FICTION
1. PLAYING FOR PIZZA
by John Grisham
Doubleday
An American third-string quarterback joins the Italian National Football League's Parma Panthers.
2. THE CHOICE
by Nicholas Sparks
Grand Central
How the choices made by a North Carolina man and the neighbor with whom he falls in love play out their lives.
3. YOU'VE BEEN WARNED
by James Patterson and Howard Roughan
Little, Brown
An aspiring photographer working as a nanny and in love with the children's father has terrible visions.
4. A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS
by Khaled Hosseini
Riverhead
A friendship between two women in Afghanistan against the backdrop of 30 years of war.
5. SHOOT HIM IF HE RUNS
by Stuart Woods
Putnam
Stone Barrington, the New York cop turned lawyer, tracks a rogue CIA agent on a Caribbean island.
6. BRIDGE OF SIGHS
by Richard Russo
Knopf
The entangled lives of an upstate New York couple and their best friend.
7. THE ORC KING
by R.A. Salvatore
Wizards of the Coast
The dark elf Drizzt Do'Urden seeks vengeance against the orcs in the first book of a new fantasy trilogy, Transitions.
8. RUN
by Ann Patchett
Harper
Two young black men, adopted in childhood by the former mayor of Boston, encounter their birth mother and sister.
9. DEAD HEAT
by Dick Francis and Felix Francis
Putnam
Someone is out to destroy a young chef's Newmarket restaurant, poisoning food and setting off a bomb.
10. MAKING MONEY
by Terry Pratchett
Harper
In this Discworld fantasy, Moist von Lipwig takes over Ankh-Morpork's Royal Mint.
11. THE BONE GARDEN
by Tess Gerritsen
Ballantine
A woman finds a skull in her garden, while in the 1830s, a medical student tracks a killer.
12. GARDEN SPELLS
by Sara Addison Allen
Bantam
Two sisters overcome their differences and claim their heritage when one returns to their North Carolina home.
NONFICTION
1. THE AGE OF TURBULENCE
by Alan Greenspan
Penguin Press
A memoir by the longtime chairman of the Federal Reserve Board.
2. THE NINE
by Jeffrey Toobin
Doubleday
A portrait of the Supreme Court since the Reagan administration focuses on the influence of its moderates.
3. LOUDER THAN WORDS
by Jenny McCarthy
Dutton
A mother deals with her son's autism and struggles to find treatment.
4. THE COLDEST WINTER
by David Halberstam
Hyperion
A history of the Korean War from the author of The Best and the Brightest, who died earlier this year.
5. IF I DID IT
by the Goldman family
Beaufor
O.J. Simpson's "hypothetical" confession to the murder of his wife, Nicole, and Ron Goldman.
6. THE VIXEN DIARIES
by Karrine Steffans
Grand Central
How the author's life changed after the publication of her first book, Confessions of a Video Vixen.
7. POWER TO THE PEOPLE
by Laura Ingraham
Regnery
The political commentator urges Americans to restore traditional conservative principles.
8. THE WAR
by Geoffrey Ward
Knopf
A companion to the seven-part PBS documentary directed by Ken Burns, with hundreds of photographs.
9. THE HEROIN DIARIES
by Nikki Sixx with Ian Gittins
The Motley Crue bassist's record of a year of drug addiction.
10. GIVING
by Bill Clinton
Knopf
The former US president describes people and projects that save lives and solve problems around the world.
11. MOTHER TERESA: COME BE MY LIGHT
by Mother Teresa
Doubleday
Writings and reflections on her spiritual journey.
12. QUIET STRENGTH
by Tony Dungy with Nathan Whitaker
Tyndale
A memoir by the first black coach to win a Super Bowl.
Sept.16 to Sept. 22 The “anti-communist train” with then-president Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) face plastered on the engine puffed along the “sugar railway” (糖業鐵路) in May 1955, drawing enthusiastic crowds at 103 stops covering nearly 1,200km. An estimated 1.58 million spectators were treated to propaganda films, plays and received free sugar products. By this time, the state-run Taiwan Sugar Corporation (台糖, Taisugar) had managed to connect the previously separate east-west lines established by Japanese-era sugar factories, allowing the anti-communist train to travel easily from Taichung to Pingtung’s Donggang Township (東港). Last Sunday’s feature (Taiwan in Time: The sugar express) covered the inauguration of the
The corruption cases surrounding former Taipei Mayor and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) head Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) are just one item in the endless cycle of noise and fuss obscuring Taiwan’s deep and urgent structural and social problems. Even the case itself, as James Baron observed in an excellent piece at the Diplomat last week, is only one manifestation of the greater problem of deep-rooted corruption in land development. Last week the government announced a program to permit 25,000 foreign university students, primarily from the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, to work in Taiwan after graduation for 2-4 years. That number is a
In a stark demonstration of how award-winning breakthroughs can come from the most unlikely directions, researchers have won an Ig Nobel prize for discovering that mammals can breathe through their anuses. After a series of tests on mice, rats and pigs, Japanese scientists found the animals absorb oxygen delivered through the rectum, work that underpins a clinical trial to see whether the procedure can treat respiratory failure. The team is among 10 recognized in this year’s Ig Nobel awards (see below for more), the irreverent accolades given for achievements that “first make people laugh, and then make them think.” They are not
This Qing Dynasty trail takes hikers from renowned hot springs in the East Rift Valley, up to the top of the Coastal Mountain Range, and down to the Pacific Short vacations to eastern Taiwan often require choosing between the Rift Valley with its pineapple fields, rice paddies and broader range of amenities, or the less populated coastal route for its ocean scenery. For those who can’t decide, why not try both? The Antong Traversing Trail (安通越嶺道) provides just such an opportunity. Built 149 years ago, the trail linked up these two formerly isolated parts of the island by crossing over the Coastal Mountain Range. After decades of serving as a convenient path for local Amis, Han settlers, missionaries and smugglers, the trail fell into disuse once modern roadways were built