FICTION
1. THE CHILDREN OF HURIN
by J.R.R. Tolkien (edited by Christoher Tolkien)
In Middle-earth, an evil lord wants to destroy his rival's children.
2. THE WOODS
by Harlan Coben
Dutton
New evidence about a case of murder and disappearance at a summer camp 20 years earlier forces a county prosecutor to confront family secrets.
3. I HEARD THAT SONG BEFORE
by Mary Higgins Clark
Simon & Schuster
A woman marries a childhood acquaintance suspected of several murders.
4. THE GOOD HUSBAND OF ZEBRA DRIVE
by Alexander McCall Smith
Pantheon
The eighth novel in the number one Ladies Detective Agency series.
5. NINETEEN MINUTES
by Jodi Picoult
Atria
The aftermath of a high school shooting reveals the deep fault lines in a small New Hampshire town.
6. OBSESSION
by Jonathan Kellerman
Ballantine
The psychologist-detective Alex Delaware investigates what seems to be a deathbed confession of murder.
7. FRESH DISASTERS
by Stuart Woods
Putnam
Stone Barrington, the New York cop turned lawyer, tangles with a mob boss and pursues a complicated romance.
8. KINGDOM COME
Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins
Tyndale
The final title in the Left Behind series.
9. SLEEPING WITH STRANGERS
by Eric Jerome Dickey
Dutton
A hit man who hopes to leave the business travels to London to escape pursuers and becomes involved in its underworld.
10. THE ALIBI MAN
by Tami Hoag
Bantam
A disgraced former policewoman investigates a murder linked to a group of wealthy Palm Beach men.
11. WHITE NIGHT
by Jim Butcher
ROC
Someone is killing Chicago's minor wizards, and the half-brother of Harry Dresden, wizard detective, is a suspect.
12. THE BLUE ZONE
by Andrew Gross
Morrow
A young woman searches for her father when he disappears from the US Witness Protection Program.
NONFICTION
1. EINSTEIN
by Walter Isaacson
Simon & Schuster
A biography based on newly released personal letters.
2. PAULA DEEN: IT AIN'T ALL ABOUT THE COOKIN'
by Paula Deen with Sherry Suib Cohen
Simon & Schuster
A memoir with recipes from the cooking impresario.
3. A LONG WAY GONE
by Ishmael Beah
Sarah Crichton/Farrar, Straus & Giroux
A former child solider from Sierra Leone describes his drug-crazed killing spree and his return to humanity.
4. WHERE HAVE ALL THE LEADERS GONE
by Lee Iacocca
Scribner
The former CEO of Chrysler protests the lack of political and business leadership on issues like energy policy.
5. THE AUDACITY OF HOPE
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by Barack Obama
Crown
The Illinois junior senator proposes that Americans move beyond their political divisions.
6. HOW DOCTORS THINK
by Jerome Groopman
Houghton Mifflin
A doctor describes how doctors arrive at diagnoses and what patients can do to make sure they don't err.
7. FREAKONOMICS
by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
Morrow
A maverick scholar and a journalist apply economic theory to nearly everything.
8. THIS MOMENT ON EARTH
by John Kerry and Teresa Heinz Kerry
Public Affairs
Environmental challenges and possible solutions.
9. CRAZIES TO THE LEFT OF ME, WIMPS TO THE RIGHT
by Bernard Goldberg
HarperCollins
The author of 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America attacks liberals and accuses Republicans of betraying conservative principles.
10. THE WILD TREES
by Richard Preston
Random House
The people who climb the massive California redwoods to study the complex life in their canopies.
11. INFIDEL
by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Free Press
A memoir by the Somali-born advocate for Muslim immigrant women, once a member of the Dutch Parliament, who has been threatened with death.
12. GRACE (EVENTUALLY)
by Anne Lamott
Riverhead/Penguin
A collection of essays regarding faith and forgiveness.
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