Southern California Rating:FICTION1. THE TESTAMENT by...

Southern California Rating:

FICTION

1. THE TESTAMENT by John Grisham (Doubleday: $27.95) The 10th richest man in the U.S. is about to die, and his heirs are circling like vultures.

Last Week: 1; Weeks on List: 3

2. BE COOL by Elmore Leonard (Delacorte: $24.95) Fresh from his movie success, Chili Palmer faces a pack of punks, thugs and other Tinsel Town toughies when he enters the music biz.

Last Week: 2; Weeks on List: 2

3. A MAN IN FULL by Tom Wolfe (Farrar, Straus and 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: 3; Weeks on List: 16

4. AMSTERDAM by Ian McEwan (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday: $21) A journalist, composer and politician ease feelings of emptiness by sabotaging one another’s careers.

Last Week: 14; Weeks on List: 11

5. DREAMING SOUTHERN by Linda Bruckheimer (Dutton: $23.95) A mother and her children head west on Route 66 to join her husband and get into mishaps along the way.

Last Week: 9; Weeks on List: 8

6. 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: 4; Weeks on List: 21

7. SOUTHERN CROSS by Patricia Cornwell (Putnam: $25.95) Cornwell takes a close look at the personal and professional lives of big-city police.

Last Week: 5; Weeks on List: 6

8. ANGELS FLIGHT by Michael Connelly (Little, Brown: $24) A lawyer who has charged the LAPD with racism and brutality is murdered at the foot of the funicular.

Last Week: 8; Weeks on List: 9

9. A SUDDEN CHANGE OF HEART by Barbara Taylor Bradford (Doubleday: $24) A story of child abuse, terminal cancer, bisexuality, divorce, art theft and the Holocaust.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1

10. SEIZE THE NIGHT by Dean Koontz (Bantam: $26.95) A hideous genetic experiment claims the children and pets of the quiet community of Moonlight Bay.

Last Week: 10; Weeks on List: 6

11. IN DANGER’S PATH by W.E.B. Griffin (Putnam: $24.95) The latest chapter in Griffin’s Marine Corps series follows Fleming Pickering as he attempts a daring rescue in the Gobi Desert.

Last Week: 6; Weeks on List: 4

12. BILLY STRAIGHT by Jonathan Kellerman (Random House: $25.95) A homicide detective races to find a young murder witness before the killer does.

Last Week: 12; Weeks on List: 7

13. RANSOM by Julie Garwood (Pocket: $24) Romance and intrigue between a Scottish Highlander and an English beauty during the bloody reign of King John.

Last Week: 7; Weeks on List: 2

14. SEND NO FLOWERS by Sandra Browne (Bantam: $18.95) A mysterious, sensitive man teaches a widow with two children to give life and love a second chance.

Last Week: 11; Weeks on List: 2

15. RAINBOW SIX by Tom Clancy (Putnam: $27.95) Ex-Navy SEAL John Clark leads an international anti-terrorist strike force into action to probe incidents around the world.

Last Week: 15; Weeks on List: 21

****

NONFICTION

1. THE GREATEST GENERATION by Tom Brokaw (Random House: $24.95) TV anchor tells the stories of the generation that came of age during the Depression and World War II.

Last Week: 1; Weeks on List: 11

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: 60

3. ELEGY FOR IRIS by John Bayley (St. Martin’s: $22.95) A portrait of the love affair, and marriage, of novelists Iris Murdoch and John Bayley.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 3

4. 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: 4; Weeks on List: 7

5. TRAVELING MERCIES by Anne Lamott (Pantheon: $23) The growth of Lamott’s beliefs and how they helped her overcome grief, alcoholism and bad hair days.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1

6. BLIND MAN’S BLUFF by Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew (PublicAffairs: $25) Revelations about the secret world of American submarine espionage.

Last Week: 3; Weeks on List: 10

7. CONVERSATIONS WITH GOD, BOOK ONE by Neale Donald Walsch (Putnam: $19.95) Messages from Mr. Big about good, evil and the meaning of life.

Last Week: 5; Weeks on List: 85

8. 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: 7; Weeks on List: 16

9. 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: 9; Weeks on List: 22

10. THE RIGHT TO WRITE by Julia Cameron (Tarcher/Putnam: $19.95) Insights into the spiritual component of the writing life and how to develop your own creativity.

Last Week: 10; Weeks on List: 7

11. THE CENTURY by Peter Jennings and Todd Brewster (Doubleday: $60) The story of our last 100 years; a companion to an upcoming ABC special.

Last Week: 11; Weeks on List: 11

12. THE GROSS by Peter Bart (St. Martin’s: $24.95) From scripting to final release, a spotlight on summer ’98 and how blockbusters get made in Hollywood.

Last Week: 12; Weeks on List: 2

13. THE ELEGANT UNIVERSE by Brian Greene (W.W. Norton: $27.95) Is the universe a symphony played by strings? String theory for the general public.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1

14. PLAYING FOR KEEPS by David Halberstam (Random House: $24.95) A discussion of class, race, society and history, through the prism of Michael Jordan’s life.

Last Week: 14; Weeks on List: 3

15. EARTH ODYSSEY by Mark Hertsgaard (Broadway Books: $23) Hertsgaard picks environmental issues around the world in search of our environmental future.

Last Week: --; Weeks on List: 1

Paperbacks

FICTION

1. MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA by Arthur Golden (Vintage: $14) The life and loves of a teahouse entertainer in Kyoto.

2. CHARMING BILLY by Alice McDermott (Delta: $12.95) A family reflects on the life of a deceased relative.

3. SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard (Hyperion: $10.95) The Bard finds his Juliet.

4. MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE by Nicholas Sparks (Warner: $6.99) A woman seeks the author of a mysterious message.

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

6. THE TRIBES OF PALOS VERDES by Joy Nicholson (St. Martin’s: $10.95) A girl surfs away from a bad home life.

7. ESPERANZA’S BOX OF SAINTS by Maria Amparo Escandon (Scribner:$12) A widow’s search for her child.

8. THE PATCHWORK PLANET by Anne Tyler (Ballantine: $12.95 ) The quirky life of Barnaby Gaitlin, regular Baltimore guy.

9. THE READER by Bernard Schlink (Vintage: $11) A boyhood fling with an older woman and its aftermath.

10. OCTOBER SKY by Homer Hickam (Bantam: $6.99) A boy from Coalwood, W. Va. becomes a NASA scientist.

****

NONFICTION

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

2. FAREWELL TO MANZANAR by Jeane Houston (Bantam: $5.50) A memoir of life in the camps.

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

4. THE LAST OF THE BEST by Jim Murray (Los Angeles Times: $15.95) Pearls of journalism from the late sportswriter.

5. BIRD BY BIRD by Anne Lamott (Anchor: $12.95) The secrets of a writer, delivered with humor and generosity.

6. CRIME WAVE by James Ellroy (Random House: $12) Essays, plus two stories, about L.A.’s seamy, undead past.

7. AMONG GRIZZLIES by Timothy Treadwell (Ballantine: $14) A naturalists debunks several myths about the great bears.

8. A CIVIL ACTION by Jonathan Harr (Vintage: $13) David versus a toxic industrial Goliath in a Massachusetts town.

9. THE PERFECT STORM by Sebastian Junger (HarperPaperback: $13) Fishermen trapped in a storm.

10. PARIS IN THE FIFTIES by Stanley Karnow (Random House: $14) A journalist’s apprenticeship in postwar Paris.

Rankings are based on a Times poll of Southland bookstores.