FICTION
1. LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA
by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Vintage International
A Colombian poet's love for a woman is tested.
2. WATER FOR ELEPHANTS
by Sara Gruen
Algonquin
A young man and an elephant save a Depression-era circus.
3. THE KITE RUNNER
by Khaled Hosseini
Riverhead
An Afghan-American returns to Kabul to learn how a friend has fared under the Taliban.
4. MIDDLESEX
by Jeffrey Eugenides
Picador
An epic story about three generations of Greek-Americans, told by an hermaphrodite.
5. THE MEMORY KEEPER'S DAUGHTER
by Kim Edwards
Penguin
A doctor's decision to secretly send his newborn daughter, who has Down syndrome, to an institution haunts everyone involved.
6. THE EMPEROR'S CHILDREN
by Claire Messud
Vintage
Privileged 30-somethings try to make their way in literary New York just before Sept. 11.
7. SUITE FRANCAISE
by Irene Nemirovsky
Vintage
Two novellas, which came to light more than 50 years after the author's death at Auschwitz, about life in France under the Nazis.
8. THE PARTING
by Beverly Lewis
Bethany House
A rift in an Amish community threatens to keep a courting couple apart.
9. THE ALCHEMIST
by Paulo Coelho
HarperSanFrancisco
A tale about the lessons a Spanish shepherd boy learns during his travels to Egypt in search of treasure.
10. THE ROAD
by Cormac McCarthy
Vintage
A father and son travel in post-apocalypse America.
11. THE BOLEYN INHERITANCE
by Philippa Gregory
Touchstone
Politics and treachery in the court of King Henry VIII.
12. SNOW FLOWER AND THE
SECRET FAN
by Lisa See
Random House
The lives of two women in 19th-century China.
13. DEAR JOHN
by Nicholas Sparks,
Warner
An unlikely romance between a soldier and an idealistic young woman is tested in the aftermath of Sept. 11.
NONFICTION
1. EAT, PRAY, LOVE
by Elizabeth Gilbert
Penguin Books
A writer's yearlong journey in search of self takes her to Italy, India and Indonesia.
2. INTO THE WILD
by Jon Krakauer
Anchor
How a young man's obsession with the wilderness had a tragic end.
3. 90 MINUTES IN HEAVEN
by Don Piper with Cecil Murphey
Revell
A minister on the otherworldly experience he had after an accident.
4. THE GLASS CASTLE
by Jeannette Walls
Scribner
The author recalls a bizarre childhood during which she and her siblings were constantly moved from one bleak place to another.
5. THREE CUPS OF TEA
by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
Penguin Books
A former climber builds schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
6. THE WORLD IS FLAT
by Thomas Friedman
Picador
An updated edition of the New York Times columnist's analysis of 21st-century economics and foreign policy.
7. THE LIFE AND TIMES OF
THE THUNDERBOLT KID
by Bill Bryson
Broadway
The author, who as a child in Iowa dreamed he was a superhero, uses this persona to bring to life 1950s Des Moines.
8. THUNDERSTRUCK
by Erik Larson
Three Rivers
Intertwined stories of early-20th-century murder and scientific intrigue.
9. AN UNQUIET MIND
by Kay Redfield Jamison
Vintage
A professor of psychiatry recalls her struggle with manic depression.
10. THE OMNIVORE'S DILEMMA
by Michael Pollan
Penguin
Tracking dinner from the soil to the plate, a journalist juggles appetite and conscience.
11. THE TIPPING POINT
by Malcolm Gladwell
Back Bay/Little, Brown
A journalist's study of social epidemics, otherwise known as fads.
12. THE LOOMING TOWER
by Lawrence Wright
Vintage
The road to Sept. 11 as seen through the lives of terrorist planners and the FBI counterterrorism chief who died in the attacks.
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