TheBestseller
Observatory

Best Sellers

Hardcover Fiction

Week of March 21, 2004

FictionNonfiction
WeekMonth
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1
NEW
3RD DEGREE
James Patterson and Andrew Gross

3RD DEGREE

by James Patterson and Andrew Gross · Little, Brown

1 wks at #1 · 1 on list

Lindsay Boxer and friends must track down a deadly terror group who begins their killing spree by blowing up an expensive townhouse¿with the family still inside. In the meantime, a member of the club may be in some trouble of her own and Lindsay could be too late to save her.

2
1
THE DA VINCI CODE
Dan Brown
Cover of THE DA VINCI CODE

THE DA VINCI CODE

by Dan Brown · Doubleday

51 wks on list

THE #1 WORLDWIDE BESTSELLING PHENOMENON, WITH MORE THAN 85 MILLION COPIES SOLD “Blockbuster perfection . . . a gleefully erudite suspense novel.” —The New York Times “A pulse-quickening, brain-teasing adventure.” —People While in Paris, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is awakened by a phone call in the dead of the night. The elderly curator of the Louvre has been murdered inside the museum, his body covered in baffling symbols. As Langdon and gifted French cryptologist Sophie Neveu sort through the bizarre riddles, they are stunned to discover a trail of clues hidden in the works of Leonardo da Vinci—clues visible for all to see and yet ingeniously disguised by the painter. Even more startling, the late curator was involved in the Priory of Sion, a secret society whose members included Sir Isaac Newton, Victor Hugo, and Da Vinci, and he guarded a breathtaking historical secret. Unless Langdon and Neveu can decipher the labyrinthine puzzle—while avoiding the faceless adversary who shadows their every move—the explosive, ancient truth will be lost forever. Robert Langdon returns in The Lost Symbol, Inferno, Origin, and The Secret of Secrets (coming soon)!

3
1
THE LAST JUROR
John Grisham
Cover of THE LAST JUROR

THE LAST JUROR

by John Grisham · Doubleday

5 wks on list

In 1970, one of Mississippi's more colorful weekly newspapers went bankrupt. To the surprise and dismay of many, ownership was assumed by a 23 year-old college dropout, named Willie Traynor. The future of the paper looked grim until a young mother was brutally raped and murdered by a member of the notorious Padgitt family. Willie Traynor reported all the gruesome details and the paper began to prosper. The murderer, Danny Padgitt was tried before a packed courthouse in Clanton, Mississippi. The trial came to a startling and dramatic end when he was found guilty. He was sentenced to life in prison, but in Mississippi, in 1970, "life" didn't necessarily mean "life" and nine years later Danny Padgitt managed to get himself paroled. He returned to Ford County and the retribution began

4
1
THE FIVE PEOPLE YOU MEET IN HEAVEN
Mitch Albom
Cover of THE FIVE PEOPLE YOU MEET IN HEAVEN

THE FIVE PEOPLE YOU MEET IN HEAVEN

by Mitch Albom · Hyperion

24 wks on list

Plot Eddie is a wounded war veteran, an old man who has lived, in his mind, an uninspired life. His job is fixing rides at a seaside amusement park. On his 83rd birthday, a tragic accident kills him, as he tries to save a little girl from a falling cart. He awakes in the afterlife, where he learns that heaven is not a destination. It's a place where your life is explained to you by five people, some of whom you knew, others who may have been strangers. One by one, from childhood to soldier to old age, Eddie's five people revisit their connections to him on earth, illuminating the mysteries of his "meaningless" life, and revealing the haunting secret behind the eternal question: "Why was I here" Personal Details Collection Status In Collection Index 10 Read It Yes Links Amazon US Product Details LoC Classification PS3601.L335F59 2003 Dewey 813/.6

6
ANGELS & DEMONS
Dan Brown
Cover of ANGELS & DEMONS

ANGELS & DEMONS

by Dan Brown · Atria

10 wks on list

World renowned harvard symbologist Robert Langdon must uncover clues that point to the resurgance of an ancient secret society.

7
2
A DEATH IN VIENNA
Daniel Silva
Cover of A DEATH IN VIENNA

A DEATH IN VIENNA

by Daniel Silva · Putnam

2 wks on list

Hero Gabriel Allon is a restorer of paintings and frescoes and also a reluctant member of Israeli intelligence. Action and suspense abound in this serious fiction with a serious purpose.

9
NEW
AIN'T SHE SWEET?
Susan Elizabeth Phillips
Cover of AIN'T SHE SWEET?

AIN'T SHE SWEET?

by Susan Elizabeth Phillips · Morrow

In high school Sugar Carey had reigned supreme. She alone had decided what or who was cool. Her spiral perm had been the perm against which all others were measured, and her opinion on which boys were acceptable to date the only one that counted. A beautiful, blonde - if not always benevolent - dictator, she had a reputation for being the wild child in her home town, the girl most likely to set the world on fire, and leave a trail of destruction in her wake. When she left home she swore she'd never return. Only now, fifteen years and several husbands later, she's run out of money, luck and options. But Sugar arrives back home to discover that everyone else is living her life. Her half sister is married to Sugar's high school sweetheart, the teacher she schemed to get fired is now a successful novelist and owns her old house. She also discovers that people have long memories - especially where Sugar is concerned

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1
THE BIRTH OF VENUS
Sarah Dunant
Cover of THE BIRTH OF VENUS

THE BIRTH OF VENUS

by Sarah Dunant · Random House

3 wks on list

Alessandra Cecchi is not quite fifteen when her father, a prosperous cloth merchant, brings a young painter back from northern Europe to decorate the chapel walls in the family’s Florentine palazzo. A child of the Renaissance, with a precocious mind and a talent for drawing, Alessandra is intoxicated by the painter’s abilities. But their burgeoning relationship is interrupted when Alessandra’s parents arrange her marriage to a wealthy, much older man. Meanwhile, Florence is changing, increasingly subject to the growing suppression imposed by the fundamentalist monk Savonarola, who is seizing religious and political control. Alessandra and her native city are caught between the Medici state, with its love of luxury, learning, and dazzling art, and the hellfire preaching and increasing violence of Savonarola’s reactionary followers. Played out against this turbulent backdrop, Alessandra’s married life is a misery, except for the surprising freedom it allows her to pursue her powerful attraction to the young painter and his art. The Birth of Venus is a tour de force, the first historical novel from one of Britain’s most innovative writers of literary suspense. It brings alive the history of Florence at its most dramatic period, telling a compulsively absorbing story of love, art, religion, and power through the passionate voice of Alessandra, a heroine with the same vibrancy of spirit as her beloved city.

11
NEW
THE IDEAL BRIDE
Stephanie Laurens
Cover of THE IDEAL BRIDE

THE IDEAL BRIDE

by Stephanie Laurens · Morrow

1 wks on list

The "New York Times" bestselling author continues her beloved Cynster series. When the dashing, politically driven Michael Anstruther-Wetherby, seeks a wife, he sets his sights on an ideal candidate. But Michael soon finds himself enchanted by her strong-willed young aunt instead. Original.

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1
ABSOLUTE FRIENDS
John le Carré
Cover of ABSOLUTE FRIENDS

ABSOLUTE FRIENDS

by John le Carré · Little, Brown

8 wks on list

Carre's eloquent indignation at what he sees as a duplicitous war in Iraq and the devious means employed to tarnish those who oppose it is turned into a fictional account of two former spies trying to do right in a post-Cold War world.

Historical bestseller data sourced from the New York Times Book Review, archived by Hawes Publications.