FICTION
1. A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS
by Khaled Hosseini
Riverhead
A friendship between two women in Afghanistan against the backdrop of 30 years of war, from the author of The Kite Runner.
2. THE OVERLOOK
by Michael Connelly
Little, Brown
The Los Angeles detective Harry Bosch tangles with the FBI and Homeland Security as he tries to solve the case of a murdered physicist with access to radioactive materials.
3. THE 6TH TARGET
by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro
Little, Brown
In San Francisco, children and their nannies are disappearing, and Detective Lindsay Boxer and the Women's Murder Club investigate.
4. INVISIBLE PREY
by John Sandford
Putnam
The Minneapolis detective Lucas Davenport finds connections between the murder of several elderly residents and political scandal.
5. BAD LUCK AND TROUBLE
by Lee Child
Delacorte
Jack Reacher must discover who is hunting down members of a team of former military investigators.
6. THE CHILDREN OF HURIN
by J.R.R. Tolkien. Edited by Christopher Tolkien
Houghton Mifflin
In Middle-earth, an evil lord wants to destroy his rival's children.
7. THE YIDDISH POLICEMEN'S UNION
by Michael Chabon
HarperCollins
A detective investigates the murder of a neighbor in a Jewish settlement in Alaska.
8. SIMPLE GENIUS
by David Baldacci
Warner
Two former Secret Service agents investigate a scientist's murder while one battles her own demons.
9. RANT
by Chuck Palahniuk
Doubleday
The "oral biography" of a serial killer.
10. THE QUEST
by Wilbur Smith
Thomas Dunne
In ancient Egypt, a magus searches for the cause of a series of plagues.
11. 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.
NONFICTION
1. THE ASSAULT ON REASON
by Al Gore
Penguin Press
How the administration of former US president George W. Bush has degraded the political environment through secrecy and fear.
2. THE REAGAN DIARIES
by Ronald Reagan. Edited by Douglas Brinkley
HarperCollins
Selections from the 40th president's daily White House diaries.
3. EINSTEIN
by Walter Isaacson
Simon & Schuster
A biography based on newly released personal letters.
4. GOD IS NOT GREAT
By Christopher Hitchens
Twelve
Religion as a malignant force in the world.
5. PRESIDENTIAL COURAGE
by Michael Beschloss
Simon & Schuster
Profiles of nine presidents who had the courage to make unpopular decisions.
6. A LONG WAY GONE
by Ishmael Beah
Sarah Crichton/Farrar, Straus & Giroux
A former child soldier from Sierra Leone describes his drug-crazed killing spree and his return to humanity.
7. JESUS OF NAZARETH
by Benedict XVI
Doubleday
The pope discusses Jesus' identity as revealed in the Gospels.
8. ANIMAL, VEGETABLE, MIRACLE
by Barbara Kingsolver with Steven Hopp and Camille Kingsolver
HarperCollins,
The novelist and her family spend a year eating homegrown or local food; an argument for diversified farms and sustainable agriculture.
9. 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 health care and energy policy.
10. RICKLES' BOOK
by Don Rickles with David Ritz
Simon & Schuster
A memoir by the insult comedian.
11. THE BLACK SWAN
by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Random House
The role of the unexpected.
12 AT THE CENTER OF THE STORM
by George Tenet
HarperCollins
The former director of the Central Intelligence Agency looks back on his career.
Wooden houses wedged between concrete, crumbling brick facades with roofs gaping to the sky, and tiled art deco buildings down narrow alleyways: Taichung Central District’s (中區) aging architecture reveals both the allure and reality of the old downtown. From Indigenous settlement to capital under Qing Dynasty rule through to Japanese colonization, Taichung’s Central District holds a long and layered history. The bygone beauty of its streets once earned it the nickname “Little Kyoto.” Since the late eighties, however, the shifting of economic and government centers westward signaled a gradual decline in the area’s evolving fortunes. With the regeneration of the once
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Perched on Thailand’s border with Myanmar, Arunothai is a dusty crossroads town, a nowheresville that could be the setting of some Southeast Asian spaghetti Western. Its main street is the final, dead-end section of the two-lane highway from Chiang Mai, Thailand’s second largest city 120kms south, and the heart of the kingdom’s mountainous north. At the town boundary, a Chinese-style arch capped with dragons also bears Thai script declaring fealty to Bangkok’s royal family: “Long live the King!” Further on, Chinese lanterns line the main street, and on the hillsides, courtyard homes sit among warrens of narrow, winding alleyways and
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