FICTION
1. WATER FOR ELEPHANTS
by Sara Gruen
Algonquin
A young man - and an elephant - save a Depression-era circus.
2. THE KITE RUNNER
by Khaled Hosseini
Riverhead
An Afghan-American returns to Kabul to learn how a childhood friend has fared.
3. 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.
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. LISEY'S STORY
by Stephen King
A widow struggles with grief after the death of her husband, a famous novelist with terrible memories.
7. MIDDLESEX
by Jeffrey Eugenides
Picador
The narrator - who, at 14, discovered she was a hermaphrodite - tells an epic story about Greek-Americans.
8. COUNTRY BRIDES
by Debbie Macomber
Mira
Two novels in one book about women engaged to the wrong men.
9. THE ROAD
by Cormac McCarthy
Vintage
A father and son travel in post-apocalypse America.
10. 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.
11. BEACH ROAD
by James Patterson and Peter de Jonge
Warner Vision
A lawyer defends a high school basketball star suspected of murder.
12. THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM
by Robert Ludlum
Bantam
A reissue of the action-packed thriller.
13. THE ALCHEMIST
by Paulo Coelho
HarperSan-Francisco
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. 90 MINUTES IN HEAVEN
by Don Piper with Cecil Murphey
Revell
A minister describes the otherworldly experience he had after a car accident.
5. 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.
6. THE TIPPING POINT
by Malcolm Gladwell
Back Bay/Little, Brown
A journalist's study of social epidemics, otherwise known as fads.
7. THREE CUPS OF TEA
by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
Penguin Books
A former mountain climber builds schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
8. THE DEVIL IN THE WHITE CITY
by Erik Larson
Vintage
The tale of an architect and a serial killer, linked by the Chicago World's Fair of 1893.
9. 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 daughter's illness.
10. MAYFLOWER
by Nathaniel Philbrick
Penguin Books
How America began, from the author of In the Heart of the Sea.
11. THE MEASURE OF A MAN
by Sidney Poitier
HarperSanFrancisco
The movie actor's spiritual autobiography.
12. STUMBLING ON HAPPINESS
by Daniel Gilbert
Vintage
A Harvard professor explores why people can't predict what will make them happy.
13. CHOSEN BY A HORSE
by Susan Richards
Harcourt
The author recounts rescuing a broken-down horse, which in turn helped rescue her.
May 11 to May 18 The original Taichung Railway Station was long thought to have been completely razed. Opening on May 15, 1905, the one-story wooden structure soon outgrew its purpose and was replaced in 1917 by a grandiose, Western-style station. During construction on the third-generation station in 2017, workers discovered the service pit for the original station’s locomotive depot. A year later, a small wooden building on site was determined by historians to be the first stationmaster’s office, built around 1908. With these findings, the Taichung Railway Station Cultural Park now boasts that it has
The latest Formosa poll released at the end of last month shows confidence in President William Lai (賴清德) plunged 8.1 percent, while satisfaction with the Lai administration fared worse with a drop of 8.5 percent. Those lacking confidence in Lai jumped by 6 percent and dissatisfaction in his administration spiked up 6.7 percent. Confidence in Lai is still strong at 48.6 percent, compared to 43 percent lacking confidence — but this is his worst result overall since he took office. For the first time, dissatisfaction with his administration surpassed satisfaction, 47.3 to 47.1 percent. Though statistically a tie, for most
Six weeks before I embarked on a research mission in Kyoto, I was sitting alone at a bar counter in Melbourne. Next to me, a woman was bragging loudly to a friend: She, too, was heading to Kyoto, I quickly discerned. Except her trip was in four months. And she’d just pulled an all-nighter booking restaurant reservations. As I snooped on the conversation, I broke out in a sweat, panicking because I’d yet to secure a single table. Then I remembered: Eating well in Japan is absolutely not something to lose sleep over. It’s true that the best-known institutions book up faster
In February of this year the Taipei Times reported on the visit of Lienchiang County Commissioner Wang Chung-ming (王忠銘) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and a delegation to a lantern festival in Fuzhou’s Mawei District in Fujian Province. “Today, Mawei and Matsu jointly marked the lantern festival,” Wang was quoted as saying, adding that both sides “being of one people,” is a cause for joy. Wang was passing around a common claim of officials of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the PRC’s allies and supporters in Taiwan — KMT and the Taiwan People’s Party — and elsewhere: Taiwan and
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