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.
A few weeks ago I found myself at a Family Mart talking with the morning shift worker there, who has become my coffee guy. Both of us were in a funk over the “unseasonable” warm weather, a state of mind known as “solastalgia” — distress produced by environmental change. In fact, the weather was not that out of the ordinary in boiling Central Taiwan, and likely cooler than the temperatures we will experience in the near-future. According to the Taiwan Adaptation Platform, between 1957 and 2006, summer lengthened by 27.8 days, while winter shrunk by 29.7 days. Winter is not
Taiwan’s post-World War II architecture, “practical, cheap and temporary,” not to mention “rather forgettable.” This was a characterization recently given by Taiwan-based historian John Ross on his Formosa Files podcast. Yet the 1960s and 1970s were, in fact, the period of Taiwan’s foundational building boom, which, to a great extent, defined the look of Taiwan’s cities, determining the way denizens live today. During this period, functionalist concrete blocks and Chinese nostalgia gave way to new interpretations of modernism, large planned communities and high-rise skyscrapers. It is currently the subject of a new exhibition at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Modern
March 25 to March 31 A 56-year-old Wu Li Yu-ke (吳李玉哥) was straightening out her artist son’s piles of drawings when she inadvertently flipped one over, revealing the blank backside of the paper. Absent-mindedly, she picked up a pencil and recalled how she used to sketch embroidery designs for her clothing business. Without clients and budget or labor constraints to worry about, Wu Li drew freely whatever image came to her mind. With much more free time now that her son had found a job, she found herself missing her home village in China, where she
In recent years, Slovakia has been seen as a highly democratic and Western-oriented Central European country. This image was reinforced by the election of the country’s first female president in 2019, efforts to provide extensive assistance to Ukraine and the strengthening of relations with Taiwan, all of which strengthened Slovakia’s position within the European Union. However, the latest developments in the country suggest that the situation is changing rapidly. As such, the presidential elections to be held on March 23 will be an indicator of whether Slovakia remains in the Western sphere of influence or moves eastward, notably towards Russia and