Inside this month's issue of BookPage

January 2005
In This Issue

FIRST PERSON
January BookPage interviews:

Ron McLarty: An actor's debut novel makes a mark on the publishing industry

Should Stephen King ever need a place to crash in Manhattan, the welcome sign is permanently affixed to Ron McLarty's door. It was, after all, King's out-of-the-blue September 2003 Entertainment Weekly column that alerted the publishing industry to McLarty's big-hearted American road-trip of a novel, The Memory of Running, an audiobook original that the Master of Horror proclaimed "the best book you can't read." No sooner had King made his impassioned plea for somebody to print this book...than the thunderstruck McLarty found himself in a bidding war that would ultimately exceed seven figures.

Adam Hochschild: The true story of the world's first human rights campaign

Adam Hochschild has the rare ability to take seemingly dull, dry or depressing events of history and turn them into a riveting narrative that both deepens a reader's understanding of the past and directly connects that past to the present. Hochschild did this in his critically acclaimed 1998 bestseller, King Leopold's Ghost... He does so again in his absorbing chronicle of the 50-year campaign to end the British slave trade, Bury the Chains.

Malcolm Gladwell takes a long look at snap judgments

Maj. Charles R. Bowery Jr. shares lessons from two famous Civil War generals, Lee and Grant

Children's writer Jeanette Winter shares the story of a remarkable librarian

Meet Lisa Gardner

Chris Crowley teaches you to feel younger as you age

Meet Robert Neubecker

FEATURES

SPOTLIGHT: Self-help books help you to become the best you can be

Get in shape for the New Year

Take an international approach to eating right

Well Read: The choices that shape our destiny

Get your bank account into shape with investment advice, budget tips and more!

Who's the boss?: Ideas to make your job work for you

FICTION

Baker Towers by Jennifer Haigh

Bad Dirt by Annie Proulx

Upstate by Kalisha Buckhanon

The Family Tree by Carole Cadwalladr