FICTION
1. SAFE HARBOR
by Christine Feehan
Jove
A supermodel is attacked, and a sheriff who desires her vows to capture the assailant. Part five of the Drake Sisters series.
2. WATER FOR ELEPHANTS
by Sara Gruen
Algonquin
A young man - and an elephant - save a Depression-era circus.
3. THE KITE RUNNER
by Khaled Hosseini
Riverhead
An Afghan-American returns to Kabul to learn how a childhood friend has fared.
4. TWELVE SHARP
by Janet Evanovich
St Martin's
The bounty hunter Stephanie Plum must find a killer and a rescue a kidnapped child.
5. THE SECRET DIARIES OF MISS MIRANDA CHEEVER
by Julia Quinn
Avon
A woman who, as a young girl, fell for a count now hopes to claim him as her own.
6. THE ROAD
by Cormac McCarthy
Vintage
A father and son travel in post-apocalypse America.
7. COUNTRY BRIDGES
by Debbie Macomber
Mira
Two novels in one book about women engaged to the wrong men.
8. MIDDLESEX
by Jeffrey Eugenides
Picador
The narrator - who, at 14, discovered she was a hermaphrodite - tells a story about three generations of Greek-Americans.
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. LISEY'S STORY
by Stephen King
A widow struggles with grief after the death of her husband, a famous novelist.
11. THE HUSBAND
by Dean Koontz
Bantam
A man whose wife has been kidnapped has 60 hours to come up with a huge ransom.
12. BEACH ROAD
by James Patterson and Peter de Jonge
Warner Vision
A lawyer defends a high school basketball star suspected of murder.
13. THE ALCHEMIST
by Paulo Coelho
HarperSanFrancisco
A Spanish shepherd boy travels to Egypt in search of treasure.
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 GLASS CASTLE
by Jeannette Walls
Scribner
The author recalls a bizarre childhood during which she and her siblings were constantly moved.
3. 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.
4. THREE CUPS OF TEA
by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
Penguin Books
A former mountain climber builds schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
5. 90 MINUTES IN HEAVEN
by Don Piper with Cecil Murphey
Revell
A minister describes the otherworldly experience he had after a car accident.
6. 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.
7. THE TIPPING POINT
by Malcolm Gladwell
Back Bay/Little, Brown
A journalist's study of social epidemics, also known as fads.
8. MAYFLOWER
by Nathaniel Philbrick
Penguin Books
How America began, from the author of In the Heart of the Sea.
9. THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING
Vintage The author's attempt to come to terms with the death of her husband and the grave illness of their only daughter. 10. THE MEASURE OF A MAN by Sidney Poitier HarperSanFrancisco The movie actor's spiritual autobiography. 11. STUMBLING ON HAPPINESS by Daniel Gilbert Vintage A Harvard professor explores why people can't predict what will make them happy. 12. POSSIBLE SIDE EFFECTS by Augusten Burroughs Picador Autobiographical essays from the author of Running With Scissors. 13. MOUNTAINS BEYOND MOUNTAINS by Tracy Kidder Random House A portrait of Paul Farmer, an expert on infectious diseases who works with the Haitian poor.
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