San Francisco Chronicle Best-Sellers March 1

This week FICTION Bay Area Last week Weeks on list
1 THE GUERNSEY LITERARY AND POTATO PEEL PIE SOCIETY, Shaffer and Barrows (The Dial Press; 277 pages; $22): An English author corresponds with members of a literary club.

2 FOOL, Christopher Moore (William Morrow; 336 pages; $26.99): A re-imagining of Shakespeare's "King Lear" as told by Lear's jester; by the author of "Lamb" and "You Suck."

3 CUTTING FOR STONE, Abraham Verghese (Knopf; 560 pages; $26.95): An epic novel about conjoined twins, separated at birth, who become doctors on different continents.

4 THE ASSOCIATE, John Grisham (Doubleday; 384 pages; $27.95): A young lawyer with a dark secret is forced to take a job in a prestigious New York law firm.

5 THE WOMEN, T.C. Boyle (Viking; 464 pages; $27.95): An account of Frank Lloyd Wright's life as told through the experiences of the four women who loved him.

6 AMONG THE MAD, Jacqueline Winspear (Henry Holt; 320 pages; $25): Detective Maisie Dobbs joins Scotland Yard to search for a man who is threatening to kill thousands of people in 1930s London.

7 BREAKING DAWN, Stephenie Meyer (Little, Brown; 768 pages; $22.99): The final book in the Twilight saga reveals Edward and Bella's fate.

8 LITTLE BEE, Chris Cleave (Simon & Schuster; 288 pages; $24): A British couple encounter two orphan girls fleeing from soldiers on a Nigerian Beach.

9 THE VAGRANTS, Yiyun Li (Random House; 352 pages; $25): A portrait of the lives of the residents of Muddy River, China, after a former Red Guard leader is executed.

10 THE STORY OF EDGAR SAWTELLE, David Wroblewski (Ecco; 576 pages; $25.95): A mute boy and his dogs are forced to flee into the wilderness after a family tragedy.

This week FICTION National Last week Weeks on list
1 THE ASSOCIATE, John Grisham 1 3
2 RUN FOR YOUR ..., Patterson and Ledwidge 2 2
3 THE HOST, Stephenie Meyer 4 40
4 FOOL, Christopher Moore - 1
5 BONE CROSSED, Patricia Briggs 3 2
6 TRUE COLORS, Kristin Hannah 5 2
7 THE STORY OF EDGAR ..., D. Wroblewski 6 36
8 THE GUERNSEY ..., Shaffer and Barrows 8 22
9 PLUM SPOOKY, Janet Evanovich 7 6
10 VERY VALENTINE, Adriana Trigiani 9 2
This week NONFICTION Bay Area Last week Weeks on list
1 OUTLIERS, Malcolm Gladwell (Little, Brown; 320 pages; $27.99): The author of "The Tipping Point" discusses what makes high achievers different.

2 THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS 2009, Barack Obama (Penguin; 112 pages; $12): Includes Obama's inaugural address, Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg and second inaugural addresses and Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay "Self-Reliance."

3 THE YANKEE YEARS, Joe Torre and Tom Verducci (Doubleday; 412 pages; $26.95): The team's former manager chronicles his time in New York.

4 HOW WE DECIDE, Jonah Lehrer (Houghton Mifflin; 256 pages; $25): Lehrer discusses how we make decisions and how we can be better at it.

5 ANGELS AND AGES, Adam Gopnik (Knopf; 224 pages; $24.95): A comparison of Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln and how they changed the world.

6 THE GAMBLE, Thomas E. Ricks (Penguin; 400 pages; $27.95): The Washington Post correspondent reveals behind-the-scenes disagreements between top commanders.

7 IN DEFENSE OF FOOD, Michael Pollan (Penguin Group; 256 pages; $21.95): A manifesto on how to make healthy food choices and enjoy eating.

8 DEWEY, Vicki Myron and Bret Witter (Grand Central Publishing; 288 pages; $19.99): The story of an abandoned kitten that became the library cat of Spencer, Iowa.

9 LISTEN TO THE WIND, Greg Mortenson and Susan Roth (Dial; 32 pages; $16.99): The children's picture book version of Mortenson's "Three Cups of Tea."

10 THE PROGRESSIVE REVOLUTION, Michael Lux (Wiley; 256 pages; $25.95): A history of the progressive movement in the United States.

This week NONFICTION National Last week Weeks on list
1 THE YANKEE YEARS, Torre and Verducci 1 2
2 OUTLIERS, Malcolm Gladwell 2 13
3 DEWEY, Vicki Myron and Bret Witter 3 22
4 A SLOBBERING LOVE AFFAIR, B. Goldberg 4 3
5 MULTIPLE BLESSINGS, Jon Gosselin, et al 5 17
6 THE GAMBLE, Thomas E. Ricks - 1
7 THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS ..., B. Obama - 2
8 GUILTY, Ann Coulter 6 6
9 A BOLD FRESH PIECE ..., Bill O'Reilly 8 19
10 A. LINCOLN, Ronald C. White Jr. - 1
This week PAPERBACKS Bay Area Last week Weeks on list
1 THREE CUPS OF TEA, Mortenson and Relin (Penguin; 349 pages; $15): Greg Mortenson builds schools in Pakistan after villagers rescued him following his failed attempt to climb K2.

2 THE ELEGANCE OF THE HEDGEHOG, Muriel Barbery (Europa Editions; 336 pages; $15): Two residents of an apartment building in Paris find they're kindred spirits.

3 THE BRIEF WONDROUS LIFE OF OSCAR WAO, Junot Díaz (Riverhead Trade; 352 pages; $14): The coming-of-age story of a sci-fi-obsessed first-generation Dominican American geek.

4 THE WHITE TIGER, Aravind Adiga (Free Press; 304 pages; $14): A chauffeur in India writes letters to the Chinese premier confessing to the murder of his employer.

5 NEW MOON, Stephenie Meyer (Little, Brown; 608 pages; $10.99): Bella falls for a werewolf friend after splitting up with her vampire boyfriend in the second book of the Twilight saga.

6 DREAMS FROM MY FATHER, Barack Obama (Three Rivers; 480 pages; $14.95): A memoir exploring Obama's understanding of himself, race and class through his family's history.

7 OUT STEALING HORSES, Per Petterson (Picador; 256 pages; $14): A man in a self-imposed exile recalls the childhood summer that changed his life forever.

8 THE GLASS BOOKS OF THE DREAM EATERS, VOLUME ONE, Gordon Dahlquist (Bantam; 480 pages; $12): A jilted woman looks into the disappearance of her fiance in this Victorian thriller.

9 BEAUTIFUL CHILDREN, Charles Bock (Random House Trade Paperbacks; 432 pages; $14): An angry 12-year-old boy goes out with an older friend and mysteriously disappears in Las Vegas.

10 LET THE RIGHT ONE IN, John Ajvide Lindqvist ($15.95): A bullied schoolboy living in a Stockholm suburb befriends a teenage vampire neighbor.

This week PAPERBACKS National Weeks on list
FICTION
1 THE SHACK, William P. Young 39
2 THE READER, Bernhard Schlink 11
3 SUNDAYS AT ..., Patterson and Charbonnet 6
4 FIREFLY LANE, Kristin Hannah 6
5 REVOLUTIONARY ROAD, Richard Yates 11
NONFICTION
1 DREAMS FROM MY FATHER, Barack Obama 135
2 THREE CUPS OF TEA, Mortenson and Relin 107
3 TEAM OF RIVALS, Doris Kearns Goodwin 29
4 THE AUDACITY OF HOPE, Barack Obama 60
5 I HOPE THEY SERVE BEER ..., Tucker Max 72