FICTION
1. CELL
by Stephen King
Scribner
What remains of humanity fights to survive after a mysterious force scrambles cell phone
users' brains.
2. THE DA VINCI CODE
by Dan Brown
Doubleday
A murder at the Louvre leads to a trail of clues found in the work of Leonardo and to the discovery of a secret society.
3. MEMORY IN DEATH
by J.D. Robb
Putnam
Lieutenant Eve Dallas tracks the killer of a woman who was blackmailing her; by Nora Roberts, writing pseudonymously.
4. SEA CHANGE
by Robert Parker
Putnam
Jesse Stone, the police chief of Paradise, Massachusetts, searches for the killer of a woman whose body washed ashore.
5. THE LAST TEMPLAR
by Raymond Khoury
Dutton
A coding device stolen from an exhibit of Vatican artifacts may hold clues to the medieval Knights Templar's long-lost treasure and their secrets.
6. LOVERS AND PLAYERS
by Jackie Collins
St. Martin's
After their father calls them
together, Red Diamond's three sons (and their friends and
relations) grapple with sex, secrets and murders on both coasts.
7. GONE
by Lisa Gardner
Bantam
A former FBI profiler searches for the kidnapper of his ex-wife.
8. THE HOSTAGE
by W.E.B. Griffin
Putnam
An Army officer probes the murder of an American diplomat and the kidnapping of his wife, whose brother is linked to the Iraq oil-for-food scandal.
9. OUTBOUND FLIGHT
by Timothy Zahn
Lucas/Del Rey/Ballantine
In a new Star Wars novel, a Jedi mission to colonize worlds
beyond the known galaxy
becomes a fight for survival.
10. THE HUNT CLUB
by John Lescroart, Dutton
A private investigator, a homicide detective and their friends search for the murderer of a local judge.
11. MARY, MARY
by James Patterson
Little, Brown
The FBI agent Alex Cross tracks a Hollywood killer who announces his crimes via e-mail.
NONFICTION
1. MARLEY AND ME
by John Grogan
Morrow
A newspaper columnist and his wife learn some life lessons from their neurotic dog.
2. THE WORLD IS FLAT
by Thomas Friedman
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
A columnist for The New York Times analyzes 21st-century economics and foreign policy and presents an overview of globalization trends.
3. FREAKONOMICS
by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, Morrow
A maverick scholar applies economic thinking to everything.
4. THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING
by Joan Didion
Knopf
The author's attempts to come to terms with the death of her husband and the grave illness of their only daughter.
5. MY FRIEND LEONARD
by James Frey
Riverhead
The author of A Million Little Pieces, which author and
publisher acknowledge contains numerous fabrications, remembers a helpful mobster friend.
6. MANHUNT
by James Swanson
Morrow
The 12-day pursuit of John Wilkes Booth after his assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
7. YOU'RE WEARING THAT?
by Deborah Tannen
Random House
How mothers and daughters communicate.
8. FOR LACI
by Sharon Rocha
Crown
Laci Peterson's mother recalls her daughter and describes her killer's trial.
9. BLINK
by Malcolm Gladwell
Little, Brown
The author of The Tipping Point explores the importance of hunch and instinct.
10. OUR ENDANGERED VALUES
by Jimmy Carter
Simon & Schuster
The former US president warns against blurring politics and fundamentalist religion.
11. AT CANAAN'S EDGE
by Taylor Branch
Simon & Schuster
US in the King years, 1965-68; the final volume of the trilogy.
12. CONFESSIONS OF A VIDEO VIXEN
by Karrine Steffans
Amistad/HarperCollins
A tell-all by an actress who has appeared in many hip-hop
videos.
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