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 HARLEQUIN
by Laurell K. Hamilton
Berkley
The vampire hunter Anita Blake is under surveillance by a troop of vampire enforcers.
3. THE GOOD GUY
by Dean Koontz
Bantam
In a case of mistaken identity, an ordinary man finds himself at the center of a murder plot.
4. FOR ONE MORE DAY
by Mitch Albom
Hyperion
A troubled man gets a last chance to reconnect and restore his relationship with his dead mother.
5. 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.
6. THE NAVIGATOR
by Clive Cussler with Paul Kemprecos
Putnam
Kurt Austin and his team track down a stolen Phoenician statue.
7. ON CHESIL BEACH
by Ian McEwan
Nan A. Talese
A wedding night goes terribly wrong.
8. THE 6TH TARGET
by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro
Little, Brown
In San Francisco, children are disappearing, and Detective Lindsay Boxer and the Women's Murder Club investigate.
9. INVISIBLE PREY
by John Sandford
Putnam
The Minneapolis detective Lucas Davenport finds connections between the murder of several elderly residents and political scandal.
10. THE CHILDREN OF HURIN
by J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by Christopher Tolkien, illustrated by Alan Lee
Houghton Mifflin
In Middle-earth, an evil lord wants to destroy his rival's children.
11. THE LAST SUMMER (OF YOU AND ME)
by Ann Brashares
Riverhead
The bond between two sisters is tested by a romance with old friend.
NONFICTION
1. THE REAGAN DIARIES
by Ronald Reagan, edited by Douglas Brinkley
HarperCollins
Selections from the 40th US president's daily White House diaries.
2. THE ASSAULT ON REASON
by Al Gore
Penguin Press
How the Bush administration has degraded the political environment through secrecy, fear, and the rejection of fact-based reasoning.
3. GOD IS NOT GREAT
by Christopher Hitchens
Twelve
Religion as a malignant force in the world.
4. EINSTEIN
by Walter Isaacson
Simon & Schuster
A biography based on newly released personal letters.
5. 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.
6. I FEEL BAD ABOUT MY NECK
by Nora Ephron
Knopf
A witty look at aging from a novelist and screenwriter of When Harry Met Sally.
7. A WOMAN IN CHARGE: THE LIFE OF HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON
by Carl Bernstein
Knopf
The Pulitzer Prize-winning Watergate reporter presents a detailed portrait of Clinton from her Midwestern girlhood with special attention to her marriage.
8. ANIMAL, VEGETABLE, MIRACLE
by Barbara Kingsolver with Steven L. 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. JESUS OF NAZARETH
by Benedict XVI
Doubleday
The pope discusses Jesus' identity as revealed in the Gospels.
10. PRESIDENTIAL COURAGE
by Michael Beschloss
Simon & Schuster
Profiles of nine presidents who had the courage to make unpopular decisions.
11. WHERE HAVE ALL THE LEADERS GONE
by Lee Iacocca
Simon & Schuster
The former CEO of Chrysler protests the lack of political and business leadership on issues like health care and energy policy.
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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