NONFICTION
1. FAST-FOOD NATION, by Eric Schlosser (Harper Collins, $13.95). Feces in the meat and the unsavory secret of Secret Sauce are but two of the revelations sizzling herein.
2. STUPID WHITE MEN, by Michael Moore (Regan Books, $24.95). Comic iconoclast Moore skewers, bar-becues, and gleefully humiliates the Washington power elite.
3. NEW SANDY KOUFAX, by Jane Leavy (HarperCollins, $23.95). A hero-worshipping biography of the pitcher whom many claim to be baseball’s greatest-ever southpaw.
4. NEW MORE GEORGE W. BUSHISMS, by George W. Bush, Jacob Weisberg (editor) (Fireside, $9.95). First he destroyed the electoral process, now he’s disemboweling the English language: What’s next on Dubya’s agenda?
5. THE BOTANY OF DESIRE, by Michael Pollan (Random House, $13.95). A plant’s-eye view of humanity’s struggle to control nature.
6. NEW A COOK’S TOUR, by Anthony Bourdain (Ecco, $14.95). Sampling cultures as if they were appetizers, a celebrity gourmand traipses the globe.
7. NEW SECRETS: A MEMOIR OF VIETNAM AND THE PENTAGON PAPERS, by Daniel Ellsberg (Viking, $29.95). Ellsberg traces his epic path from gung-ho Cold Warrior to heroic burglar in this tell-all.
8. THE ONION: AD NAUSEAM, by Robert Siegel, et al. (Three Rivers, $17). More and more and more un-PC social satire from the beloved faux newspaper.
9. NICKEL AND DIMED, by Barbara Ehrenreich (Owl, $13). A middle-class author pretended to be poor so as to describe poor people’s struggles to middle-class readers.
10. A HEARTBREAKING WORK OF STAGGERING GENIUS, by David Eggers (Vintage, $14). Sad but true and oh-so-ambitious is this tale of orphans and Gen-X ennui.
FICTION
1. YOU SHALL KNOW OUR VELOCITY, by Dave Eggers (McSweeney’s, $22). This intentionally hard-to-find epic sees two grieving globetrotters doling out piles of unwanted cash.
2. BEL CANTO, by Ann Patchett (Harper, $13.95). This offbeat epic follows South American terrorists who seize an embassy, a Japanese industrialist, and an opera singer.
3. THE LOVELY BONES, by Alice Sebold (Little, Brown, $24.95). Narrated by a murdered girl watching her family from heaven, this debut effort plumbs the outer reaches of emotion.
4. NEW THE CARNIVOROUS CARNIVAL, by Lemony Snicket, Brett Helquist (illustrator) (Harper Collins, $10.99). Their latest disastrous adventure sees the Baudelaire kids in disguise as circus freaks to outwit a sinister villain.
5. THE CORRECTIONS, by Jonathan Franzen (Picador, $15). On the downward slide of dementia, a patriarch presides over the tragicomic misadventures of a modern family.
6. SUMMERLAND, by Michael Chabon (Miramax, $22.95). Adults are snapping up this self-conscious, baseball-themed Narnia knockoff, seemingly unconcerned that it’s a kids’ book.
7. NEW THE LITTLE FRIEND, by Donna Tartt (Knopf, $26). Tartt’s long-awaited second novel, in which kids try to solve the murder of a kid, evokes Nancy Drew and Tennessee Williams.
8. BALZAC AND THE LITTLE CHINESE SEAMSTRESS, by Dai Sijie (Anchor, $10). During China’s Cultural Revolution, two boys discover literature and love.
9. EMPIRE FALLS, by Richard Russo (Vintage, $14.95). A dysfunctional cast of colorful characters spirals toward oblivion in a dilapidated and dying New England mill town.
10. PEACE LIKE A RIVER, by Leif Enger (Grove, $13). Breakthrough debut novel of a family on the lam in Kennedy-era Minnesota serves as a paean to Midwestern value.