TheBestseller
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Best Sellers

Hardcover Fiction

Week of October 24, 2004

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THE PLOT AGAINST AMERICA
Philip Roth
Cover of THE PLOT AGAINST AMERICA

THE PLOT AGAINST AMERICA

by Philip Roth · Houghton Mifflin

3 wks on list

ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES’S 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY “It's not a prophecy; it's a nightmare. . . . [A] sinuous and brilliant book, with its extreme sweetness, its black pain, and its low, ceaseless cackle.” —The New Yorker “Huge, inflammatory, painfully moving. . . .Far and away the most outward-looking, expansive. . . book Roth has written." —The Washington Post Book World “A terrific political novel. . . . sinister, vivid, dreamlike. . . creepily plausible." —The New York Times Book Review “Ambitous and chilling . . . a breathtaking leap of imagination. . . . The writing is brilliant.” —USA Today In an extraordinary feat of narrative invention, Philip Roth imagines an alternate history where Franklin D. Roosevelt loses the 1940 presidential election to heroic aviator and rabid isolationist Charles A. Lindbergh. Shortly thereafter, Lindbergh negotiates a cordial “understanding” with Adolf Hitler, while the new government embarks on a program of folksy anti-Semitism. For one boy growing up in Newark, Lindbergh’s election is the first in a series of ruptures that threatens to destroy his small, safe corner of America—and with it, his mother, his father, and his older brother.

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TRACE
Patricia Cornwell
Cover of TRACE

TRACE

by Patricia Cornwell · Putnam

5 wks on list

Since Postmortem garnered critical acclaim and a record-breaking five awards for a first crime novel, the Scarpetta novels have often been imitated, but never bettered. Against her own judgement and the advice of Benton Wesley and her niece, Lucy, Scarpetta agrees to return to Virginia as a consultant pathologist on a case involving the death of a fourteen-year-old girl. Accompanied by Pete Marino she finds the once familiar territory of her morgue and her department much changed, and the new Chief Medical Examiner treats her with disdain despite the obvious fact that he is in desperate need of her expertise. But professional as ever, she re-examines the evidence and proves the girl was murdered. She also finds trace evidence which matches that found on an accident victim and at the scene where one of Lucy's operatives was attacked. It is not only a forensic puzzle, but opens up the probability that someone is after those closest to Scarpetta. Visit the author's website at www.patriciacornwell.com

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

THE DA VINCI CODE

by Dan Brown · Doubleday

82 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)!

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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

55 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

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NIGHTS OF RAIN AND STARS
Maeve Binchy
Cover of NIGHTS OF RAIN AND STARS

NIGHTS OF RAIN AND STARS

by Maeve Binchy · Dutton

3 wks on list

Four strangers meet in a Greek taverna high above the small village of Aghia Anna. From Ireland, America, Germany and England, a shocking tragedy has thrown them unexpectedly together. Fiona is a young nurse, trying to make her family understand her need to follow her own path. Thomas misses his young son and fears that his ex-wife will come between them. Elsa abruptly left her career as a television presenter, but someone from her past refuses to let her go. And shy, quiet David is determined to make a stand against his overbearing father. With these four is Andreas, the taverna owner, who badly misses her son who left home nine years ago. This is the story of one summer and four people, each with a life in turmoil. With the help of Vonni, an Irish woman, they find solutions but not necessarily the ones they had anticipated.

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SHOPAHOLIC & SISTER
Sophie Kinsella
Cover of SHOPAHOLIC & SISTER

SHOPAHOLIC & SISTER

by Sophie Kinsella · Dial Press

2 wks on list

Rebecca is happily married to Luke. But suddenly into her life steps a sister, of whose existense Becky had been completely unaware. Becky is only too anxious to welcome Jessica into the family. There's only one snag - Jessica hates shopping

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THE SUNDAY PHILOSOPHY CLUB
Alexander McCall Smith
Cover of THE SUNDAY PHILOSOPHY CLUB

THE SUNDAY PHILOSOPHY CLUB

by Alexander McCall Smith · Pantheon

2 wks on list

BOOK ONE IN THE MUCH-LOVED ISABEL DALHOUSIE SERIES Isabel Dalhousie knows that behind Edinburgh's Georgian facades, its moral compasses spin with greed, dishonesty and lust. As a philosopher, editor of the Review of Applied Ethics and founder of the Sunday Philosophy Club, her business is to map the intricacies of human behaviour. But when she sees a man tumble from the balcony at the Usher Hall, it's her instinct that tells her strongly that he didn't fall: he was pushed. Isabel turns amateur sleuth in a bid to solve the mystery of the falling man, and what she lacks in official status she makes up for in contacts and informants, including her housekeeper Grace, her beautiful niece Cat, and Cat's ex-boyfriend Jamie, whose charms are causing Isabel to review her own ethics. PRAISE FOR THE ISABEL DALHOUSIE NOVELS: 'Isabel Dalhousie's charm is undeniable' Sunday Times 'The No. 2 Lady Detective . . . anyone who loves Precious cannot fail to be charmed' Mail on Sunday 'Delightful . . . McCall Smith is a writer who celebrates kindness, in short supply in the world today' Sunday Telegraph 'McCall Smith's greatest gift as a writer - and God knows this is just one of many - is that he can write likeable characters' New Statesman

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NEW
THE GIFT
Nora Roberts

THE GIFT

by Nora Roberts · Silhouette

1 wks on list
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NEW
LITTLE EARTHQUAKES
Jennifer Weiner

LITTLE EARTHQUAKES

by Jennifer Weiner · Atria

3 wks on list

Ayinde is a beautiful, biracial newscaster who moves to Philadelphia after her husband, a star player for the NBA, is traded to the 76ers. She meets Becky, an overweight chef who plays the "pregnant or just fat" game every time she passes a mirror, and Kelly, an overachieving event planner who has her whole life mapped out down to the most minute details, after going into labor at a prenatal yoga class. The three become fast friends, and come to rely on each other for everything from burping techniques to intense emotional support. The group grows to include Lia, a semi-famous Hollywood starlet who leaves her husband and returns to Philly after a sudden tragedy.

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THE RULE OF FOUR
Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason
Cover of THE RULE OF FOUR

THE RULE OF FOUR

by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason · Dial Press

22 wks on list

Tom Sullivan, about to graduate from Princeton, is haunted by the violent death of his father, an academic who devoted his life to studying one of the rarest, most complex and most valuable books in the world. Coded in seven languages, the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, an intricate mathematical mystery and a tale of love and arcane brutality, has baffled scholars since 1499. Tom's friend Paul is similarly obsessed and when a long-lost diary surfaces, they finally seem to make a breakthrough. But only hours later, a fellow researcher is murdered and the two friends suddenly find themselves in great danger. Working desperately to expose the book's secret, they slowly uncover a Renaissance tale of passion and blood, a hidden crypt and a secret worth dying to protect.

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ANY PLACE I HANG MY HAT
Susan Isaacs
Cover of ANY PLACE I HANG MY HAT

ANY PLACE I HANG MY HAT

by Susan Isaacs · Scribner

A New York Times Bestselling AuthorRaised by a shoplifting grandma after being abandoned by her parents, upscale political reporter Amy Lincoln can't resist the tabloid-worthy story she's just been handed: a student claims that a leading presidential candidate is his father.

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