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.
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