Fiction
1. “The Almost Moon”: by Alice Sebold (Little, Brown : $24.99) A depressed divorcee kills her mother, then tries to understand what drove her to it.
2. “Book of the Dead”: by Patricia Cornwell (Putnam : $26.95) Forensics expert Kay Scarpetta goes to Rome to investigate a tennis champ’s murder.
3. “World Without End”: by Ken Follett (Dutton : $35) Four children struggle in 14th century England during the Black Death.
4. “A Thousand Splendid Suns”: by Khaled Hosseini (Riverhead : $25.95) Two Afghan women struggle to survive jihad, civil war and Taliban tyranny.
5. “A Lick of Frost”: by Laurell K. Hamilton (Ballantine: $24.95) Meredith Gentry, the half-human, half-fairy former private eye, is trying to get pregnant.
6. “The Abstinence Teacher”: by Tom Perrotta (St. Martin’s : $24.95) A church group forces abstinence-only sex education on a high school.
7. “Now and Then”: by Robert B. Parker (Putnam: $25.95) Spenser is on a mission after a troubled client who believes his wife is cheating turns up dead.
8. “Bridge of Sighs”: by Richard Russo (Knopf : $26.95) A dying Northeast factory town weighs on the lives of its inhabitants.
9. “Playing for Pizza”: by John Grisham (Doubleday : $21.95) A down-on-his-luck pro quarterback finds refuge on a football team in Parma, Italy.
10. “The Choice”: by Nicholas Sparks (Grand Central : $24.99) A veterinarian determined to play the field falls hard for his next-door neighbor.
Nonfiction
1. “I Am America (and so Can You!)”: by Stephen Colbert (Grand Central : $26.99) “The Colbert Report” star expounds on the forces destroying America.
2. “Clapton”: by Eric Clapton (Broadway : $26) The legendary guitarist tells all about the blues, becoming a rock legend, his bouts with addiction and his loves.
3. “Fair Game”: by Valerie Plame Wilson (Simon &Schuster: $26) The former CIA agent tells of her outing by the Bush administration over the Iraq war.
4. “The Dangerous Book for Boys”: by Conn and Hal Iggulden (HarperCollins: $24.95) Learn how to tie knots, find true north and other essential skills.
5. “The Secret”: by Rhonda Byrne (Beyond Words : $23.95) Life’s secrets distilled from oral tradition, literature, religion and philosophy.
6. “Become a Better You”: by Joel Osteen (Free Press: $25) The Texas pastor offers advice on prayer, good habits and building better relationships.
7. “The Age of Turbulence”: by Alan Greenspan (Penguin : $35) The enigmatic former Fed chief explains his economic actions, good and bad.
8. “The Conscience of a Liberal”: by Paul Krugman (Norton: $25.95) The columnist argues that U.S. prosperity is inextricably linked to economic equality.
9. “Schulz &Peanuts”: by David Michaelis (HarperCollins: $34.95) A look at the troubled, psychologically complex man who created the Peanuts comic strip.
10. “The Shock Doctrine”: by Naomi Klein (Metropolitan: $28) How free trade and privatization policies have wreaked economic havoc around the world.
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