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The Da Vinci Code has been knocked off, finally, from the #1 spot on the L.A. Times fiction bestseller list. The Rule of Four by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason has moved up from #2. Don't expect the Da Vinci paperback to land any day soon though. Dan Brown's thriller only fell one notch and has been somewhere on the LAT list for 68 weeks; Brown's Angels & Demons tops the paperback bestsellers. On the other coast, The Da Vinci Code had slipped to #2 on the New York Times list last week, but returned to #1 again today by trading places with James Patterson's Sam's Letters to Jennifer.
The Sunday NYT also revisits the case of Jeopardy wunderbrain Ken Jennings, and quotes a cognition scientist noting that while he's probably no genius, Jennings is playing with so much confidence now (after 33 wins and more than $1 million) that "he's going to have to have a terrible day for someone to beat him." Also in the Sunday NYT, Los Angeles Magazine senior editor R.J. Smith chronicles the musical tributes to the late Elliott Smith.