| 1. |
The Namesake
by Jhumpa Lahiri
price: $24.00
Expanding on her signature themes of the immigrant experience, the clash of culture, and the tangled ties of generations, Lahiri brings to her terrifically poignant first novel the remarkable powers of emotion and insight that have drawn more than half a million readers to her debut story collection. |  |
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| 2. |
The President of Good and Evil: The Ethics of George W. Bush
by Peter Singer
price: $24.95
Peter Singer, the provocative ethicist and author whose books have sold more than 700,000 copies, now presents us with a chilling exposé of George W. Bush’s moral failure on dozens of hot-button issues, from stem-cell research and tax cuts to Iraq and the drive for American preeminence. "Peter Singer may be the most controversial philosopher alive; he is certainly among the most influential." –The New Yorker |  |
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| 3. |
The DaVinci Code
by Dan Brown
price: $24.95
In an exhilarating blend of scholarly intelligence, relentless adventure, and cutting wit, Robert Langdon (first introduced in "Angels Demons") and his new adventure combines the punch of Robert Ludlum, the intriguing historical touch of Umberto Eco, and the nonstop suspense of Michael Crichton. |  |
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| 4. |
Paradise in Ashes: A Guatemalan Journey of Courage, Terror, and Hope
by Beatriz Manz
price: $24.95
Manz writes eloquently about Guatemala's tortured history and shows how the story of one village--its birth, destruction, and rebirth--embodies the forces and conflicts that define the country today. |  |
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| 5. |
Why I Wake Early
by Mary Oliver
price: $24.00
The long-awaited new volume of poetry by Mary Oliver, winner of the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. The volume includes poems on crickets, toads, trout lilies, black snakes, goldenrod, bears, greeting the morning, watching the deer and, finally, lingering in happiness. Each poem is imbued with the extraordinary perceptions of a poet who considers the everyday in our lives and the natural world around us and finds a multitude of reasons to marvel. |  |
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| 6. |
Long Life: Essays and Other Writings
by Mary Oliver
price: $22.00
Whether describing a goosefish stranded at low tide, the feeling of being baptized by the mist from a whale's blowhole, or the "connection between soul and landscape," Oliver invites readers to find themselves and their experiences at the center of her world. |  |
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| 7. |
Bad Business
by Robert B. Parker
price: $24.95
When Marlene Cowley hires Spenser to see if her husband, Trent, is cheating on her, he encounters more than he bargained for: Not only does he find a depraved talk radio host and a two-timing husband, but a second investigator as well, hired by the husband to look after his wife. |  |
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| 8. |
The Best Poems of the English Language: From Chaucer Through Frost
by Harold Bloom
price: $34.95
The vast scope of this anthology begins with Chaucer and ends with poets whose births predate 1900. Bloom has culled his selection according to his three absolute criteria: aesthetic splendor, intellectual power, and wisdom. |  |
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| 9. |
The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan, the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America
by Russell Shorto
price: $27.50
In a landmark work of history, Russell Shorto presents astonishing information on the founding of our nation and reveals in riveting detail the crucial role of the Dutch in making America what it is today. |  |
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| 10. |
Little Children
by Tom Perotta
price: $24.95
“Perrotta sent up the foibles of high-schoolers in Election (1998) and of Ivy Leaguers in Joe College (2000). Here, in warmly humorous prose, he takes on the thirtysomething parents of young children…. Perrotta, with a light but sure hand, expertly sketches the angst of the playground set and then amps up his material with a subplot involving a child molester. A fast-reading, wholly engaging novel.” –Booklist |  |
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Bestselling Paperback Titles
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| 1. |
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books
by Azar Nafisi
price: $13.95
The luminous memoir of an inspired teacher who defied Islamic morality squads to teach forbidden Western classics in Iran. |  |
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| 2. |
Interpreter of Maladies
by Jhumpa Lahiri
price: $13.00
Navigating between the Indian traditions they've inherited and a baffling new world, the characters in Lahiri's elegant, touching stories seek love beyond the barriers of culture and generations. |  |
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| 3. |
The Kalahari Typing School for Men
by Alexander McCall Smith
price: $11.95
"Get your hands on one of the mysteries from The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series... Each book is a thinly disguised love letter to the people and culture of Southern Africa. A great escape." –Elle |  |
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| 4. |
Middlesex
by Jeffrey Eugenides
price: $15.00
Spanning eight decades, Eugenides's long-awaited second novel is a grand, utterly original fable of crossed bloodlines, the intricacies of gender, and the deep, untidy promptings of desire. Eugenides was named one of America's best young novelists by both Granta and The New Yorker. |  |
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| 5. |
The Life of Pi
by Yann Martel
price: $14.00
The son of a zookeeper, Pi Patel has an encyclopedic knowledge of animal behavior and a fervent love of stories. When Pi is sixteen, his family emigrates from India to North America aboard a Japanese cargo ship, along with their zoo animals bound for new homes. The ship sinks. Pi finds himself alone in a lifeboat, his only companions a hyena, an orangutan, a wounded zebra, and Richard Parker, a 450-pound Bengal tiger. |  |
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| 6. |
Stitch 'n Bitch: The Knitter's Handbook
by Debbie Stoller
price: $13.95
Debbie Stoller--founder of the first Stitch 'n Bitch knitting group in New York City--covers every aspect of knitting and the knitting-together lifestyle: the how-to, the when-to, the why-to. |  |
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| 7. |
Disgrace
by J. M. Coetzee
price: $13.00
Set in post-apartheid Cape Town, Professor David Laurie attempts to relate to his daughter, Lucy, and to a society with new racial complexities. But that is disrupted by an afternoon of violence that changes him and his daughter in ways he could never have foreseen. |  |
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| 8. |
Pattern Recognition
by William Gibson
price: $14.00
"Gibson's first novel to take place in the present takes you on a reckless journey of espionage and lies and doesn't promise a safe return…A dangerously hip book." –U.S.A. Today |  |
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| 9. |
God's Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible
by Adam Nicolson
price: $13.95
Nicolson gives a fascinating and dramatic account of the era of the King James Bible and its translation, immersing readers in an age whose greatest monument is not a painting or a building but a book. |  |
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| 10. |
The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen
by Jacques Pepin
price: $14.00
With sparkling wit and occasional pathos, Pepin tells the captivating story of his rise from a terrified 13-year-old toiling in an Old World French kitchen to an American culinary superstar. |  |
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* This list reflects overall sales for the week March 15 - 21, 2004.Back to this week's bestsellers
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