From last week's Book Sense bestseller lists, available at BookSense.com, here are the recommended titles, which are also Book Sense Picks:

Hardcover

Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name by Vendela Vida (Ecco, $23.95, 9780060828370/0060828374). "Clarissa Iverton learns that her father, who has just died, is not her father. A birth certificate that was hidden for years reveals that her birth father is a priest living in Lapland. Like her mother who left her 14 years ago, Clarissa abandons her fiancé to confront her past in Lapland, and, while living in perpetual cold among the indigenous people of the area, her mother's dark past is illuminated."--Mary Warner, Square Books, Oxford, Miss.

Dark Cosmos: In Search of Our Universe's Missing Mass and Energy by Dan Hooper (Collins, $24.95, 9780061130328/006113032X). "I think this may be most readable science book I've ever read. From the clandestine communications of Russian and American scientists during the cold war to the epic debates between Einstein and the proponents of Quantum Theory, Hooper really makes it easy to understand what theoretical physicists are looking for, even if they don't understand what might be lurking in the universe's nether regions."--Bill Terrance, Changing Hands Bookstore, Tempe, Ariz.

Paperback

The Colony: The Harrowing True Story of the Exiles of Molokai by John Tayman (Scribner, $16, 9780743233019/0743233018). "An adept and absorbing history of the most notorious island in the Hawaiian chain, Molokai, where lepers were forcibly exiled. The humanity and suffering of Molokai's lepers come across as clearly as a scream across the ages."--Jessica Friedlander, Bay Books, Monterey, Calif.

For Ages 4 to 8

Adele & Simon by Barbara McClintock (FSG, $16, 0374380449). "Intricate, painstaking, and charmingly old-fashioned watercolor illustrations invigorate this charming Parisian tale of a forgetful little boy and his older sister. For fans of Ludwig Bemelmans, especially!"--Myra Poe, Harry W. Schwartz Bookshop, Milwaukee, Wis.

[Many thanks to Book Sense and the ABA!]