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.
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