From the Publisher

By Robert L. Miller

Standing in Tiananmen Square last week watching the surging crowds of Chinese intoxicated by the idea of democracy, Beijing bureau chief Sandra Burton was reminded of another time and another place. "It looked like Manila in 1986, when the Filipinos flooded the streets demanding the ouster of Ferdinand Marcos," said Burton. "There was the same improvisational air as people who had never protested before climbed on their bicycles and pedaled into the fray."

Burton, who covered the Philippines as Hong Kong bureau chief from 1982 to 1986, chronicles Cory Aquino's rise to power in Impossible Dream: The Marcoses, The Aquinos, and the Unfinished Revolution, just published by Warner Books. In fact, so many of Burton's colleagues have written books lately that bookstores might consider adding a TIME Authors section. Staff writer Guy Garcia's first novel, Skin Deep (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), tells the story of a Chicano who left the East Los Angeles barrio for Harvard. Contributor Richard Schickel's Schickel on Film (Morrow) is a collection of essays on subjects as diverse as Woody Allen and John Ford. Associate editor John Langone's Superconductivity: The New Alchemy (Contemporary Books) describes a new class of superconducting ceramics.

Though senior writer Otto Friedrich has written ten other books, he is best known as the author of an acclaimed biography of a brilliant pianist, Glenn Gould: A Life and Variations (Random House). When he is not buried in his own writing, Friedrich sometimes dons the mantle of literary agent. Impressed by the reporting that Denise Worrell, then TIME's show-business correspondent, had done on celebrities from Michael Jackson to George Lucas, he offered to spend his lunch hours showing Worrell's work to publishers. A flattered if skeptical Worrell said, "Great!" then forgot about it. One day she came home to find a message: "I think I just sold your book. Call me." Worrell's Icons: Intimate Portraits was published last month by the Atlantic Monthly Press. That's a happy ending Hollywood would approve.