Nestled among the Oprah-anointed tomes and glossy self-help books is this season's sleeper. Quietly dwelling in the charts (16 pressruns have about 175,000 copies in print) after a modest publicity campaign, Simon Winchester's latest is the story of two men instrumental in the making of the Oxford English Dictionary. The hook? One of them contributed his entries while in an asylum for murder. Hmmm...maybe it's Oprah fodder after all.
FICTION WEEKS ON LIST
1 A MAN IN FULL Tom Wolfe, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $28.95 4 2 THE SIMPLE TRUTH David Baldacci, Warner, $25 2 3 WHEN THE WIND BLOWS James Patterson, Little, Brown, $25 5 4 BAG OF BONES Stephen King, Scribner, $28 10 5 RAINBOW SIX Tom Clancy, Putnam, $27.95 17 6 MIRROR IMAGE Danielle Steel, Delacorte, $26.95 4 7 THE VAMPIRE ARMAND Anne Rice, Knopf, $26.95 7 8 ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT Mary Higgins Clark, Simon & Schuster, $17 7 9 THE PATH OF DAGGERS Robert Jordan, Tor, $27.95 6 10 THE POISONWOOD BIBLE Barbara Kingsolver, HarperCollins, $27.50 8 NONFICTION
1 TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE Mitch Albom, Doubleday, $19.95 57 2 THE CENTURY Peter Jennings and Todd Brewster, Doubleday, $60 2 3 THE 9 STEPS TO FINANCIAL FREEDOM Suze Orman, Crown, $23 37 4 FOR THE LOVE OF THE GAME Michael Jordan, Crown, $50 5 5 CONVERSATIONS WITH GOD, BOOK 3 Neale Donald Walsch, Hampton Roads, $22.95 3 6 IF LIFE IS A GAME, THESE ARE THE RULES Cherie Carter-Scott, Broadway, $15 11 7 SOMETHING MORE Sarah Ban Breathnach, Warner, $20 7 8 ONE DAY MY SOUL JUST OPENED UP Iyanla Vanzant, Simon & Schuster, $13 4 9 IN THE MEANTIME Iyanla Vanzant, Simon & Schuster, $23 34 10 THE PROFESSOR AND THE MADMAN Simon Winchester, HarperCollins, $20 6
TRADE PAPERBACKS
1 CHICKEN SOUP FOR THE TEENAGE SOUL II J. Canfield, M.V. Hansen, and K. Kirberger, Health Communications, $12.95 7 2 MIDWIVES Chris Bohjalian, Vintage, $13 5 3 CHICKEN SOUP FOR THE TEENAGE SOUL J. Canfield, M.V. Hansen, and K. Kirberger, Health Communications, $12.95 76 4 DIVINE SECRETS OF THE YA-YA SISTERHOOD Rebecca Wells, HarperPerennial, $13.50 43 5 DON'T SWEAT THE SMALL STUFF Dr. Richard Carlson, Hyperion, $10.95 86 SOURCE: PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
