Los Angeles Times Bestsellers

November 4, 2001

FICTION

Southern California Rating

1 THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF KAVALIER & CLAY by Michael Chabon (Picador: $15) Cousins in the comics biz.

2 ROSES ARE RED by James Patterson (Warner Books: $7.99)

Profiler takes on case of madman turning ever more vicious.

3 GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING by Tracy Chevalier (Plume: $12) The woman who inspired a Vermeer painting.

4 SHOPGIRL by Steve Martin (Theia: $10.95) Department store clerk Mirabelle meets an older man too good to be true.

5 THE BLIND ASSASSIN by Margaret Atwood (Anchor: $14) A tale of two sisters and an unpublished sci-fi novel.

6 BEE SEASON by Myla Goldberg (Vintage: $13) A young girl wins her family’s attention after excelling at spelling bees.

7 IMPULSE by Catherine Coulter (Signet: $7.99) Showdown between a woman and her no-good father in the Caribbean.

8 AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL by Moon Unit Zappa (Scribner: $14) Heartache and humor with a famous artist’s daughter.

9 THE PROMETHEUS DECEPTION by Robert Ludlum (St. Martin’s: $7.99) Double-crosses galore in this thriller.

10 BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES 2001 edited by Barbara Kingsolver (Houghton Mifflin: $13) Updike and more.

NONFICTION

Southern California Rating

1 TALIBAN by Ahmed Rashid (Yale University Press: $14.95) The rise of Islamic fundamentalism in Afghanistan.

2 PERSONAL HISTORY by Katharine Graham (Vintage: $15) A memoir by the late publisher of the Washington Post.

3 BIN LADEN by Yossef Bodansky (Prima Publishing, $17.95) A look into what shaped the terrorist leader’s life.

4 JIHAD VS. McWORLD by Benjamin Barber (Ballantine: $12.95) Colliding ideologies and the new world order.

5 ME TALK PRETTY ONE DAY by David Sedaris (Little, Brown: $14.95) Wisecracking essays on life in Paris and elsewhere.

6 FROM BEIRUT TO JERUSALEM by Thomas L. Friedman (Anchor: $15.95) A look at the Arab-Israeli conflict.

7 BLACK HAWK DOWN by Mark Bowden (Signet: $7.99) A gritty account of a disastrous 1993 military operation in Somalia.

8 BAND OF BROTHERS by Stephen Ambrose (Touchstone: $16) The elite World War II fighting force Easy Company.

9 GUNS, GERMS, AND STEEL by Jared Diamond (W.W. Norton: $15.95) A scientist’s take on how Europe rose to dominance.

10 EMPIRE by Michael Hardt, Antonio Negri (Harvard University Press: $18.95) The political order of globalization.