BESTSELLERS

*--* SO. CAL. RATING Fiction

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*--* 1 The Hours by Michael Cunningham (Picador: $13) Three women linked across time by Virginia Woolf’s “Mrs. Dalloway.”

2 Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf (Harvest Books: $12) A day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway and her London coterie

3 Bel Canto by Ann Patchett (HarperPaperbacks: $13.95) Opera mingles with mayhem in South America

4 Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie (Anchor Books: $10) Literary light in a communist village

5 The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd (Penguin: $14) A teenage girl is haunted by her mother’s death

6 The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith (Anchor: $11.95) Botswana’s female private eye

7 The Summons by John Grisham (Dell: $7.99) A dead judge leaves his sons an old house that contains a $3-million secret

8 2nd Chance by James Patterson with Andrew Gross (Warner: $7.99) The Women’s Murder Club is back

9 Full Tilt by Janet Evanovich and Charlotte Hughes (St. Martin’s: $7.99) Mayhem in South Carolina

10 The New Jedi Order: Remnant by Sean Williams and Shane Dix (Del Rey: $6.99) Luke seeks a world lost to legend

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*--* SO. CAL. RATING Nonfiction

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*--* 1 Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand (Ballantine: $15) How a thoroughbred horse went from also-ran to sports icon

2 Dr. Atkins’ New Diet Revolution by Robert C. Atkins (Quill: $13.95) How a low-carb diet helps shed pounds

3 Dreaming War by Gore Vidal (Thunder’s Mouth: $11.95) Arguing that greed, not justice, underlies Bush’s focus on Iraq

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

5 Catch Me If You Can by Frank W. Abagnale (Broadway: $14.95) The world-class cons of a high school dropout

6 Bias by Bernard Goldberg (HarperPerennial: $13.95) A journalist argues that the media has surrendered to the liberal left

7 Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich (Henry Holt: $13) A writer works in low-wage America to see how the poor live

8 Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert T. Kiyosaki with Sharon L. Lechter (Techpress: $15.95) Fiscal parenting

9 What Went Wrong? by Bernard Lewis (HarperPerennial: $12.95) The rise and fall of Islamic culture

10 What to Expect When You’re Expecting by Heidi E. Murkoff et al. (Workman: $13.95) Pregnancy explained

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