FICTION
1. LEAN MEAN THIRTEEN
by Janet Evanovich
St. Martin's
The New Jersey bounty hunter Stephanie Plum becomes a suspect when her ex-husband disappears.
2. A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS
by Khaled Hosseini
Riverhead
A friendship between two women in Afghanistan against the backdrop of 30 years of war.
3. BLAZE
by Richard Bachman
Scribner
An early Stephen King novel - Bachman is his alias - here revised. A criminal who was an abused child plots a kidnapping.
4. DOUBLE TAKE
by Catherine Coulter
Putnam
Dillon Savich and Lacey Sherlock - FBI agents as well as husband and wife - join with a San Francisco colleague to solve a murder and find a missing woman.
5. THE NAVIGATOR
by Clive Cussler with Paul Kemprecos
Putnam
Kurt Austin and his crack team track down a stolen Phoenician statue.
6. 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.
7. 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 who had access to radioactive materials.
8. THE HARLEQUIN
by Laurell Hamilton
Berkley
The vampire hunter Anita Blake is under surveillance by a troop of vampire enforcers.
9. ON CHESIL BEACH
by Ian McEwan
Nan Talese
A wedding night goes terribly wrong.
10. 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.
11. 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.
12. THE BOURNE BETRAYAL
by Eric Van Lustbader
Warner
Continuing the story of Robert Ludlum's character Jason Bourne, who tangles with a group of diabolical Islamic terrorists.
NONFICTION
1. THE DIANA CHRONICLES
by Tina Brown
Doubleday
The Princess of Wales' romance with the media.
2. THE REAGAN DIARIES
by Ronald Reagan. (Edited by Douglas Brinkley
HarperCollins
Selections from the 40th president's daily diary entries written during his time in the White House.
3. 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.
4. GOD IS NOT GREAT
by Christopher Hitchens
Twelve
Religion as a malignant force in the world.
5. OUTRAGE
by Dick Morris with Eileen
McGann
HC/HarperCollins
An attack on illegal immigration, UN profiteers, lazy congressmen and high drug prices.
6. LONE SURVIVOR
by Marcus Luttrell with Patrick Robinson
Little, Brown
The only survivor of a Navy Seal operation in northern Afghanistan describes the battle, his comrades and his courageous escape.
7. EINSTEIN
by Walter Isaacson
Simon & Schuster
A biography based on newly released personal letters.
8. 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.
9. PRESIDENTIAL COURAGE
by Michael Beschloss
Simon & Schuster
Profiles of nine presidents who had the courage to make unpopular decisions.
10. 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.
11. TALES FROM Q SCHOOL
by John Feinstein
Little, Brown
Inside the 2005 PGA Tour Qualifying Tournament, from the author of A Good Walk Spoiled.
12. 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.
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
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