With names like sparks, Crichton, and Baldacci dominating the fiction list, readers recuperating from holiday excess seem to be relying on breezy escapism to ease into the new year. So it seems fitting that Atlantis Found, the latest installment of Clive Cussler's undersea adventure series (starring the evocatively named Dirk Pitt), is docked at No. 1. Though the credibility of his maritime characters has been politely described as ''tenuous,'' Cussler's trademark potboiler antics -- improbable natural disasters, scientific-sounding rants, and clunky dialogue among them -- don't seem to bother his fans: Three pressruns have more than 750,000 copies of the novel in print.
FICTION WEEKS ON LIST
1 ATLANTIS FOUND Clive Cussler, Putnam, $26.95 1 2 TIMELINE Michael Crichton, Knopf, $26.95 4 3 A WALK TO REMEMBER Nicholas Sparks, Warner, $19.95 10 4 HUNTING BADGER Tony Hillerman, HarperCollins, $26 5 5 SAVING FAITH David Baldacci, Warner, $26.95 5 6 POP GOES THE WEASEL James Patterson, Little, Brown, $26.95 8 7 PLAINSONG Kent Haruf, Knopf, $24 9 8 MONSTER Jonathan Kellerman, Random House, $25.95 1 9 IRRESISTIBLE FORCES Danielle Steel, Delacorte, $26.95 6 10 HEARTS IN ATLANTIS Stephen King, Scribner, $28 13
NONFICTION
1 TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE Mitch Albom, Doubleday, $19.95 110 2 THE GREATEST GENERATION SPEAKS Tom Brokaw, Random House, $19.95 2 3 THE GREATEST GENERATION Tom Brokaw, Random House, $24.95 48 4 LIFE: OUR CENTURY IN PICTURES Edited by Richard B. Stolley, Little, Brown/Bulfinch, $60 4 5 HAVE A NICE DAY! Mick Foley, ReganBooks, $25 8 6 GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS 2000: MILLENNIUM EDITION Guinness Publishing, $25 13 7 'TIS Frank McCourt, Scribner, $26 12 8 THE CENTURY Peter Jennings and Todd Brewster, Doubleday, $60 28 9 AND THE CROWD GOES WILD Joe Garner, Sourcebooks, $49.95 3 10 WHEN PRIDE STILL MATTERED David Maraniss, Simon & Schuster, $26 11
MASS-MARKET PAPERBACKS
1 THE GREEN MILE Stephen King, Pocket, $7.99 7 2 JEWELS OF THE SUN Nora Roberts, Jove, $7.50 4 3 SOUTHERN CROSS Patricia Cornwell, Berkley, $7.99 1 4 ANGELA'S ASHES Frank McCourt, S&S/Touchstone, $7.99 3 5 SEIZE THE NIGHT Dean Koontz, Bantam, $7.99 2 6 THE CARBOHYDRATE ADDICT'S DIET Richard F. Heller and Rachael F. Heller, Signet, $6.99 10 7 TOM CLANCY'S POWER PLAYS: SHADOW WATCH Tom Clancy and Martin Greenberg, Berkley, $7.99 5 8 DR. ATKINS' NEW DIET REVOLUTION Robert C. Atkins, M.D., Avon, $6.50 150 9 THE HAMMER OF EDEN Ken Follett, Fawcett, $7.99 6 10 INTO THE GARDEN V.C. Andrews, Pocket, $7.99 2
SOURCE: PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
