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Mayawati Kumari is the chief minister of one of India's largest and poorest states. She's also the richest woman in India and one of the best known. Now there's talk about her possibly becoming the country's next prime minister.

Benazir Bhutto made the last few edits on Reconciliation, her final book, on the morning that she was assassinated. In that book — part political manifesto, part memoir — Bhutto wrote that she was prepared for the worst upon her return to Pakistan from exile.

Eric G. Wilson, author of Against Happiness, has embraced his inner gloom and wishes more people would do the same. He talks to Melissa Block about why the world needs melancholy and the link between sadness and artistic creation.

Author Philip Dodd traveled the world to find out how common words like guppy, saxophone and even the Mercedes got their names. The stories he uncovered in The Reverend Guppy's Aquarium are fascinating, funny and sometimes tragic.

Paleontologist Neil Shubin discusses his new book, Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year-History of the Human Body. Shubin traces the hand and other human features back to creatures that roamed the earth hundreds of millions of years ago.

Fred Kaplan, author of Daydream Believers: How a Few Grand Ideas Wrecked American Power, says the Bush administration's world view is based on several misconceptions. For one, he says, the administration thought of freedom as a gift from God, without understanding the practical requirements of developing democracies.

After Hector Black's daughter was murdered seven years ago, all he could think about was revenge. But after learning about the killer's troubled background, Black asked authorities to spare his life.

If you spend hours watching HGTV or checking the value of your neighbors' home online, you may be suffering from "house lust." Although the real estate boom has gone bust, author Dan McGinn says the obsession with homes hasn't faded.

The book Beautiful Children starts as the story of a missing 12-year-old in Las Vegas, but it quickly unfolds into an interconnected tale of the boy's parents, street kids, comic book geeks and strip clubs. It took first-time author Charles Bock a decade to "unpack his head" and write the novel.

Slate columnist Fred Kaplan offers a scathing critique of the Bush administration's foreign policy initiatives in his new book, Daydream Believers: How a Few Grand Ideas Wrecked American Power.