FICTION
1. THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL
by Philippa Gregory
Touchstone
A tale of courtly intrigue starring King Henry VIII and Mary and Anne Boleyn.
2. NINETEEN MINUTES
by Jodi Picoult
Washington Square
The aftermath of a high-school shooting reveals the fault lines in a small New Hampshire town.
3. THE PILLARS OF THE EARTH
by Ken Follet
New American Library
Murder, arson and lust surround the building of a cathedral.
4. WATER FOR ELEPHANTS
by Sara Gruen
Algonquin
A young man and an elephant save a Depression-era circus.
5. NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
by Cormac McCarthy
Vintage
Mayhem ensues in this reissued novel after a West Texas man stumbles upon US$2 million in drug money and decides to keep it.
6. THE FRIDAY NIGHT KNITTING CLUB
by Kate Jacobs
Berkley
A group of women meet weekly at a New York City yarn shop.
7. THE KITE RUNNER
by Khaled Hosseini
Riverhead
An Afghan-American returns to Kabul to learn how a childhood friend has fared under the Taliban.
8. ATONEMENT
by Ian McEwan
Anchor
A chronicle of the disintegration of an English family's idyllic life.
9. THE ROAD
by Cormac McCarthy
Vintage
A father and son travel in post-apocalypse America.
10. THE 6TH TARGET
by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro
Grand Central
Detective Lindsay Boxer and the Women's Murder Club investigate the disappearance of several children in San Francisco.
11. 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.
12. OIL!
by Upton Sinclair
Penguin
Sinclair's 1927 novel of greed, corruption and class warfare during the Southern California oil boom.
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. THREE CUPS OF TEA
by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
Penguin
A former climber builds schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
3 THE AUDACITY OF HOPE
by Barack Obama
Three Rivers
The Illinois senator proposes that Americans move beyond their political divisions.
4. DREAMS FROM MY FATHER
by Barack Obama
Three Rivers
The senator on life as the son of a black African father and a white American mother.
5. 90 MINUTES IN HEAVEN
Don Piper with Cecil Murphey
Revell
A minister the experience he had after an accident.
6. THE INNOCENT MAN
by John Grisham
Delta and Dell
Grisham's first nonfiction book concerns a man wrongly sentenced to death.
7. INTO THE WILD
by Jon Krakauer
Anchor
A man's obsession with the wilderness ends in tragedy.
8. THE GLASS CASTLE
by Jeannette Walls
Scribner
The author recalls a bizarre childhood during which she and her siblings moved constantly.
9. FAIRTAX: THE TRUTH
by Neal Boortz and John Linder with Rob Woodall
Harper
A radio host and a US congressman defend their 2005 plan for abolishing the IRS.
10. THE OMNIVORE'S DILEMMA
by Michael Pollan
Penguin
Tracking dinner from the soil to the plate, a journalist juggles appetite and conscience.
11. JOHN ADAMS
by David McCullough
Simon & Schuster
A biography of the country's first vice president and second president.
12. THE TIPPING POINT
by Malcolm Gladwell
Back Bay/Little, Brown
A study of social epidemics, otherwise known as fads.
13. THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY
by Jean-Dominique Bauby
Vintage
After a debilitating stroke, the editor of French Elle composed this memoir by communicating with his left eye.
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
The following three paragraphs are just some of what the local Chinese-language press is reporting on breathlessly and following every twist and turn with the eagerness of a soap opera fan. For many English-language readers, it probably comes across as incomprehensibly opaque, so bear with me briefly dear reader: To the surprise of many, former pop singer and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ex-lawmaker Yu Tien (余天) of the Taiwan Normal Country Promotion Association (TNCPA) at the last minute dropped out of the running for committee chair of the DPP’s New Taipei City chapter, paving the way for DPP legislator Su
It’s hard to know where to begin with Mark Tovell’s Taiwan: Roads Above the Clouds. Having published a travelogue myself, as well as having contributed to several guidebooks, at first glance Tovell’s book appears to inhabit a middle ground — the kind of hard-to-sell nowheresville publishers detest. Leaf through the pages and you’ll find them suffuse with the purple prose best associated with travel literature: “When the sun is low on a warm, clear morning, and with the heat already rising, we stand at the riverside bike path leading south from Sanxia’s old cobble streets.” Hardly the stuff of your
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