The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • Page 264

DISCOVERIES Los Angeles Times Bestsellers September 30, 2001 California FICTION Last Weeks Syria N0NF1CTIQN lsl Weeks Rating i iiim Week on List Rating WeekonUst 1 mtCOfmtCWONSbyJonathanFmnzenfFarrar, 13 1 JOHN ADAMS by David McCullough (Simon 1 18 rom: 26 The tragicomic saga of the Schuster: $35) The story of our second president, Lamberts, a dysfunctional Midwestern family a man Thomas Jefferson called "the colossus of living at the end of the 20th century. independence. 2 LONG TIME NO SEE by Susan Isaacs 6 2 2 JACK by Jack Welch with John A. Byrne (Warrar: 1 (HarperCollins: $26 Sleuth Judith Singer follows the trail left by the murderer of her Long island from a Massachusetts childhood to his 1 neighbor, a banker and perfect mom. successful reinvention of General Electric.

3 mALRlCUJLbySaraParetskylDelacorte: 13 2 3 CAU.m CRM by Anne Heche (Scribner: $25) 5 2 S25.95JV.1. Warshawsldconfrontstheinsurance Heartache and childhood tragedy preceded industryas tempers flare around passage of a bill Heche's rise to stardom and much publicized to compensate Holocaust survivors. romance with comedian Ellen DeGeneres. 4 THESMOKE JUMPER by Nicholas Evans 9 4 4 WHO MOVED MY CHEESE? by Spencer Johnson 6 79 friends is played out in the world of Drefighting Minute Manager" uses the parable of mice in a in the Montana wilderness. mazetoshowpeoplehowtomanagechange.

6 tAACKHOUSEbyStephenKingandPeterStraub 1 5 THE WILD BLUE by Stephen Ambrose (Simon 2 5 (Random House: $28.95) King and Straub return Schuster: $26) The story of the men and boys who with the horrific story of parallel worlds, first told flewtheB-24soverNaziGermanyinWorldWar in their 1984 collaboration "The Talisman. II. 6 VALHALLA RISING by Give Cussler (Putnam: 8 5 6 SAVAQE BEAUTY by Nancy Milford (Random 3 2 Wouse: J29.9SJ The life ofEdna St. Vincent Millay Underwater Maritime Administration Director and her reckless pursuit of poetry and seduction Dirk Pitt must investigate. in the early years of the 20th century.

7 TUy by Salman Rushdie (Random House: 4 2 7 THE ROAD TO WEALTH by Suze Orman 11 6 $24.95) A restless professor wanders the Western (Riverheatt $29.95) tin encyclopedic reference world in a story that is part family romance and for managing your financial situation from the part biting satire of millennial Manhattan. "Nine Steps to Financial Freedom" money guru. 8 ENVY by Sandra Brown (Warner: $25.95) A 3 2 8 SEABISCUIT by Laura Hillenbrand (Random 7 29 reclusive writer sets out to destroy a HoiiscJ24.95JHowthreementransformeda double-dealing publisher, regardless of the thoroughbred horse from a neurotic also-ran innocent victims involved. into an American sports icon. 9 ALL FAMILIES ARE PSYCHOTIC by Douglas 1 9 iUSTKE by Dominick Dunne (Crown: $24)The 12 11 Coupland (Bloomsbury: bespectacled writer describes the high-profile scandals erupt as the Drummonds rally around crimes he's covered as well as a painfully private daughter Sarah, an astronaut going into space.

one: his daughter's murder. 10 MERCY by Julie Garwood (Pocket $25) A lawyer 1 10 CROSSING OVER by John Edward (Jodere Group: 13 2 stumbles on a group of murderous embezzlers $23.95) A memoir of the psychic's upbringing when he follows a beautiful doctor to her and first hints of his abilities, and his struggles backwater hometown in Louisiana. with fame after starting a hit TV program. 11 SUZANNE'S DIARY FOR NICHOLAS by James 10 8 11 RlO LA. by Pan Morrison (Angel City Press: $30) 8 2 Patterson (Little, Brown: $22.95) Tales past and present about Angelenos" insights into the boyfriend who left her from a struggles with the Los Angeles River, with diary written by another woman.

photographs by Mark lamonica. 12 LAKE WOBEGON SUMMER 1956 by Garrison 7 3 12 AWSMAH by Rick Bragg (Alfred A Knopf. $25) 10 2 Keillor (Viking: $24.95) The sorrows of The life of Bragg's sturdy maternal grandfather adolescence and the not-so-virtuous beginnings who, with wife Ava, raised seven children in of a young writer in a sleepy Midwestern burg. poverty in rural Alabama and Georgia. 13 AFTER THE PLAGUE by T.C.

Boyle (Viking: $25.95) 1 13 THEMAPTHATCHANGEDTHEWORLD frySimon 8 Stories of the survival of the meanest and life Winchester (HarperCollins: $26)Thecolotfui after an apocalypse all rendered with dark story of William Smith, who founded modern humor. Reviewed by lonathan Levi, Page 4. geology. Reviewed by Brian J. Skinner, Page 8.

14 CHHEttNEH by LalitaTademy (Warner: $24.95) A 12 12 14 TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE by MifdiUbom 9 179 family chronicle about the experiences of four (Doubleaay. $19. 95) A sportswriter's story of the generations of women born into slavery on the life lessons he received during weekly visits to an Cane River In Louisiana. older, dying friend. 15 OUKDUMY by Alice Hoffman (Putnam $24.95) 14 7 15 FOUNDING BROTHERS by Joseph J.

Ellis (Alfred A 14 22 A happy marriage and idyllic family life are rocked by a dark revelation about the husband, a founders, their squabbles and collaborations, seemingly all-around good guy. long before they were deified in history books. Paperbacks FICTION NQNFICTION 1 1 PERSONAL HISTORY by Katharine Graham (Vintage: $15) A tale of two sisters and an unpublished sci-fi novel. memoir by the late publisher of the Washington Post. 2 GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING by Tracy Chevalier (Plume: 2 PARIS TO THE MOON by Adam Gopnik (Vintage: $14.95) woman who inspired a Vermeer painting.

Dispatches from the City of Light by a New Yorker writer. 3 DROWNING RUTH by Christina Schwarz (Ballantine: $14.95) 3 BANDOFBROTHERSfrySwpftenEitafrroseO'ouchslone A mystery set in Wisconsin at the end of World War 1. Books: $16)The elite fighting force Easy Company. 4 4 ME TALK PRETTY ONE DAY by David Sedaris (Little, Brown: wins her family's attention after excelling at spelling bees. $14.95) Wisecracking essays on life in Paris and elsewhere.

6 THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF KAVALIER A CLAY by 5 IT'S NOT ABOUT THE BIKE by Lance Armstrong with Sally Michael Chabon (Picador: $15) Cousins in the comics biz, Jenkins (Berkley: $13) A cyclist's race against cancer. 6 mtniDnmbyAnitaDiamant (Picador USA: $14)The 6 FDR AND HIS ENEMIES by Albert Fried (St. Martin's: $15.95) blossoming of Dinah, Jacob's only daughter, in Genesis. Roosevelt's cunning in overcoming New Deal opponents, 7 LA. DtAD by Stuart Woods (Signet: $7.99) Stone Baningon 7 CHERRY fry MaryKarr (Plume: Liars' Club" author is a moth to an old flame who may have killed her husband.

describes her teen years In a lonesome Texas town. 8 8 RICH DAD, POOR 0 AO fry Robert T. Kiyosaki with Sharon L. Infighting threatens the selection of a new CIA chief. Lechter (Techpress: $15.95) Adventures in fiscal parenting.

9 CATCHING HEAVEN by Sands Hall (Ballantine: $14) A 9 THE WORST-CASE SCENARIO SURVIVAL HANDBOOK fry woman flees LA. to join her strugglingsister in New Mexico. Joshua Piven David Borgentcht (Chronicle: $14.95) S-O-SI 10 THE BEAR AND THE DRAGON fry Tom Clancy (Berkley: $7.99) 10 GUNS, GERMS AND STEEL by Jared Diamond (W. W. Norton: Trouble in Russia and China threatens New World order.

J4.95JThe part played by this triad In history, i i Rankings are based on a Times poll of Southland bookstores. abortion herself with a knitting needle; asking a doctor for help and being rejected; going to a crone-midwife and having a probe inserted in her uterus; and finally, with the help of a friend, miscarrying, cutting the cord of the three-month fetus and being admitted to the hospital because she was hemorrhaging. Ernaux saves specifics for the description of feelings, a unique aspect of her unsentimental insistence of the political relevance of women's instincts and emotions. "One week later Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas," she writes of the revelation in 1963 that she was pregnant. "By then I had lost interest in that sort of thing." Blasphemy! If I cowered in the face of this task, she writes of the memoir, "I would be guilty of silencing the lives of women and condoning a world governed by male supremacy." What does she offer as proof? She writes of her account of the abortion, "the only evidence I have stems from the lingering sensations of people and things outside of me." Confronting her memories brings revelation: "I killed my own mother inside of me," she writes, and later, "I realized I was through with religion." Been accused lately of being too sensitive? Ernaux is your medicine! VENICE REVEALED An Intimate Portrait By Paolo Barbara Steerforth Press: 240 $25 Leave aside for the moment the question of whether or not you can or can't go honie again.

Consider the tribal affinities of people who grew up in cities: their hometown newspaper, the question of morning coffee and how it is prepared, those corners and piazzas known only to a city's citizens, the stress levels of its women, the way sounds of workmen reverberate through its streets. A childish happiness is built on these details, as well as a lifetime hankering for the cities we were born in. Paolo Barbaro does go back to Venice, the city he grew up in, and yes, it is not the same as the city he left seven years ago. The population has dwindled by more than half in five years, leaving only 70,000 people in the city. Offices have been liquidated, and industries like metal working, mosaics, cotton weaving and painting are gone, leaving streets named after them.

Restaurants are now painted white, not the traditional Venetian red. But the sirens still signal high tide; the women or venexiane, are too sacred, too beautiful to speak of; the famous Venetian irritability is as unavoidable as the winds. It is a city built on millions of tree trunks. Once home, Barbaro writes, "We don't ever want to leave again." SUSAN SALTER REYNOLDS GUILTY OF DANCING THECHACHACHA By Guillermo Cabrera Infante Translated from the Spanish by the author Welcome Rain Publishers: 112 $22.95 Three stories that share the same space at the same time are, Guillermo Cabrera Infante explains, "an impossibility in physics but not in fiction." They comprise a triptych, set in a Cuban restaurant at the end of the 1950s. The city? Of course, Havana.

The first moves to the music of a San-teria ritual, the second to the bolero and the third to the cha-cha-cha. In each, the man and the woman eat in a restaurant. It is raining outside. The man wonders whether he will marry the woman. The Santeria theme in the first draws the two characters tog3ther against its deep, dark background.

In the second, the bolero makes the rhythm of their dialogue sharper and crueler: It is all about contrast, male female, light dark. The third, the cha-cha-cha, is more about the "we." The man in the stories carries the book of his life, which he periodically asks the woman to open in order to explain her behavior. The world outside the lovers is different in each, though it is the same city, like a dream dreamed in different houses or a play performed with different sets. The first two are heavy with nostalgia; the third is set in a more modern, more politically confused Cuba. Together, they have the feel of an exercise undertaken by a master.

HAPPENING By Annie Ernaux Seven Stories Press: 96 $18.95 A friend once told me that he had a lover who repeatedly accused him of "feeling too much." We laughed about this, nervously, like patients at the dentist with an uncertain number of exposed nerve endings. Annie Ernaux is not afraid of feelings. She writes like a general in command of a vast army of feelings. "You! Step forward," she commands of anger. "Attention!" she hollers at sadness, "Forward march!" she gestures grandly at righteousness.

Feelings? I got 'em! In "Happening," Ernaux marches her army toward memory, the memory of an abortion she had in 1963. She was 23; abortion in France was illegal, immoral and, above all, dangerous. A doctor could lose his or her practice just speaking about it, and a woman could be arrested. Ernaux struggles to remember what it was like trying to perform the 11.