Best sellers

1. THE HELP, by Kathryn Stockett. (Amy Einhorn/Putnam, $24.95.) A young white woman and two black maids in 1960s Mississippi.

2. THE FIRST RULE, by Robert Crais. (Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated, $26.95.) Elvis Cole and his partner, Joe Pike, set out to clear the reputation of a former military contractor who has been murdered.

3. THE LOST SYMBOL, by Dan Brown. (Doubleday, $29.95.) Robert Langdon among the Masons.

4. THE SWAN THIEVES, by Elizabeth Kostova. (Little, Brown, $26.99.) A psychiatrist who treats a man who slashed a canvas in the National Gallery is drawn into the world of French Impressionism; from the author of "The Historian."

5. THE LAST SONG, by Nicholas Sparks. (Grand Central, $24.99.) A 17-year-old girl spends the summer with her divorced father in North Carolina and finds many kinds of love.

6(x). I, ALEX CROSS, by James Patterson. (Little, Brown, $27.99.) Tracking the murderer of a relative, Alex Cross discovers a wild Washington scene with explosive secrets.

7. IMPACT, by Douglas Preston. (Forge, $25.99.) Scientists race to defuse a doomsday weapon pointed at Earth from one of the moons of Mars.

9(x). NOAH'S COMPASS, by Anne Tyler. (Knopf, $25.95.) A retired teacher with a head injury struggles to regain his memory and his engagement in life.

10. DEEPER THAN THE DEAD, by Tami Hoag. (Dutton, $26.95.) An FBI investigator and a teacher track a series of murders in California in 1985.

11(x). THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE, by Stieg Larsson. (Knopf, $25.95.) A Swedish hacker becomes a murder suspect.

1. GAME CHANGE, by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin. (Harper/HarperCollins, $27.99.) Behind the scenes at the 2008 election with Barack Obama, Bill and Hillary Clinton, John and Elizabeth Edwards, John McCain and Sarah Palin.

2. COMMITTED, by Elizabeth Gilbert. (Viking, $26.95.) The author of "Eat, Pray, Love" wrestles with, and overcomes, her ambivalence about marriage.

4. GOING ROGUE, by Sarah Palin. (Harper/HarperCollins, $28.99.) A memoir by the former Alaska governor and vice presidential candidate.

5. STONES INTO SCHOOLS, by Greg Mortenson. (Viking, $26.95.) Building schools, many of them for girls, in northeast Afghanistan; takes up where "Three Cups of Tea" left off.

6. OUTLIERS, by Malcolm Gladwell. (Little, Brown, $27.99.) Why some people succeed, from the author of "Blink."

7. THE CHECKLIST MANIFESTO, by Atul Gawande. (Metropolitan/Holt, $24.50.) Following checklists makes surgery safer and other activities more efficient, a doctor argues.

8. SUPERFREAKONOMICS, by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner. (Morrow/HarperCollins, $29.99.) A scholar and a journalist apply economic thinking to everything: the sequel.

10. WHAT THE DOG SAW, by Malcolm Gladwell. (Little, Brown, $27.99.) A decade of New Yorker essays.

1. THE MAYO CLINIC DIET, by the Mayo Clinic staff. (Good Books, $25.99.) Adopting healthy new habits and breaking unhealthy old ones.

2. THE HAPPINESS PROJECT, by Gretchen Rubin. (Harper/HarperCollins, $25.99.) A year spent focusing on the things that really matter.

3. YOU: ON A DIET, by Michael Roizen and Mehmet Oz et al. (Free Press, $26.99.) Weight-loss tips and recipes; a revised edition.

4. THE FULL PLATE DIET, by Stuart Seale, Teresa Sherard and Diana Fleming. (Bard Press, $19.95.) Keeping portions large but calories low with high-fiber eating.