FICTION
1. THE HUSBAND
by Dean Koontz
Bantam
A man whose wife is kidnapped has 60 hours to find a ransom.
2. BEACH ROAD
by James Patterson and
Peter de Jonge
Little, Brown
An East Hampton lawyer becomes involved in a highly publicized trial that pits locals against the rich.
3. AT RISK
by Patricia Cornwell
Putnam
A Massachusetts state investigator applies DNA and other forensic techniques to a cold murder case; written as a serial for the New York Times Magazine.
4. THE RAPTURE
by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins
Tyndale
The third prequel to the Left Behind series.
5. THE BOOK OF THE DEAD
by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
Warner
The final volume of a trilogy
involving Secret Agent Aloysius Pendergast of the FBI and his criminal brother.
6. THE SABOTEURS
by W.E.B. Griffin and William Butterworth IV
Putnam
Another volume of the Men at War series about OSS agents during World War II.
7. DEAD WATCH
by John Sandford
Putnam
A political operative investigates the murder of a former senator.
8. TERRORIST
by John Updike
Knopf
A New Jersey high school boy falls under the sway of an imam.
9. THE COLD MOON
by Jeffrey Deaver
Simon & Schuster
The forensic detective Lincoln Rhyme tracks a serial killer who calls himself the Watchmaker.
10. THE HARD WAY
by Lee Child
Delacorte
When his wife is kidnapped, a man who deals in illegal soldiers turns to the former military cop Jack Reacher.
11. KILLER DREAMS
by Iris Johansen
Bantam
A researcher battles the head of a pharmaceutical company who has perverted a technology she invented in order to turn people into zombies.
12. DARK SIDE OF THE MOON
by Sherrilyn Kenyon
St. Martin's
A reporter tries to expose a ring of vampires out to take over Seattle; a Dark-Hunter novel.
13. THE FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT
by Alan Furst
Random House
In wartime Paris, Italian emigres plot against Mussolini.
NONFICTION
1. GODLESS
by Ann Coulter
Crown Forum
The columnist argues that liberalism is a religion with sacraments, a creation myth and clergy.
2. DISPATCHES FROM THE EDGE
by Anderson Cooper
HarperCollins
The CNN correspondent describes a year of covering the tsunami in Sri Lanka, the war in Iraq and Hurricane Katrina.
3. WISDOM OF OUR FATHERS
by Tim Russert
Random House
The host of Meet the Press presents readers' letters about their fathers in response to his book Big Russ and Me.
4. MARLEY & ME
by John Grogan
Morrow
A newspaper columnist and his wife learn some life lessons from their neurotic dog.
5. THE WORLD IS FLAT
by Thomas Friedman
Farrar, Straus & Giroux
A columnist for the New York Times analyzes 21st-century
economics and foreign policy.
6. MAYFLOWER
by Nathaniel Philbrick
Viking
How America began, from the author of In the Heart of the Sea.
7. MYTHS, LIES AND DOWNRIGHT STUPIDITY
by John Stossel
Hyperion
The 20/20 anchor questions
conventional wisdom.
8. FREAKONOMICS
by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner
Morrow
A maverick scholar and a journalist apply economic theory to everything from cheating sumo wrestlers to the falling crime rate.
9. MY LIFE IN & OUT OF THE ROUGH
by John Daly with Glen Waggoner
HarperCollins
A memoir by the bad-boy golf champion.
10. ARMED MADHOUSE
by Greg Palast
Dutton
A collection of articles about the war on terror and the 2008 election by an investigative reporter.
11. DON'T MAKE A BLACK WOMAN TAKE OFF HER EARRINGS
by Tyler Perry
Riverhead
The man behind Diary of a Mad Black Woman muses on life.
12. BLINK
by Malcolm Gladwell
Little, Brown
The author of The Tipping Point explores the importance of hunch and instinct to the workings of the mind.
13. AMERICA: THE LAST BEST HOPE, VOL.I
by William Bennett
Nelson Current
A history from 1492 to 1914, by the former US secretary of education.
Sept.16 to Sept. 22 The “anti-communist train” with then-president Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) face plastered on the engine puffed along the “sugar railway” (糖業鐵路) in May 1955, drawing enthusiastic crowds at 103 stops covering nearly 1,200km. An estimated 1.58 million spectators were treated to propaganda films, plays and received free sugar products. By this time, the state-run Taiwan Sugar Corporation (台糖, Taisugar) had managed to connect the previously separate east-west lines established by Japanese-era sugar factories, allowing the anti-communist train to travel easily from Taichung to Pingtung’s Donggang Township (東港). Last Sunday’s feature (Taiwan in Time: The sugar express) covered the inauguration of the
The corruption cases surrounding former Taipei Mayor and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) head Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) are just one item in the endless cycle of noise and fuss obscuring Taiwan’s deep and urgent structural and social problems. Even the case itself, as James Baron observed in an excellent piece at the Diplomat last week, is only one manifestation of the greater problem of deep-rooted corruption in land development. Last week the government announced a program to permit 25,000 foreign university students, primarily from the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, to work in Taiwan after graduation for 2-4 years. That number is a
This year’s Michelin Gourmand Bib sported 16 new entries in the 126-strong Taiwan directory. The fight for the best braised pork rice and the crispiest scallion pancake painstakingly continued, but what stood out in the lineup this year? Pang Taqueria (胖塔可利亞); Taiwan’s first Michelin-recommended Mexican restaurant. Chef Charles Chen (陳治宇) is a self-confessed Americophile, earning his chef whites at a fine-dining Latin-American fusion restaurant. But what makes this Xinyi (信義) spot stand head and shoulders above Taipei’s existing Mexican offerings? The authenticity. The produce. The care. AUTHENTIC EATS In my time on the island, I have caved too many times to
In a stark demonstration of how award-winning breakthroughs can come from the most unlikely directions, researchers have won an Ig Nobel prize for discovering that mammals can breathe through their anuses. After a series of tests on mice, rats and pigs, Japanese scientists found the animals absorb oxygen delivered through the rectum, work that underpins a clinical trial to see whether the procedure can treat respiratory failure. The team is among 10 recognized in this year’s Ig Nobel awards (see below for more), the irreverent accolades given for achievements that “first make people laugh, and then make them think.” They are not