Most of us have a certain routine, so it's exciting to pick up a book and end up in another time, place, and situation. To make this experience even more intense, I often try to follow a novel I just read with one that's very different.

Authors often write what they know, so it's no surprise that many fictional characters are authors themselves.

These aren't necessarily the best novels of the past 11 years, because there are acclaimed books I've yet to read.

The Thieves of Manhattan (Spiegel & Grau, July 13), a very funny satire on the publishing industry, is full of such insider references as an atwood (M...

But when I did nothing but lie, violated every rule of journalism, acted in direct opposition to everything my heroes Woodward and Bernstein had seemed to stand for, I didn't get fired at all.