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.
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
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
Approaching her mid-30s, Xiong Yidan reckons that most of her friends are on to their second or even third babies. But Xiong has more than a dozen. There is Lucky, the street dog from Bangkok who jumped into a taxi with her and never left. There is Sophie and Ben, sibling geese, who honk from morning to night. Boop and Pan, both goats, are romantically involved. Dumpling the hedgehog enjoys a belly rub from time to time. The list goes on. Xiong nurtures her brood from her 8,000 square meter farm in Chiang Dao, a mountainous district in northern Thailand’s