To The Best of Our Knowledge from Wisconsin Public Radio

If you're looking for a good read, don't miss To the Best of Our Knowledge this week. Anne Perry will bring you up to date on the doings of her Victorian sleuths. Terry Brooks shares tips on dealing with Dad when he's a Demon. Also, P.D. James tackles the issue of deathin the real world, and newcomer Mark Danielewski explodes our notion of the book.

Mark Danielewski's first novel is called "House of Leaves" and you've never seen anything like it! He tells Steve Paulson that the Internet gives writers the opportunity to exploit attributes of the book previously taken for granted. Danielewski did the layout himself for his "experimental horror novel." Also, epic fantasy master Terry Brooks tells Jim Fleming how he uses the fantasy genre to address problems we face in the real world. Brooks wrote the Shannara books and "The Word in the Void" series, just concluded with "Angel Fire East."

Anne Perry is the author of two popular series of mystery novels set in Victorian London. She tells Jim Fleming how she gets the period details right, and reads an excerpt from her latest Thomas Pitt story, "Half Moon Street." Also, Novelist Jane Smiley ("A Thousand Acres", "Horse Heaven") provided the preface to the anthology, "The Sagas of Icelanders." Smiley tells Judith Strasser that these tales are really proto-novels and depict a life that would be familiar in many ways to the residents of pastoral communities today.

Mystery writer P.D. James talks with Steve Paulson about the importance of getting details right; why we're fascinated by murder, and what we ought to be doing to help terminally ill people. At the age of 80, James says she thinks about her own death but isn't obsessed by it. Her newest book is "Time To Be in Earnest: A Fragment of Autobiography."

• House of Leaves from the Poe album haunted
• Dream Suite by Suzanne Ciani
• Salut d'amour by Edward Elgar performed by Lars Roos
• As Quick as Fire performer by Knut Buen
• Melodies/Improvisations by Don Lambert

Distribution dates:

• week of 08/13/2000 - hour 2