Rather than look back on the grumpy and fractious year in American books, I prefer to look ahead to better days to come, starting tomorrow.

Things to anticipate in 2007:

Judith Regan drops plans to sue HarperCollins for firing her over the idiotic O.J. Simpson project and sinks her fat severance check into a shelter for battered women.

Joyce Carol Oates takes a year off to reflect on her life and prolific output and returns in 2008 to write just one really good novel on something other than poor girls from upstate New York who get into trouble.

Jay Dantry discovers the Fountain of Youth in his Oakland bookstore basement.

The newspaper's book editor ignores advance news that Norman Mailer examines Adolf Hitler's toilet training history in his upcoming novel, "The Castle in The Forest" (Jan. 23), and takes up the book objectively.

Worried about slow sales of "Against the Day," Thomas Pynchon appears on "Oprah" to boost sales and promises to write a memoir.

Danielle Steel reveals the secrets of the sophisticated computer software that has written all of her novels since 1995 and sells it to Microsoft. Joyce Carol Oates sues, claiming she was the first inventor, and is joined in the suit by Mary Higgins Clark.

Ayelet Waldman and Michael Chabon form their own publishing company and produce a series of comic books with a neurotic mother of four as the superhero.

Mary Alice Gorman and Richard Goldman discover the lost manuscripts of Wilkie Collins in the back room of their Oakmont bookstore, raising enough money to bring author Laura Lippman to town every year for the foreseeable future.

Drue Heinz sells her pickle futures in order to permanently endow the short-fiction prize in her name at the University of Pittsburgh Press.

After watching Pynchon on "Oprah," K.C. Constantine calls her booking agent.

Indiana, Pa.'s Tawni O'Dell's third novel, "Sister Mine," due in March, is optioned for a Julia Roberts film, but O'Dell wants somebody younger in the role and turns it down.

L. Ron Hubbard, recognized as the world's most prolific author, announces his retirement from writing. "I'm afraid that my death in 1986 finally caught up with me," Hubbard says.

Stephen King buys the Pittsburgh Pirates, appoints his buddy, Point Breeze native Steward O'Nan, general manager, and moves the team to Maine.

The One Book, One Community project selects "Cowher Power" as its county-wide reading selection, mentioning the fact that libraries are overstocked with the title, making it easy to find.

Happy New Year.