FICTION
1. THE DA VINCI CODE
by Dan Brown
Anchor
A murder at the Louvre leads to a trail of clues found in the work of Leonardo Da Vinci and to the discovery of a secret society.
2. NO PLACE LIKE HOME
by Mary Higgins Clark
Pocket
A woman who is trying to
conceal her past becomes the target of a killer.
3. FULL SCOOP
by Janet Evanovich and Charlotte Hughes
St. Martin's
In this installment of the series in Beaumont, South Carolina, a local pediatrician is stalked by an ex-boyfriend.
4. ANGELS & DEMONS
by Dan Brown
Pocket Star
A Harvard scholar tries to save the Vatican from the machin-ations of an underground society.
5. COUNTDOWN
by Iris Johansen
Bantam
A murderer stalks a young
woman -- the adopted daughter of a forensic sculptor.
6. TIME AND AGAIN
by Nora Roberts
Silhouette
Two previously published tales of a time traveler who falls in love.
7. THE MERMAID CHAIR
by Sue Monk Kidd
Penguin
On Egret Island, off the coast of South Carolina, a married woman is strongly attracted to a monk.
8. DECEPTION POINT
by Dan Brown
Pocket
An intelligence analyst is sent to the Arctic on a special assignment by the White House.
9. RAGE
by Jonathan Kellerman
Ballantine
The psychologist-detective Alex Delaware tries to figure out who murdered a young man who had spent time behind bars for killing a child when he was a teenager.
10. DARK DEMON
by Christine Feehan
Jove
A vampire slayer faces a woman whose talents rival his own.
11. ONE SHOT
by Lee Child
Dell
The former military investigator Jack Reacher helps search for a gunman who killed five people on a city street.
12. THE FIVE PEOPLE YOU MEET IN HEAVEN
by Mitch Albom
Hyperion
An old man who died trying to rescue a girl finds all is explained in the afterlife.
NONFICTION
1. THE COVENANT WITH BLACK AMERICA
Third World
Essays aimed at improving life for African-Americans, introduced by Tavis Smiley.
2. NIGHT
by Elie Wiesel
Hill & Wang
A new translation of an account of the horrors of Auschwitz and Buchenwald, first published in English in 1960.
3. IN COLD BLOOD
by Truman Capote
Vintage
A savage murder in Kansas in 1959 and its consequences.
4. THE TIPPING POINT
by Malcolm Gladwell
Back Bay/Little, Brown
A study of social epidemics, otherwise known as fads.
5. A MILLION LITTLE PIECES
by James Frey
Anchor
Both author and publisher
acknowledge that this memoir contains numerous fabrications.
6. HOLY BLOOD, HOLY GRAIL
by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln
Delta, Dell
Extraordinary conclusions about the lineage of Christ,
based upon documents
uncovered by the BBC.
7. THE GLASS CASTLE
by Jeannette Walls
Scribner
The author recalls a bizarre childhood during which she and her siblings were constantly moved from one bleak place to another.
8. COLLAPSE
by Jared Diamond
Penguin
A historical investigation into why some societies succeed while others fail.
9. PLAN B
by Anne Lamott
Riverhead
The author of Traveling Mercies meditates on personal and
political matters and on the spiritual life.
10. THE DEVIL IN THE WHITE CITY
by Erik Larson
Vintage
The tale of a great architect and a serial killer.
11. ANIMALS IN TRANSLATION
by Temple Grandin and Catherine Johnson
Harvest/Harcourt
How autism can help lead to a better understanding of the brains, emotions and talents of animals.
12. GARLIC AND SAPPHIRES
by Ruth Reichel
Penguin
The editor in chief of Gourmet relives her days as the
restaurant critic of The New York Times.
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
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
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist