FICTION
1. THE ROAD
by Cormac McCarthy
Vintage
A father and son journey through post-apocalypse America.
2. SUSANNAH'S GARDEN
by Debbie Macomber
Mira
A woman returns to her hometown and re-examines the troubling events of her past.
3. THE FIFTH HORSEMAN
by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro
Warner
Detective Lindsay Boxer and the Women's Murder Club investigate unexplained deaths at a San Francisco hospital.
4. RAINTREE: INFERNO
by Linda Howard
Silhouette
A battle tests the loyalties and relationships of the Raintree clan, led by Dante, the king.
5. TWO LITTLE GIRLS IN BLUE
by Mary Higgins Clark
Pocket
A girl communicates telepathically with her kidnapped twin.
6. DEAD WATCH
by John Sandford
Berkley
A political operative investigates the murder of a former senator.
7. BORN IN DEATH
by J.D. Robb
Berkley
A lieutenant investigates the disappearance of a pregnant woman; by Nora Roberts, writing pseudonymously.
8. HOT STUFF
by Janet Evanovich and Leanne Banks
St. Martin's
When a bartender's apartment is ransacked, she turns to a former police officer for help — then falls in love with him.
9. THE MEMORY KEEPER'S DAUGHTER
by Kim Edwards
Penguin
A doctor's decision to secretly send his newborn daughter, who has Down syndrome, to an institution haunts everyone involved.
10. AT RISK
by Patricia Cornwell
Berkley
A Massachusetts state investigator applies DNA and other forensic techniques to a cold murder case.
11. SUITE FRANCAISE
by Irene Nemirovsky
Vintage
Two novellas, discovered more than 50 years after the author's death at Auschwitz, about life in France under the Nazis
12. GONE
by Jonathan Kellerman
Ballantine
Two acting students stage their own disappearance — but one of them is murdered; the psychologist-detective Alex Delaware investigates.
NONFICTION
1. EAT, PRAY, LOVE
by Elizabeth Gilbert
Penguin Books
A writer's yearlong journey in search of self takes her to Italy, India and Indonesia.
2. THE MEASURE OF A MAN
by Sidney Poitier
HarperSanFrancisco
The movie actor's spiritual autobiography.
3. THE GLASS CASTLE
by Jeannette Walls
Scribner
The author recalls a bizarre childhood during which she and her siblings constantly moved.
4. BLINK
by Malcolm Gladwell
Back Bay
The author of The Tipping Point explores the importance of hunch and instinct to the workings of the mind.
5. THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING
by Joan Didion
Vintage
The author's attempt to come to terms with the death of her husband and the grave illness of their only daughter.
6. 90 MINUTES IN HEAVEN
by Don Piper with
Cecil Murphey
Revell
A minister describes the otherworldly experience he had after a car accident.
7. STUMBLING ON HAPPINESS
by Daniel Gilbert
Vintage
A Harvard professor explores why people can't predict what will make them happy.
8. NIGHT
by Elie Wiesel
Hill & Wang
A new translation of an account of the horrors of Auschwitz and Buchenwald, first published in English in 1960.
9. THREE CUPS OF TEA
by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
Penguin Books
A former mountain climber builds schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
10. THE FREEDOM WRITERS DIARY
by the Freedom Writers with Erin Gruwell
Broadway
Students considered "unteachable" write about their lives: the basis for the movie Freedom Writers.
11. THE TIPPING POINT
by Malcolm Gladwell
Back Bay/Little, Brown
A journalist's study of social epidemics, otherwise known as fads.
12. MAYFLOWER
by Nathaniel Philbrick
Penguin Books
How America began, from the author of In the Heart of the Sea.
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