1. Reading Lolita in Tehran
   by Azar Nafisi
   price: $23.95
   Reading Lolita in Tehran is the astonishing true story of young women who met in secret each week to read and talk about forbidden Western classics--and their lives and loves--in the Islamic Republic of Iran. This book transcends categorization as memoir, literary criticism or social history, though it is superb as all three. Literature professor Nafisi returned to her native Iran after a long education abroad, remained there for some 18 years, and left in 1997 for the United States, where she now teaches at Johns Hopkins.
   
   
   
2. Songs of the Kings
   by Barry Unsworth
   price: $26.00
   As the harsh wind holds the Greek fleet trapped in the straits at Aulis, frustration and political impotence turn into a desire for the blood of a young woman--blood that will appease the gods and allow the troops to set sail. High-sounding principles clash with private motives, and dark comedy ensues.
   
   
   
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.
   
   
   
4. Isaac Newton
   by James Gleick
   price: $22.95
   From one of our foremost science writers comes a portrait of the scientific mind that glimpsed more of the truth than perhaps any other and that first articulated the essence of what we know.
   
   
   
5. Dark Star Safari
   by Paul Theroux
   price: $28.00
   Dark Star Safari takes us the length of Africa by rattletrap bus, forgotten train, and rusting steamer. Theroux confronts delay, discomfort, bullets, and bad food while encountering a remarkable mix of places and people. Beginning in Cairo and ending in Cape Town, he goes on the ultimate safari to the true heart of Africa, not the lavish game parks with overfed guests but the small villages of the bush and the filthy chaotic cities that define this forgotten continent.
   
   
   
6. Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World
   by Niall Ferguson
   price: $35.00
   Ferguson, one of Britain’s most original and controversial young historians, turns his hand to a grand narrative history of the world’s first experiment in globalization, the British Empire that ruled a quarter of the world’s population on the eve of WW II. He posits that far from being a subject of nostalgia, the story of the Empire holds lessons for the world today-in particular for the United States as it expands its economic and military supremacy.
   
   
   
7. A Short History of Nearly Everything
   by Bill Bryson
   price: $27.50
   One of the world's finest and funniest writers goes on a quest to discover the mysteries of the universe--and comprehend the fascinating, eccentric people who devote their lives to unraveling those big questions.
   
   
   
8. Rumble Young Man Rumble
   by Benjamin Cavell
   price: $22.00
   In nine remarkable stories, Cavell exposes the darker side of being a "real man." Stories about professional boxers, starving artists, and politicians on the rise--a brilliant debut collection. Along with the macho comes a heightened sense of mortality, and a deeper need for something, or someone, to rely upon.
   
   
   
9. Appetites: Why Women Want
   by Caroline Knapp
   price: $24.00
   What do women want? Did Freud have any idea how difficult that question would become for women to answer? In Appetites, Caroline Knapp confronts that question and boldly reframes it, asking instead: How does a woman know, and then honor, what it is she wants in a culture bent on shaping, defining, and controlling women and their desires? In this, her final book, completed shortly before her death last June, turns her brilliant eye toward how a woman's appetite--for food, love, work, and pleasure--is shaped and constrained by culture.
   
   
   
10. Moneyball
    by Michael Lewis
    price: $24.95
    The Oakland Athletics have a secret: a winning baseball team is made, not bought. A story about money, science, entertainment, egos, "Moneyball" traces the remarkable success of the Oakland Athletics, a major league team with a minor league budget.
    
    
    

1. 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." Immediately upon setting up shop in a small storefront in Gaborone, she is hired to track down a missing husband, uncover a con man, and follow a wayward daughter. But the case that tugs at her heart is a missing eleven-year-old boy, who may have been snatched by evil witchdoctors.
   
   
   
2. 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.
   
   
   
3. Small Wonder: Essays
   by Barbara Kingsolver
   price: $12.95
   The best-selling novelist gives us her newest collection of essays, following the great success of High Tide in Tucson. From contemplation of the Grand Canyon and her vegetable garden to genetic engineering and the history of civil rights, Kingsolver examines the personal and the universal with passion and insight. “Soulful and soul-searching…a tantalizing peek into Kingsolver’s world.” -SF Chronicle Book Review
   
   
   
4. A Problem From Hell
   by Samantha Power
   price: $17.95
   The 2003 Pulitzer Prize winner for non-fiction, The Problem from Hell chronicles the last century of America’s indifference and America’s courage in the face of the worst massacres of the 20th century. “Disturbing….will likely become the standard text on genocide prevention because it thoroughly debunks the usual excuses for past failures, while offering a persuasive framework that can help predict future outcomes and suggest policy responses.” -Foreign Affairs
   Power teaches human rights and U.S. foreign policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and was the executive director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy from 1998-2002.
   
   
   
5. White Teeth
   by Zadie Smith
   price: $14.00
   At the center of this invigorating and hilarious novel are two unlikely friends, Archie Jones and Samad Iqbal, hapless veterans of World War II. Set against London's racial and cultural tapestry, venturing across the former empire's past as it barrels toward the future, "White Teeth" is an international bestseller now available in paperback.
   
   
   
6. The Secret Life of Bees
   by Sue Monk Kidd
   price: $14.00
   Now in paperback comes the intoxicating debut novel of "one motherless daughter's discover of . . . the strange and wondrous places we find love" ("The Washington Post"). A bestseller in hardcover, Sue Monk Kidd's ravishing work is set in South Carolina in 1964. A movie version is forthcoming from Fox Searchlight.
   
   
   
7. Globalization and Its Discontents
   by Joseph Stiglitz
   price: $15.95
   Renowned economist and Nobel Prize winner Joseph E. Stiglitz had a ringside seat for most of the major economic events of the last decade, including stints as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers and chief economist at the World Bank. Particularly concerned with the plight of the developing nations, he became increasingly disillusioned as he saw the International Monetary Fund and other major institutions put the interests of Wall Street and the financial community ahead of the poorer nations. Rarely do we get such an insider's analysis of the major institutions of globalization as in this penetrating book.
   
   
   
8. Buffy the Vampire Slayer & Philosophy: Fear and Trembling in Sunnydale
   by James South
   price: $17.95
   Fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer know that there is more to the show than just vampire slaying. For several years, fans have sought to convince the world that the show discusses deeper issues and explores the good and evil underlying everyday life. “How can Buffy’s religious symbolism be squared with creator Joss Whedon’s professed atheism…Is Buffy truly a Kierkegaardian knight of faith? What does the show’s treatment of vampires, demons, and other entities say about ethical attitudes toward nonhumans?’ The long running series, which shortly comes to an end in May, is ripe for the type of witty, astute philosophical analysis this book offers.
   
   
   
9. Who Defended the Country? A New Democracy Forum on Authoritarian versus Democratic Approaches to National Defense on 9/11
   by Elaine Scarry
   price: $13.00
   In the latest volume of Beacon’s excellent New Democracy Forum series, Harvard professor Elaine Scarry poses the provocative question: was the difficulty we had in defending ourselves on September 11 the result of serious flaws in our national security system? Scarry’s detailed retelling of events, communications and responses as they played out on hijacked United Airlines Flight 93 and American Airlines Flight 77 arrives at some startling conclusions about the military’s increasing tendency to act outside the bounds of the citizenry’s control.
   
   
   
10. Blood of Victory
    by Alan Furst
    price: $12.95
    In the autumn of 1940, Russian emigre journalist I.A. Serebin is recruited in Istanbul by an agent of the British secret service for a clandestine operation to stop German importation of Romanian oil. It is a last, desperate attempt to block Hitler's conquest of Europe. Serebin's race against time begins in Bucharest and leads him to Paris, the Black Sea, Beirut, Romania, and Yugoslavia, on the trail of the oil barges full of fuel for German tanks and airplanes. Blood of Victory is replete with the heart-pounding suspense, incredible historical accuracy, and narrative immediacy we have come to expect from spymaster Alan Furst.
    
    
    

* The Harvard Book Store generates a bestseller list, and ranks titles to reflect overall sales for the week May 26 - June 1.

May 26 - June 1, 2003 Bestseller List

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