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.
Last week Joseph Nye, the well-known China scholar, wrote on the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s website about how war over Taiwan might be averted. He noted that years ago he was on a team that met with then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), “whose previous ‘unofficial’ visit to the US had caused a crisis in which China fired missiles into the sea and the US deployed carriers off the coast of Taiwan.” Yes, that’s right, mighty Chen caused that crisis all by himself. Neither the US nor the People’s Republic of China (PRC) exercised any agency. Nye then nostalgically invoked the comical specter
Relations between Taiwan and the Czech Republic have flourished in recent years. However, not everyone is pleased about the growing friendship between the two countries. Last month, an incident involving a Chinese diplomat tailing the car of vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) in Prague, drew public attention to the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) operations to undermine Taiwan overseas. The trip was not Hsiao’s first visit to the Central European country. It was meant to be low-key, a chance to meet with local academics and politicians, until her police escort noticed a car was tailing her through the Czech capital. The
April 15 to April 21 Yang Kui (楊逵) was horrified as he drove past trucks, oxcarts and trolleys loaded with coffins on his way to Tuntzechiao (屯子腳), which he heard had been completely destroyed. The friend he came to check on was safe, but most residents were suffering in the town hit the hardest by the 7.1-magnitude Hsinchu-Taichung Earthquake on April 21, 1935. It remains the deadliest in Taiwan’s recorded history, claiming around 3,300 lives and injuring nearly 12,000. The disaster completely flattened roughly 18,000 houses and damaged countless more. The social activist and
Over the course of former President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) 11-day trip to China that included a meeting with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping (習近平) a surprising number of people commented that the former president was now “irrelevant.” Upon reflection, it became apparent that these comments were coming from pro-Taiwan, pan-green supporters and they were expressing what they hoped was the case, rather than the reality. Ma’s ideology is so pro-China (read: deep blue) and controversial that many in his own Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) hope he retires quickly, or at least refrains from speaking on some subjects. Regardless