THE LIST: DVDS, CDS AND BOOKS HITTING STORES THIS WEEK

DVDS

"The Last King of Scotland" (R) Forest Whitaker won the best actor Oscar for his performance as Idi Amin in this fictionalized story about power and corruption, based on the novel by journalist Giles Foden and directed by Kevin Macdonald.

Also available today: "Freedom Writers" (PG-13); "Notes on a Scandal" (R); "Smokin' Aces" (R); "Off the Black" (R); "National Lampoon's Pucked" (R); "Larry King Live: The Greatest Interviews" (Unrated); "Spider-Man 2.1: Unrated, Extended Cut" (Unrated); "MXC: Most Extreme Elimination Challenge: Season Two" (Unrated); "Laverne & Shirley: The Second Season" (Unrated); "Happy Days: The Second Season" (Unrated); "Foxworthy's Big Night Out" (Unrated).

CDS

Nine Inch Nails mainman Trent Reznor always has viewed his surroundings through the fractured lens of alienation and self-contempt.

But on his band's latest disc, the caustic, cutting "Year Zero," he broadens his worldview en route to creating NIN's most socially conscious effort yet.

A soot-black concept album revolving around the fall of mankind in a futuristic society, the disc is a grim, punishing affair that offsets brutal soundscapes with stabbing electronic funk. It all adds up to a disc as harsh as modern times.

Also in stores today: James Brown, Marvin Gaye, Diana Ross & The Supremes, The Temptations, "Number 1's"; Bucky Covington, "Bucky Covington"; The Cowboy Junkies, "At the End of Paths Taken"; Avril Lavigne, "The Best Damn Thing"; Lumidee, "Unexpected"; Melee, "Devils & Angels"; Michael Penn, "Palms and Runes: Best of Michael Penn"; Paul Rodgers, "Live in Glasgow"; Ryan Shaw, "This Is Ryan Shaw"; Soundtrack, "Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof"; Pam Tillis, "Rhinestoned"; Various, "The Road Mix: Music From the Television Series One Tree Hill Volume 3"; Clay Walker, "Fall."

BOOKS

"The Good Husband of Zebra Drive" (Pantheon) by Alexander McCall Smith, the eighth in the "No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" series, follows the further adventures of Precious Ramotswe of Botswana as she investigates deaths at local hospital, a husband who may or may not be cheating on his wife and theft at a print shop.

Also out today: "The Woods" (Dutton) by Harlan Coben; "Lies" (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday) by Enrique de Heriz; "The Children of Hurin" (Houghton Mifflin) by J.R.R. Tolkien, Christopher Tolkien (Editor) and Alan Lee (Illustrator); "Laced" (Scribner) by Carol Higgins Clark; and "Where Have All the Leaders Gone?" (Scribner) by Lee Iacocca and Catherine Whitney.