Are you ready? Strap on that seat belt and let's take a spin through the Vermont political year of 2003.

Without question, it was the Year of Howard Dean, during which the Vermont former governor's name became nearly as familiar across the nation as those of two other New York City-to-Vermont transplants who migrated north to make the world's best ice cream.... Read more

Frederick Buechner isn't imitating Yogi Berra when he describes himself as "the most famous author no one has heard of." But like the Yankee philosopher-catcher, Buechner illuminates an odd truth through a paradoxical comment.... Read more

On one level, In America is a classic immigrant saga. With no intention of returning home to the Emerald Isle, the Sullivans cross the border from Canada pretending to be tourists. But they're as much searching for opportunity as fleeing a sorrowful past: the accidental death of a young son a year earlier. When their battered station wagon reaches Manhattan, the soundtrack swells with the strains of the old Lovin' Spoonful anthem, "Do You Believe in Magic?" The protagonists have arrived in a land of enchantment that offers either a place to hide or a place to heal.... Read more

Imagine the mess. Williston Road backed up from Airport Parkway in South Burlington to Main and Church in downtown Burlington, three miles away. You better leave four hours early if you want to catch your flight.

And you can forget Kennedy Drive, even if they allow cars on it. That's the quickest route to Burlington's South Cove neighborhood from the airport. The route a certain potential future president's motorcade might take. And we're not the only ones imagining the possibilities.... Read more

Four-thousand-eight-hundred-and-one pages. That's how much I've read since September, when I had the brainy idea of taking a course at Middlebury College. "Politics and the Novel" appealed because its weekly Wednesday seminar fit into my schedule. Its themes -- the reciprocal relationship between politics and literature -- sounded relevant. And despite having a word-filled job, I wanted to spend more time reading. This was a book group on steroids. Over the course of three months, we knocked off seven works of fiction and a 769-page biography of Che Guevara.... Read more

Last spring, Houghton Mifflin published Erik Esckilsen's first book, The Last Mall Rat, based on his experiences as a 16-year-old working in a shoe store at the University Mall. He says he started with a "what if" question: "What if the other mall salesmen and I decided we just weren't going to take it anymore?" "It" being the rude treatment they endured at the hands of their customers.... Read more

It might seem hypocritical to erect billboards along Route 7 in Vergennes asking passersby if they're concerned about threats to Vermont's visual landscape. But that's exactly what some concerned Addison County residents did last week. Apparently, the signs don't violate Vermont's ban on billboards since they're mobile and voice a political statement. The 8-by-16-foot billboards, which hang on hay wagons, read: "Are you concerned about Vermont's scenic beauty, cancer, energy independence?" and "VELCO's power line ‘upgrade' is no answer."... Read more

We gave six writers "a goose, a grin and a glass of gin," and a limit of 400 words in which to explain how they might figure in the same story. The results range from the supernatural to the psychological, take in a wedding and a funeral, and involve a good number of parents -- mostly problematic ones. The biggest surprise, for us, was the goose. They came in both cooked and on the wing, but not once in the form of a verb. We hope you have as much fun with them as our writers did.

Best Man
By Erik Esckilsen... Read more

I'm of two minds about Philip Baruth's new novel, The X President -- if two minds, in fact, are sufficient to cope with this witty, fast-paced and wonderfully imagined blend of satire, science fiction and political commentary. On the one hand, I found the book deeply, raucously funny. On the other, it depressed me, inasmuch as the fantastic tale it tells is only slightly -- very slightly -- removed from the reality of America's now entirely chimerical politics.... Read more

The phone rings just as we're sitting down to eat. Ours is one of the 54 million households whose number is listed on the federal do-not-call registry. But this dinner interruption is exempt, because it's on behalf of a nonprofit. What's more, the earnest young person on the line is asking me to support a cause I happen to believe in. But do I really want to decide what to contribute now, before my capellini cool?... Read more