1. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone 哈利波特 -- 神秘的魔法石
By J.K. Rowling
Mysterious letters lead the 11-year-old Harry Potter into a kingdom of sorcerers, who send their mail by owl messengers and travel on brooms.
2. Ruse of the Empty City 空城計
By Cheng Wen-chin (
A history of China's legendary minister Chu Ke-liang (諸葛亮) and his famous strategic tricks against enemies.
3. Say It To Your Heart
把話說到心窩裡
By Liu Yung (劉墉)
A meditation by the maestro of inspirational books -- this time about speech and the right ways to express yourself.
4. The Very First Love 給最初的愛
By Guang Yu (光禹)
The joys and travails of love, told through two diaries.
5. The Joy Express Train
幸福號列車
By Chang Man-chuan (張曼娟)
The famous author has started the Joy Express Train with her latest group of 50 short essays about love and happiness.
6. Happiness is a Choice, Really
選擇幸福,其實你可以
By Eric Wu (
A collection of essays on love, sex and the war between the sexes. Each essay is followed by some multiple choice tests.
7. Polish Your Wisdom With Humor 用幽默雕塑智慧
By Lai Shu-hui (
Laugh, and the world laughs with you; weep, and you weep alone. This book is a guide to spice up your life with humor.
8. Stray Bird (pocket edition)
漂鳥
By Rabindranath Tagore
Another Chinese rendering of Tagore's classic poetry collection.
9. Little Prince (pocket edition)
小王子
By Antoine De Saint-Exupery
(
A pocket-sized book with both Chinese and English translations of the story.
10. Find Your Own Happiness
快樂是自找的
By Chu Kai-lei (
Find the way to joy and happiness through the author's acute observations.
11. Life Is But an Amatory Idiocy: A Collection of Ancient Love Poems
人生自是有情癡:千古情詩選
By Ed. Hao Kuang-tsai (郝廣才)
A collection of love poems from around the world.
12. Follow Me to the End of the Horizon 跟我到天涯海角
By Wu Tan-ru (吳淡如)
A new release from the renowned essayist Wu Tan-ru about love, life, etc.
13. Soul Mountain 靈山
By Gao Xingjian (
A masterpiece from this year's winner of the Nobel Prize for literature chronicling a journey to southwestern China and the spiritual search that inspired the journey.
14. Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul 心靈雞湯 -- 少年話題
By Jack Canfield (傑克 坎非爾)
Another course of inspiration for youngsters, from the great Chicken Soup chef Jack Canfield.
15. Protein Girl 蛋白質女孩
By Wang Wen-hua (王文華)
A collection of humorous stories about two young men's quest for love and the loves they meet. First published in a literature column of the China Times.
16. Love Returns to the Beginning 愛回到最初
By Kuang Yu (
A collection of 42 essays about love, based on real people and true stories.
17. Every Day Is An Aerobic Day
天天都是有氧天
By Pan Tai-cheng (
A collection of inspirational stories and essays for urbanites.
18. The First Intimate Encounter 第一次的親密接觸
By Tsai Chih-heng (蔡智恆)
Another addition to an increasingly common genre of love stories in modern society: an Internet romance.
19. Waiting 等待
By Ha Jin (哈金)
Ha Jin's National Book Award-winning novel is the story of two lovers who wait 18 years to be married in China.
20. Aesop's Fables (Pocket edition) 伊索寓言
Another Chinese rendering of the eternal Aesop.
Source: Kingstone Books (
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
The following three paragraphs are just some of what the local Chinese-language press is reporting on breathlessly and following every twist and turn with the eagerness of a soap opera fan. For many English-language readers, it probably comes across as incomprehensibly opaque, so bear with me briefly dear reader: To the surprise of many, former pop singer and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ex-lawmaker Yu Tien (余天) of the Taiwan Normal Country Promotion Association (TNCPA) at the last minute dropped out of the running for committee chair of the DPP’s New Taipei City chapter, paving the way for DPP legislator Su
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby
It’s hard to know where to begin with Mark Tovell’s Taiwan: Roads Above the Clouds. Having published a travelogue myself, as well as having contributed to several guidebooks, at first glance Tovell’s book appears to inhabit a middle ground — the kind of hard-to-sell nowheresville publishers detest. Leaf through the pages and you’ll find them suffuse with the purple prose best associated with travel literature: “When the sun is low on a warm, clear morning, and with the heat already rising, we stand at the riverside bike path leading south from Sanxia’s old cobble streets.” Hardly the stuff of your