Fiction

1. “A Thousand Splendid Suns,” by Khaled Hosseini (Riverhead, $25.95). A friendship between two women in Afghanistan against the backdrop of 30 years of war.

2. “Double Cross,” by James Patterson (Little, Brown, $27.99). Alex Cross and his new girlfriend, a police detective, confront a Washington killer who boasts of his killings on his own Web site, as well as an old adversary who has escaped from prison.

3. “T is for Trespass,” by Sue Grafton (Putnam, $26.95). Kinsey Millhone must contend with a woman who has stolen a nurse’s identity in order to take advantage of Kinsey’s elderly neighbor.

4. “World Without End,” by Ken Follett (Dutton, $35). Love and intrigue in Kingsbridge, the medieval English cathedral town at the center of Follett’s “Pillars of the Earth.”

5. “The Darkest Evening of the Year,” by Dean Koontz (Bantam, $27). A woman who rescues golden retrievers and one special dog she takes in are shadowed by an evil stranger.

Nonfiction

1. “I Am America (And So Can You),” by Stephen Colbert, Richard Dahm, Paul Dinello and Allison Silverman (Grand Central, $26.99). The wit and wisdom of the mock pundit of Comedy Central’s “Colbert Report.”

2. “An Inconvenient Book,” by Glenn Beck and Kevin Balfe (Threshold Editions, $26). The conservative TV and talk-radio host offers his solutions to problems including global warming, poverty and political correctness.

3. “Born Standing Up,” by Steve Martin (Scribner, $25). Martin, now a writer and actor, recalls his years as a stand-up comedian, from the early 1960s to 1981, when he quit at the peak of his career.

4. “BOOM!,” by Tom Brokaw (Random House, $28.95). The retired news anchor recalls and assesses the 1960s.

5. “Clapton,” by Eric Clapton (Broadway Books, $26). The great guitarist looks back on his life and his music.