Washington Area's Top Titles

HARDCOVER FICTION

1 THE HELP (Amy Einhorn, $24.95)
By Kathryn Stockett. A frank chronicle of the lives of several black maids working in a town in 1960s Miss. (31)

2 WORST CASE (Little, Brown, $27.99)
By James Patterson & Michael Ledwidge. A serial killer targets the children of NYC's most affluent families. (3)

3 THE LOST SYMBOL (Doubleday, $29.95)
By Dan Brown. Masonic lore figures prominently in this sequel to "The Da Vinci Code"; set in D.C. (23)

4 WINTER GARDEN (St. Martin's, $26.99)
By Kristin Hannah. A father's death drives two sisters' discovery of their Russian-born mother's scarred past. (3)

5 THE MAN FROM BEIJING (Knopf, $25.95)
By Henning Mankell. A massacre in a remote Swedish hamlet is traced to China, slavery and the opening of the American West. (1)

6 POOR LITTLE BITCH GIRL (St. Martin's, $26.99)
By Jackie Collins. A spoiled heiress finds herself back in LA after her mom's murder. The suspect is her dad. (2)

7 THE POSTMISTRESS (Amy Einhorn, $25.95)
By Sarah Blake. The specter of war in Europe draws together the lives of three different women in 1940. (2)

8 MIDNIGHT HOUSE (Putnam, $25.95)
By Alex Berenson. CIA agent John Wells is enlisted to stop an assassin targeting a disbanded secret unit. (2)

9 BRAVA, VALENTINE (Harper, $25.99)
By Adriana Trigiani. Shoe designer Val Roncalli is in for some surprises in this "Very Valentine" sequel. (2)

10 THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE
(Knopf, $25.95). By Stieg Larsson. Sex trafficking between Sweden and Eastern Europe is exposed. (10)

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1 GAME CHANGE: OBAMA AND THE CLINTONS, MCCAINAND PALIN, AND THE RACE OF A LIFETIME
(Harper, $27.99). By John Heilemann & Mark Halperin (6)

2 DRIVE: THE SURPRISING TRUTH ABOUT WHATMOTIVATES US
(Riverhead, $26.95). By Daniel H. Pink. A look by the New Economy expert. (3)

3 THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS
(Crown, $26). By Rebecca Skloot. The shocking story of a stem cell theft in 1951 and the HeLa cell line. (3)

4 ON THE BRINK: INSIDE THE RACE TO STOP THECOLLAPSE OF THE GLOBAL FINANCIAL SYSTEM
(Business Plus, $28.99). By Henry M.Paulson, Jr. (3)

5 THE POLITICIAN: AN INSIDER'S ACCOUNT OFJOHN EDWARDS'S PURSUIT OF THE PRESIDENCY .....
(Thomas Dunne, $24.99). By Andrew Young (4)

6 COMMITTED: A SKEPTIC MAKES PEACE WITH MARRIAGE
(Viking, $26.95). By Elizabeth Gilbert. Picking up where "Eat, Pray, Love" left off. (7)

7 YOU SAY MORE THAN YOU THINK: USE THE NEW BODYLANGUAGE TO GET WHAT YOU WANT!
(Crown, $25). By Janine Driver with Mariska van Aalst (1)

8 SWITCH: HOW TO CHANGE THINGS WHEN CHANGE IS HARD
(Broadway Business, $26). By Chip Heath and Dan Heath. Anecdotal examples. (1)

9 THE BUSINESS OF HAPPINESS: 6 SECRETS TOEXTRAORDINARY SUCCESS IN WORK AND LIFE
(Regnery, $27.95). By Ted Leonsis with John Buckley (1)

10 STRENGTHSFINDER 2.0: ..... ONLINE TEST FROM GALLUP'S "NOW, DISCOVER YOUR STRENGTHS"
(Gallup, $21.95). By Tom Rath (11)

Rankings reflect sales for the week ended Feb. 21, 2010. The charts may not be reproduced without permission from Nielsen BookScan. Copyright © 2010 by Nielsen BookScan. The number in parentheses at the end of each entry represents the number of weeks on Book World's bestseller list.