FICTION
1. PLUM LUCKY
by Janet Evanovich
St Martin's
Stephanie's mother finds a bag of cash and goes gambling in Atlantic City, pursued by the money's owner.
2. A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS
by Khaled Hosseini
Riverhead
A friendship between two women in Afghanistan against the backdrop of 30 years of war and political turmoil.
3. PEOPLE OF THE BOOK
by Geraldine Brooks
Viking
A rare-book expert unlocks the secrets of a medieval manuscript.
4. BLASPHEMY
by Douglas Preston
Tom Doherty/Forge
A CIA operative tracks scientists with a huge supercollider who are poised to discover the secret of creation.
5. WORLD WITHOUT END
by Ken Follett
Dutton
Love and intrigue in Kingsbridge, the medieval English cathedral town at the center of Follett's Pillars of the Earth.
6. THE SHOOTERS
by W.E.B. Grittin
Putnam
An Army officer on the trail of a missing drug enforcement agent is undermined by the military and intelligence communities.
7. DOUBLE CROSS
by James Patterson
Little, Brown
Alex Cross and his new girlfriend, a police detective, confront a Washington killer who boasts of his killings on his own Web site, as well as an old adversary who has escaped from prison.
8. T IS FOR TRESPASS
by Sue Grafton
Putnam
Kinsey Millhone must contend with a woman who has stolen a nurse's identity in order to take advantage of Kinsey's elderly neighbor.
9. THE DARKEST EVENING OF THE YEAR
by Dean Koontz
Bantam
A woman who rescues golden retrievers and one special dog she takes in are shadowed by an evil stranger.
10. THE SENATOR'S WIFE
by Sue Miller
Knopf
A woman lives with her husband's persistent infidelity.
11. SHADOW MUSIC
by Julie Garwood
Ballantine
In medieval Scotland, a princess starts a Highlands war.
12. STONE COLD
by David Baldacci
Grand Central
Members of Washington's Camel Club are being murdered to prevent them from uncovering government secrets.
NONFICTION
1. IN DEFENSE OF FOOD
by Michel Pollan
Penguin Press
A manifesto urges us to "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."
2. I AM AMERICA (AND SO CAN YOU!)
by Stephen Colbert et al
Grand Central
The wit and wisdom of the mock pundit of Comedy Central's Colbert Report.
3. AN INCONVENIENT BOOK
by Glenn Beck and Kevin Balfe
Threshold Editions
The conservative TV and talk-radio host offers his solutions to problems, including global warming and poverty.
4. MEMO TO THE PRESIDENT ELECT
by Madeleine Albright with Bill Woodward
Harper
A former secretary of state suggests how to restore America's credibility.
5. BORN STANDING UP
by Steve Martin
Scribner
Martin recalls his years as a stand-up comedian, from the early 1960s to 1981, when he quit at the peak of his career.
6. QUIET STRENGTH
by Tony Dungy with Nathan Whitaker
Tyndale
A memoir by the first black coach to win a Super Bowl. (He did it with the Indianapolis Colts in February 2007.)
7. FREE LUNCH
by David Cay Johnston
Portfolio
How lobbyists and lawyers have wangled government subsidies for the wealthy.
8. GEOGRAPHY OF BLISS
by Eric Weiner
Twelve
A writer explores to what degree an individual's happiness is intertwined with a shared geography and culture.
9. THE NINE
by Jeffrey Toobin
Doubleday
A portrait of the Supreme Court since the Reagan administration focuses on the influence of its moderates
10. LIBERAL FASCISM
by Jonah Goldberg
Doubleday
This "alternative history of American liberalism reveals its roots in, and commonalities with, classical fascism."
11. A LONG WAY GONE
by Ishmael Beah
Sarah Crichton/Farrar, Straus and Giroux
A former child soldier from Sierra Leone describes his drug-crazed killing spree and his return to humanity.
12. LONE SURVIVOR
by Marcus Luttrell with Patrick Robinson
Little, Brown
The tale of a Navy SEAL operation in Afghanistan.
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
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
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
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