Fiction
1. “The Overlook,” by Michael Connelly (Little, Brown: $21.99) Harry Bosch is on the case after a physicist is found dead on a Mulholland Drive overlook.
2. “A Thousand Splendid Suns,” by Khaled Hosseini (Riverhead: $25.95) Two Afghan women struggle to survive jihad, civil war and Taliban tyranny.
3. “The Yiddish Policemen’s Union,” by Michael Chabon (HarperCollins: $26.95) Murder mystery meets alternate history in an Alaska gone Yiddish.
4. “Divisadero,” by Michael Ondaatje (Knopf: $25) Violence upends the lives of a man and his children working on a Northern California farm in the 1970s.
5. “Falling Man,” by Don DeLillo (Scribner: $26) The destruction of Sept. 11 from the perspectives of a survivor, his estranged wife and a terrorist.
6. “Bad Luck and Trouble,” by Lee Child (Delacorte: $26) Jack Reacher seeks the killer of former members of his Army special investigations unit.
7. “For One More Day,” by Mitch Albom (Hyperion: $21.95) An alcoholic encounters his mother’s ghost, who tells him about her sacrifices as a single parent.
8. “The Good Guy,” by Dean Koontz (Bantam: $27) A stonemason mistaken for a hit man embarks on a trek to warn the intended target.
9. “Star Wars: Sacrifice,” by Karen Traviss (Del Rey: $25.95) The Galactic Alliance battles breakaway planets, and Han and Leia Solo are on the run.
10. “The Tourists,” by Jeff Hobbs (Simon &Schuster: $24) A trio of Yale alumni gets caught up in a tangled tale of illicit romance.
Nonfiction
1. “The Assault on Reason,” by Al Gore (Penguin: $25.95) The former vice president laments the lack of reasoned political debate on vital national issues.
2. “The Secret,” by Rhonda Byrne (Beyond Words: $23.95) Life’s secrets distilled from oral tradition, literature, religion and philosophy.
3. “God Is Not Great,” by Christopher Hitchens (Twelve: $24.99) The acerbic commentator argues that the world would be a better place without religion.
4. “The Reagan Diaries,” edited by Douglas Brinkley (HarperCollins: $35) The 40th president’s daily record of the events of his two terms as president.
5. “Einstein,” by Walter Isaacson (Simon &Schuster: $32) A portrait of the life and genius of Albert Einstein, whose curiosity changed physics forever.
6. “The Dangerous Book for Boys,” by Conn and Hal Iggulden (HarperCollins: $24.95) How to tie knots, find true north, build treehouses and other skills.
7. “Buddha Is as Buddha Does,” by Lama Surya Das (HarperSanFrancisco: $23.95) A guide on how to live your life based on traditional Buddhist teachings.
8. “Learning Like a Girl,” by Diana Meehan (PublicAffairs: $24.95) The founder of L.A.’s Archer School explains the need for girls-only classrooms.
9. “0x161Ask a Mexican!” by Gustavo Arellano (Scribner: $20) The OC Weekly columnist’s answers to curious and sometimes hateful questions about Mexicans.
10. “A Long Way Gone,” by Ishmael Beah (Farrar, Straus &Giroux: $22) A Sierra Leone boy soldier tells of mass slaughter and starting over at a refugee camp.
Los Angeles Times
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