| 1. |
Climbing Brandon: Science and Faith on Ireland's Holy Mountain
by Chet Raymo
price: $23.00
In this rich celebration of Ireland's Mount Brandon--used for centuries by pilgrims in search of spiritual enlightenment--Raymo constructs a lens through which to view the modern conflicts between science and religion. |  |
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| 2. |
Eats, Shoots and Leaves
by Lynne Truss
price: $17.50
This is a book for people who love punctuation and get upset when it is mishandled. From the invention of the question mark in the time of Charlemagne to George Orwell shunning the semicolon, this lively history makes a powerful case for the preservation of a system of printing conventions that is much too subtle to be mucked about with. |  |
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| 3. |
The Rule of Four
by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason
price: $24.00
A stunning first novel in the vein of Umberto Ecco and Dan Brown. Two friends find the key to the labyrinth that holds the secrets of an ancient text called the "Hypnerotomachia." But when a fellow researcher is murdered, they suddenly realize they are caught in a web of great danger.
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| 4. |
The Jane Austen Book Club
by Karen Joy Fowler
price: $23.95
Nothing ever moves in a straight line in Karen Joy Fowler's fiction, and in her latest, the complex dance of modern love has never been so devious or so much fun. |  |
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| 5. |
Who Are We: The Challenges to America's National Identity
by Samuel P. Huntington
price: $27.00
Bestselling author Samuel P. Huntington examines the gradual loss of American identity in recent decades and sees a possible return to our core cultural values. |  |
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| 6. |
The Mapmaker's Wife: A True Tale of Love, Murder and Survival in the Amazon
by Robert Whitaker
price: $25.00
In the early years of the 18th century, a band of French scientists set off on a daring, decade-long expedition to South America in a race to measure the precise shape of the earth. This is the story of Isabel Grames, who became stranded in the Amazon--an epic love story that unfolds against the backdrop of the greatest expedition the world has ever known.
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| 7. |
Reason: Why Liberals Will Win the Battle for America
by Robert B. Reich
price: $24.00
Reich explains how liberals can begin to reascend the political ladder by reclaiming the courage of their convictions, organizing those marginalized by society, and finding powerfully effective ways to minimize the abuse of wealth and power in our political system. |  |
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| 8. |
Truth & Beauty: A Friendship
by Ann Patchett
price: $23.95
Tender but brutal, this portrait of unwavering commitment shines light on the little explored world of women's friendships through the author's relationship with critically acclaimed and recently deceased author, Lucy Grealy. |  |
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| 9. |
Dark Age Ahead
by Jane Jacobs
price: $23.95
A clear-eyed examination of the patterns of dark ages throughout history and an early warning of an oncoming dark age in North America, by the legendary author of The Death and Life of Great American Cities. "Jacobs argues that what she calls the 'five pillars of our culture' are in jeopardy. These comprise families and communities, higher education, science and technology, taxes and governmental power, and, finally, the self-policing of learned professions. . . . Jacobs can write, and so by the end her arguments and admonitions all appear persuasive and disquieting. Crisp, entertaining, scholarly, scary." -Kirkus Review |  |
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| 10. |
An Alchemy of Mind: The Marvel and Mystery of the Brain
by Diane Ackerman
price: $25.00
Bringing a valuable female perspective to the topic, Diane Ackerman discusses the science of the brain as only she can: with gorgeous, immediate language and imagery that paint an unusually lucid and vibrant picture for the reader. |  |
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Bestselling Paperback Titles
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| 1. |
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
by Mark Haddon
price: $12.00
Christopher John Francis Boone relates well to animals but has no understanding of human emotions. This improbable story of Christopher's quest to investigate the suspicious death of a neighborhood dog makes for one of the most captivating novels in recent years. "Think of The Sound and the Fury crossed with The Catcher in the Rye and one of Oliver Sacks's real-life stories." -The New York Times |  |
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| 2. |
The Dante Club
by Matthew Pearl
price: $13.95
A magnificent blend of fact and fiction, a brilliantly realized paean to Dante, his mythic genius, and his continuing grip on the artistic imagination. “[A] carefully plotted, imaginatively shaped, and stylistically credible whodunit of unusual class and intellect.” —The Boston Globe
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| 3. |
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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| 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 No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency
by Alexander McCall Smith
price: $11.95
Combining a wonderfully satisfying reimagination of the mystery with a classic novel of Africa in the tradition of Isak Dinesen, The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency tells the story of Precious Ramotswe, a delightfully cunning and a profoundly moral woman who is drawn to her profession to "help people with problems in their lives." |  |
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| 6. |
The Art of Travel
by Alain de Botton
price: $13.00
The author of How Proust Can Change Your Life explores what the point of travel might be and modestly suggets how we can learn to be a little happier in our travels.
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| 7. |
Vernon God Little
by DBC Pierre
price: $13.00
In the town jail of Martirio, Texas--under the terrifying care of the dynastic Gurie family, and wearing only his New Jack trainers and underpants--15-year-old Vernon Little is in trouble. |  |
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| 8. |
Tears of the Giraffe
by Alexander McCall Smith
price: $11.95
The continuing story of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency--starring Precious Ramotswe, Botswana's first lady detective--finds our wily heroine searching for a young man who disappeared into the African plains many years ago. |  |
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| 9. |
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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| 10. |
The Lovely Bones
by Alice Sebold
price: $13.95
In the hands of a brilliant new novelist, and through the eyes of her winning young heroine, this story of seemingly unbearable tragedy is transformed into a suspenseful, touching, even funny novel about family, memory, love, heaven, and living. |  |
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* This list reflects overall sales for the week May 17 - 23, 2004.Back to this week's bestsellers
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