First Lady Laura Bush again hosted the traditionally tepid National Book Festival in our nation’s capitol last weekend. Fortunately D.C. book reviewer/blogger (and former S.F. resident) Mark Athitakis was there to record the action from authors other than Dionne Warwick or Cokie Roberts. Check out his site for short videos from the fest, including sneak previews of two writers featured at next week’s Litquake, Neil Gaiman and Kay Ryan.

Although the latest book from razor-wit Cintra Wilson doesn’t publish officially until October 14, Boing Boing has received permission to post up the first chapter. The scathing new novel, Caligula for President: Better American Living Through Tyranny, serves as explanation for why Caligula wants to help the U.S. to become a “full-fledged totalitarian military dictatorship with a dynastic hereditary monarch as commander in chief.” Locals may recall Wilson’s hilarious columns in Salon and the S.F. Examiner, or her earlier career as enfant terrible playwright. She returns to Litquake for opening night October 3 at the Herbst.

Thanks to a recent column, Dear Abby’s daily readership of 110 million just learned that books are amazing things: “For anyone who doesn’t already know, books are magic! Crack open a book and you will be instantly transported into the past, propelled into the future — or if you choose — escape into a world of fantasy. The options are endless…But though history, science fiction, mysteries and romance provide a wealth of diversion, reading provides far more than just an escape. The greatest ideas of our most gifted thinkers lie between the covers of books waiting for you to discover them.” So get out there to a bookstore and experience the magic, right now! Hardcore Abby fans will note that Pauline Esther Friedman Phillips first began writing her Abigail Van Buren advice column at the San Francisco Chronicle in 1956. The column is now written by her daughter Jeannie Phillips.