Inside this month's issue of BookPage

October 2004
In This Issue

FIRST PERSON
October BookPage interviews:

Augusten Burroughs: Magical stories from an unusual life

Burroughs' new beginning is evident throughout Magical Thinking: True Stories, his first collection of funny, edgy essays drawn from a life way less than ordinary. Raise your hand if you've ever been cast in elementary school for a Tang commercial only to be left on the cutting-room floor, drowned a rat in your bathtub, had the roof of your mouth splayed open by a dentist on a routine visit, or had a gay fling with an undertaker in the same viewing room where Rose Kennedy's wake took place.

Jan Karon: New cookbook is a sumptuous Southern treat

Readers who love a vicarious meal of classic Southern cooking have long felt welcome in Mitford, the fictional North Carolina village that serves as the setting for Jan Karon's popular series. Now, thanks to the lovingly assembled Jan Karon's Mitford Cookbook and Kitchen Reader, fans who have gobbled up the Mitford novels for years can have their cake and eat it, too.

Kinky Friedman leads a psychedelic tour of Austin

A powerful new novel by Russell Banks

Meet Jonathan and Faye Kellerman

Our guide Emma Donoghue takes us through lifestyles of the 18th-century rich and famous

Meet Mark Teague

Nancy Farmer takes children on a high seas adventure

FEATURES

SPOTLIGHT: Fun and frightening Halloween tales for children

Stephen R. Donaldson discusses the return of his popular hero, Thomas the Unbeliever in Behind the Book

Politics: Commanders-in-Chief

Well Read: Philip Roth's chilling alternate history

The fall's best graphic novels highlight haunting themes

FICTION

The Red Queen by Margaret Drabble

Light on Snow by Anita Shreve

Before You Know Kindness by Chris Bohjalian

The Coal Tattoo by Silas House

War Trash by Ha Jin