path of the president from Hawaii to Indonesia to the White House. 8. Hot, Flat, and Crowded by Thomas L. Friedman (Farrar, 18 Straus & Giroux: $27.95) Solutions to overpopulation and the global-warming crisis. 9. A. Lincoln by Ronald C. White Jr. (Random House: $35) 2 A biography of the 16th president, including analysis of his principal speeches and writings. 10. The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 4 2008 by Paul Krugman (W.W. Norton: $24.95) A look to the past for the causes of the credit crisis. *--*

1. Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates ($14.95)

2. The Shack by William P. Young ($14.99)

3. The Reader by Bernhard Schlink ($13.95)

4. The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga ($14)

5. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz ($14)

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Nonfiction

1. Dreams From My Father by Barack Obama ($14.95)

2. Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin ($15)

3. The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama ($7.99)

4. Suze Orman’s 2009 Action Plan by Suze Orman ($9.99)

5. The Zookeeper’s Wife by Diane Ackerman ($14.95)

Rankings are based on a Times poll of Southland bookstores.