| 1. |
Double Play
by Robert B. Parker
price: $24.95
In a brilliant novel about a very real man, Parker tells the story of the 1947 baseball season--when Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier--through the eyes of a difficult, brooding, wounded man hired to guard Robinson. |  |
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| 2. |
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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| 3. |
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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| 4. |
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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| 5. |
McSweeney's 13
by McSweeneys
price: $24.00
This issue is all comics. It is edited by
Chris Ware (author of Jimmy Corrigan: Smartest Kid on Earth), and
features so many artists to know and love: R. Crumb, Art Spiegelman, Daniel
Clowes, Lynda Barry, Los Bros Hernandez, Adrian Tomine, Julie Doucet, and on and
on.Available only in the store. |  |
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| 6. |
Plan of Attack
by Bob Woodward
price: $28.00
Plan of Attack is the definitive account of a turning point in history as President George W. Bush, his war council, and allies launch a preemptive attack on Iraq, toppling Saddam Hussein and taking over the country. |  |
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| 7. |
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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| 8. |
Against All Enemies: Inside the White House's War on Terror--What Really Happened
by Richard Clarke
price: $27.00
The disturbing truth about the war on terror is revealed by the man who served--until spring 2003--for 11 years as the White House Counterterrorism Czar. Through gripping, thriller-like scenes, he tells the full story for the first time, and explains exactly what the Bush Administration is doing.
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| 9. |
The Geese of Beaver Bog
by Bernd Heinrich
price: $24.95
With a biologist's lens and nature-lover's soul, the author develops a fascinating study of Canadian geese, whose daily routines are filled with all the color and drama of a good novel. |  |
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| 10. |
On Paradise Drive: How We Live Now (and Always Have) in the Future Tense
by David Brooks
price: $25.00
Are we as shallow as we look? At once serious and comic, Brooks describes the distinct future-mindedness that shapes Americans' personalities and sense of limitless possibilities. |  |
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Bestselling Paperback Titles
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| 1. |
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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| 2. |
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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| 3. |
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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| 4. |
The Dogs of Riga
by Henning Mankell
price: $13.00
The second book in the popular series takes Inspector Kurt Wallander to Riga, Latvia, to investigate the murder of two Eastern European criminals. There he finds himself plunged into an alien world where shadows are everywhere, everything is watched, and old regimes will do anything to stay alive. |  |
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| 5. |
The Known World
by Edward P. Jones
price: $13.95
The Known World weaves together the lives of freed and enslaved blacks, whites, and Indians -- and allows all of us a deeper understanding of the enduring multidimensional world created by the institution of slavery. |  |
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| 6. |
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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| 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. |
Property
by Valerie Martin
price: $12.00
In Valerie Martin's eerily mesmerizing, expertly realized historical novel, American slavery and its venomous effects on the owner and the owned are brought to vivid life. "A fierce and uncompromising book, a bracing and cathartic work of art." -Chicago Tribune |  |
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| 9. |
Seven Ages of Paris
by Alistair Horne
price: $16.00
In this luminous portrait of Paris, celebrated historian Alistair Horne gives us the history, culture, disasters, and triumphs of one of the world's truly great cities. "Consistently bewitching. . . . [Horne] renders France unusually vivid by focusing on the one corner of it that millions of foreigners have toured or lived in or dreamed about." -The New York Times Book Review
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| 10. |
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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* This list reflects overall sales for the week May 24 - 31, 2004.Back to this week's bestsellers
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