FICTION
1. JUDGE & JURY
by James Patterson and Andrew Gross
Little, Brown
An aspiring actress and an FBI agent join forces against a powerful mobster.
2. ANGELS FALL
by Nora Roberts
Putnam
When a chef from Boston, living in Wyoming, witnesses a murder, the locals won’t believe her.
3. CRISIS
by Robin Cook
Putnam
There are shocking revelations at a medical malpractice trial.
4. THE MESSENGER
by Daniel Silva
Putnam
Gabriel Allon, an art restorer and an occasional spy for the Israeli secret service, uncovers an al-Qaida plot against the Vatican.
5. THE RUINS
by Scott Smith
Knopf
Two young American couples on vacation in the Yucatan confront a horrible menace.
6. CAN’T WAIT TO GET TO HEAVEN
by Fannie Flagg
Random House
A return to Elmwood Springs, Missouri, the setting of Flagg’s novel Standing in the Rainbow.
7. PHANTOM
by Terry Goodkind
Tor/Tom Doherty
The 11th volume of the Sword of Truth fantasy series.
8. HAPPINESS SOLD SEPARATELY
by Lolly Winston
Warner
A marriage is strained by infertility and infidelity.
9. TWELVE SHARP
by Janet Evanovich
St. Martin’s
The bounty hunter Stephanie Plum must find a killer and rescue a kidnapped child.
10. WATER FOR ELEPHANTS
by Sara Gruen
Algonquin
A young man -— and an elephant — save a Depression-era circus.
11. PEGASUS DESCENDING
by James Lee Burke.
Simon & Schuster
Louisiana detective Dave Robicheaux pursues interrelated cases that are linked to the killing of his best friend 25 years earlier.
12. THE NIGHT GARDENER
by George Pelecanos
Little, Brown
Three Washington cops reunite to solve a murder that resembles a 20-year-old cold case.
13. COMING OUT
by Danielle Steel
Delacorte
An attorney’s household is thrown into chaos when her daughters receive an invitation to a debutante ball.
NONFICTION
1. MARLEY & ME
by John Grogan
Morrow
A newspaper columnist and his wife learn some life lessons from their neurotic dog.
2. I FEEL BAD ABOUT MY NECK
by Nora Ephron
Knopf
A witty look at aging from a novelist and screenwriter.
3. FIASCO
by Thomas E. Ricks
The Penguin Press
How the Bush administration’s and the military’s failure to understand the developing Iraq insurgency contributed to its further growth.
4. THE WORLD IS FLAT
by Thomas Friedman
Farrar, Straus & Giroux
A columnist for the New York Times analyzes 21st-century economics and foreign policy.
5. THE LOOMING TOWER
by Lawrence Wright
Knopf
The road to Sept. 11 as seen through the lives of terrorist planners and the FBI counter terrorism chief.
6. FREAKONOMICS
by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner
Morrow
A maverick scholar and a journalist apply economic theory to everything from cheating sumo wrestlers to legalized abortion and to falling crime rates.
7. 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.
8. MAYFLOWER
by Nathaniel Philbrick
Viking
How America began, from the author of In the Heart of the Sea.
9. GODLESS
by Ann Coulter
Crown Forum
The columnist argues that liberalism is a religion with sacraments, a creation myth and a clergy.
10. CONSERVATIVES WITHOUT CONSCIENCE
by John Dean
Viking
The authoritarian character of contemporary conservative beliefs and attitudes.
11. THE LANGUAGE OF GOD
by Francis Collins
Free Press
The head of the Human Genome Project argues that faith in God and faith in science can coexist.
12. THE ONE PERCENT DOCTRINE
by Ron Suskind
Simon & Schuster
An investigation of the Bush administration’s strategic thinking and of the role of ideology in the decision to go to war.
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
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