Hardcover: Los Angeles Times bestsellers for Aug. 23, 2009
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| Fiction | Weeks on list | |
| 1. | Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon (Penguin Press: $27.95) Noir meets ‘60s Southern California groovy in a private eye’s psychedelic quest. | 2 |
| 2. | The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson (Knopf: $25.95) A hacker, implicated in two murders, must revisit her past to prove her innocence. | 3 |
| 3. | The Help by Kathryn Stockett (Putnam: $24.95) The lives of a maid, a cook and a college graduate become intertwined while changing a Mississippi town. | 11 |
| 4. | That Old Cape Magic by Richard Russo (Knopf : $25.95) A Cape Cod wedding spurs a middle-aged man to reflect on his past, marriage, family and what the future holds. | 1 |
| 5. | Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer (Little, Brown: $19.99) Bella must choose between her lover and a friend, between life and death. | 57 |
| 6. | The Angel’s Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafón (Doubleday: $26.95) A novelist in 1920s Barcelona takes a dangerous writing assignment. | 8 |
| 7. | Shanghai Girls by Lisa See (Random House: $25) Two sisters from Shanghai encounter tragedy and heartbreak as they are sold into arranged marriages in 1930s Los Angeles. | 10 |
| 8. | Best Friends Forever by Jennifer Weiner (Atria: $26.99) Two childhood friends on the outs since high school reconnect when one is in trouble. | 4 |
| 9. | The Defector by Daniel Silva (Putnam: $26.95) The disappearance of a Russian defector puts Gabriel Allon in pursuit of a deadly arms dealer. | 4 |
| 10. | Rain Gods by James Lee Burke (Simon & Schuster: $25.99) The sheriff of a tiny Texas town investigates the mass murder of illegal immigrants on the Mexican border. | 3 |
| 11. | Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer (Little, Brown: $22.99) The final book in the “Twilight” saga finds Bella choosing immortality. | 54 |
| 12. | The Last Olympian by Rick Riordan (Disney Hyperion: $17.99) Percy Jackson and his army of demigods battle to stop the Lord of Time. | 10 |
| 13. | Little Bee by Chris Cleave (Simon & Schuster: $24) The lives of two married British journalists and a Nigerian teenager collide. | 12 |
| 14. | Bad Moon Rising by Sherrilyn Kenyon (St. Martin’s Press: $24.95) Werewolf Fang Kattalakis must choose sides when a war erupts among the Lycanthropes. | 1 |
| 15. | Dead and Gone by Charlaine Harris (Ace: $25.95) Sookie Stackhouse finds herself a pawn in a war with a race of unhuman beings. | 7 |
| Nonfiction | ||
| 1. | Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell (Little, Brown: $27.99) An exploration of the background of high achievers. | 37 |
| 2. | The Wilderness Warrior by Douglas Brinkley (Harper: $34.99) Theodore Roosevelt’s crusade to protect America’s wild places and natural resources. | 1 |
| 3. | Zeitoun by Dave Eggers (McSweeney’s: $24) The disappearance of a Syrian-American father and good Samaritan in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. | 3 |
| 4. | Crazy for the Storm by Norman Ollestad (Ecco: $25.99) The son of a daredevil tells of his life on the edge and how he survived a deadly plane crash. | 9 |
| 5. | Culture of Corruption by Michelle Malkin (Regnery Publishing: $27.95) An investigation into alleged corruption in the Obama administration. | 3 |
| 6. | Liberty and Tyranny by Mark R. Levin (Threshold Editions: $25) The talk-radio personality’s call to revitalize the conservative vision in America. | 20 |
| 7. | A Bright and Guilty Place by Richard Rayner (Doubleday: $25) The sagas of an ambitious young lawyer, a prime suspect in a mob murder and a police photographer paint a picture of early 20th century Los Angeles. | 6 |
| 8. | Imperial by William T. Vollmann (Viking: $55) The cultures and subcultures of the California- Mexico border. | 2 |
| 9. | The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch with Jeffrey Zaslow (Hyperion: $21.95) A professor’s terminal cancer inspires a call to seize life’s moments. | 67 |
| 10. | Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man by Steve Harvey ( Amistad: $23.99) The talk-show host lets women inside the mind-set of a man. | 28 |
| 11. | In The President’s Secret Service by Ronald Kessler(Crown: $26) A behind-the-scenes look at the Secret Service and its agents. | 1 |
| 12. | Catastrophe by Dick Morris and Eileen McGann (Harper: $26.99) A call to prevent President Obama from transforming America into a socialist state. | 8 |
| 13. | Excuses Begone by Wayne W. Dyer (Hay House: $24.95) Advice on achieving success and happiness by changing self-defeating habits. | 7 |
| 14. | Bobby and Jackie by C. David Heymann (Atria: $26) The story behind the rumored romantic relationship between the two Kennedys. | 1 |
| 15. | This Is Water by David Foster Wallace (Little, Brown: $14.99) Thoughts and advice from a 2005 commencement speech at Kenyon College. | 6 |
