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.
May 6 to May 12 Those who follow the Chinese-language news may have noticed the usage of the term zhuge (豬哥, literally ‘pig brother,’ a male pig raised for breeding purposes) in reports concerning the ongoing #Metoo scandal in the entertainment industry. The term’s modern connotations can range from womanizer or lecher to sexual predator, but it once referred to an important rural trade. Until the 1970s, it was a common sight to see a breeder herding a single “zhuge” down a rustic path with a bamboo whip, often traveling large distances over rugged terrain to service local families. Not only
Ahead of incoming president William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20 there appear to be signs that he is signaling to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and that the Chinese side is also signaling to the Taiwan side. This raises a lot of questions, including what is the CCP up to, who are they signaling to, what are they signaling, how with the various actors in Taiwan respond and where this could ultimately go. In the last column, published on May 2, we examined the curious case of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) heavyweight Tseng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) — currently vice premier
The last time Mrs Hsieh came to Cihu Park in Taoyuan was almost 50 years ago, on a school trip to the grave of Taiwan’s recently deceased dictator. Busloads of children were brought in to pay their respects to Chiang Kai-shek (蔣中正), known as Generalissimo, who had died at 87, after decades ruling Taiwan under brutal martial law. “There were a lot of buses, and there was a long queue,” Hsieh recalled. “It was a school rule. We had to bow, and then we went home.” Chiang’s body is still there, under guard in a mausoleum at the end of a path
Last week the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) released a set of very strange numbers on Taiwan’s wealth distribution. Duly quoted in the Taipei Times, the report said that “The Gini coefficient for Taiwanese households… was 0.606 at the end of 2021, lower than Australia’s 0.611, the UK’s 0.620, Japan’s 0.678, France’s 0.676 and Germany’s 0.727, the agency said in a report.” The Gini coefficient is a measure of relative inequality, usually of wealth or income, though it can be used to evaluate other forms of inequality. However, for most nations it is a number from .25 to .50