Dear Burning Questions,
I love Anne Rivers Siddons. What's next?

via the Internet

Siddons, who makes her home in Charleston, South Carolina, is currently working on her next novel, scheduled to be released next summer from HarperCollins.

Life after The English Patient

Dear Burning Questions,
I've read everything by Michael Ondaatje and have been eagerly awaiting his post-English Patient novel. What's in the works for him?

via the Internet

We love the guy, too, and were thrilled when we recently heard that Ondaatje's next novel, mysteriously entitled Anil's Ghost, will be published by Random House in May.

Crazy for Harry

Dear Burning Questions,
My nine-year-old son and I have read all three Harry Potter books by J.K. Rowling. I understand she has planned seven books. Do you know when the fourth book is scheduled to be published? Thank you.

Marisa Schmidt
via the Internet

Harry Potter fans rejoice, because Rowling's on a roll. A 2000 release is scheduled, and it will more than likely be a summer release.

Score!

In the August issue, we ran a "Crack the SAT" contest sponsored by The Princeton Review. The clever, lucky winner is Anne Nguyen of Charlotte, North Carolina, who aced the test questions and won a free SAT prep course from The Princeton Review (an $895 value). Many thanks to all who entered.

Star search

If you'd like a sneak preview of an upcoming book -- long before it's available in stores -- just send us your name and mailing address. The first 50 people who respond will receive advance reading copies of Charles M. Robinson III's The Men Who Wear the Star: The Story of the Texas Rangers (Random House), available in March. You can either e-mail contest@bookpage.com or enter via snail mail.

First Novel Contest

For the second time, Warner Books is offering a contest for new and unpublished science fiction and fantasy authors. The winning manuscript will be published by Warner Aspect, and an advance and royalties against copies sold will be paid. Entries must be received by June 30, 2000. For contest rules and details, visit www.twbookmark.com/sciencefiction.

The best books of 1999:
What writers read

With the beginning of a new century, we thought it was the perfect time to look back and reflect on a wonderful year of reading. We asked an eclectic group of writers "What's the best book you read in 1999?" Here are some of their responses:

Helen Gurley Brown, Editor-In-Chief International Editions Cosmopolitan and author of the upcoming book I'm Wild Again: Snippets from My Life and a Few Brazen Thoughts (February, St. Martin's Press)

"I hate to be cliche about my best book of 1999 selection or cliche about anything else, but the selection has to be 'Tis by Frank McCourt. I meant only to skim. Who could actually read 367 pages of anguished detail of somebody's drab early life as a teacher, boozer, girl fancier, but turned out I'm the one -- along with thousands of others who could . . . with incredible joy, awe, appreciation. I've tried a thousand times to figure out why he is so good. It's like trying to figure out why does electricity work or spring happen. They just do -- Frank is another of the miracle just happeners."

Cathie Pelletier, the author of six novels, including The Funeral Makers and Beaming Sonny Home, as well as two novels under the pseudonym of K. C. McKinnon

"The most heartfelt book that I've read this year happens to be one that I was asked to blurb. I think William 'Buddy' Carter's memoir of his father, Billy Carter: A Journey Through the Shadows, is as honest as a son can possibly get in coming to terms with such an enigmatic man. A professional biographer might have shone a different light on Billy Carter, just as the press in this country loved to do. But I prefer Buddy's memories of what went on behind closed doors, and his own description of what happened to a sleepy little Georgia town when one of its native sons became president, and another became First Brother."

Jon Katz, author of Running to the Mountain and the upcoming Geeks: How Two Lost Boys Rode the Internet out of Idaho (February, Villard)

"My favorite book of the year was Galileo's Daughter -- amazingly original and haunting."

Nelson DeMille, author of thrillers including The General's Daughter, Plum Island, and the new release The Lion's Game (January, Warner)

"The Black Book of Communism by Stephane Courtois et al. This book was a controversial bestseller in Europe, but has not had the same impact here. The book is simple in its theme -- a chronicle of Communist atrocities in the 20th century. There's a little that's new, but the recounting of the well documented horrors in a single volume is powerful and disturbing. The controversy in Europe was a result of the book's suggestion that the West, especially the intellectual left, ignored the monstrous nature of the Communist regimes. Here, in America, we like to forget the past quickly; but a book such as this should be read -- as Holocaust literature is read -- to honor the victims, living and dead, and to ensure that the past is not prologue to the future."

Carrie Brown, author of Lamb in Love and Rose's Garden

"The Hours, by Michael Cunningham, is my favorite book of the year. This novel, which won the Pulitzer Prize [in 1998], is Cunningham's reply to Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, and to Woolf's life in general. It is passionate, and profound, and so beautifully written it makes the eyes tear. Exquisite."

Eddie Fisher, entertainer and author of the recently released Been There, Done That (St. Martin's Press)

"John McCain's Faith of My Fathers. [McCain is] a genuine hero and most honest man." Taking stock (photography) Nothing escapes us.

Taking stock (photography)

Nothing escapes us. (Except maybe the occasional error or misspelling, but that's another story.) Not even the slightest curiosity goes unremarked. As we've noted in issues past, the world of book jacket design is a strange one indeed. Here we show you two very different books, one fiction, one nonfiction. The same lithe, enigmatic adolescent boy graces both covers. Who is this kid, anyway? And what's he doing in that watery place? Romey's Place (Baker), a coming of age novel, and The Men They Will Become (Perseus Books), a study of boys coming of age, both feature this youth. Where will he end up next?