An accomplished advertising executive and best-selling writer, James Patterson has proven again and again that he understands how to please his audience. Concentrating on thrillers and suspense stories, he has fostered a loyal following of avid...

WALL STREET JOURNAL BEST-SELLERSFICTION1. "A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseini (Riverhead Hardcover)2. "Maximum Ride: Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports by James Patterson (Little, Brown Young Readers)3. "The Good Guy" by Dean Koontz (Bantam)4. "The Overlook" by Michael Connelly (Little, Brown and Company)5....

Presidential candidates are seeing pieces of themselves in the books they've been reading lately.Barack Obama recently finished "Gilead," a novel about an old man's words to his 7-year-old son. The man, in Gilead, Iowa, believes he's on the verge of death and wants his son...

Today is Thursday, March 22, the 81st day of 2007. There are 284 days left in the year.Today's Highlight in History:On March 22, 1765, Britain enacted the Stamp Act of 1765 to raise money from the American colonies. (The Act was repealed the following year.)On...

With more than 12 million books sold last year alone, author James Patterson doesn't need to worry about getting the public to read him. But he does worry that people aren't reading enough.Patterson's PageTurner Awards, given to organizations and individuals that help encourage literacy, will...