FICTION
1. WATER FOR ELEPHANTS
by Sara Gruen
Algonquin
A young man - and an elephant - save a Depression-era circus.
2. TWELVE SHARP
by Janet Evanovich
St Martin's
The bounty hunter Stephanie Plum must find a killer and a rescue a kidnapped child.
3. 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.
4. LISEY'S STORY
by Stephen King
A widow struggles with grief after the death of her husband, a famous novelist with terrible memories.
5. 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.
6. THE KITE RUNNER
by Khaled Hosseini
Riverhead
An Afghan-American returns to Kabul to learn how a childhood friend has fared.
7. COUNTRY BRIDES
by Debbie Macomber
Mira
Two novels in one book about women engaged to the wrong men.
8. THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM
by Robert Ludlum
Bantam
A reissue of the action-packed thriller.
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. THE ROAD
by Cormac McCarthy
Vintage
A father and son travel in post-apocalypse America.
11. THE BOOK OF THE DEAD
by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
Vision
The final volume of a trilogy about an FBI agent and his criminal brother.
12. SANDCASTLES
by Luanne Rice
Bantam
An artist who has been jailed returns home to find a conflicted wife and troubled daughters.
13. MIDDLESEX
by Jeffrey Eugenides
Picador
The narrator - who, at 14, discovered she was a hermaphrodite - tells a story about three generations of Greek-Americans.
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.
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.
7. THE TIPPING POINT
by Malcolm Gladwell
Back Bay/Little, Brown
A journalist's study of social epidemics, also known as fads.
8. THE YEAR OF MAGICAL
THINKING
by Joan Didion
Vintage
The author's attempt to come to terms with the death of her husband and the grave illness of their only daughter.
9. MAYFLOWER
by Nathaniel Philbrick
Penguin Books
How America began, from the author of In the Heart of the Sea.
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. CHOSEN BY A HORSE
by Susan Richards
Harcourt
The author recounts rescuing a broken-down horse, which in turn helped rescue her.
13. THE FREEDOM WRITERS DIARY
by the Freedom Writers with Erin Gruwell
Broadway
Students considered "unteachable" write about their lives; the basis for the movie Freedom Writers.
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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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
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