Barring any constitutional or Supreme Court shenanigans, there will be a new occupant of the White House in little more than a year, but the nation's authors have been planning for that moment for a quite awhile.

Their efforts to imagine a post-W era have been filtering in. Here's a brief look at what's arrived so far.

"Memo to the President-elect: How We Can Restore America's Reputation and Leadership" by Madeleine Albright (HarperCollins, $26.95).

"As president, you will find there are no good options in Iraq, whether our troops leave immediately, slowly or not at all," writes the former secretary of state, adding "Your responsibility is to limit the damage."

Hmm, not the most uplifting of advice in this how-to laundry list for George Bush's successor. Albright says she conceived of this book at the funeral last year of Gerald Ford, for as she "said goodbye" to a former president, she was imagining what a new one might be told.

While it might seem endless right now, the presidential campaign will end Nov. 4, giving the contenders time to read Albright's checklist for the years ahead.

Another Albright tip: Junk the Dick Cheney model for your vice president.

"After Bush: The Case for Continuity in American Foreign Policy" by Timothy J. Lynch and Robert S. Singh (Cambridge University Press, $28).

These foreign policy gurus at the University of London maintain that the war on terror is really the "second Cold War" and should be continued by the new president.

The status quo must by necessity be maintained by the new administration, because, apparently, it will have no choice thanks to the behavior of the current White House crew.

Don't expect anything to change, they conclude.

"Marching Toward Hell: America and Islam After Iraq" by Michael Scheuer (Free Press, $27).

Former chief of the CIA's "bin Laden" unit, Scheuer insists that the legacy of the Iraq occupation will be more bloodshed by terrorists.

His solutions include more military actions and policies that might offend Israel. One radical suggestion is to mine the borders with Mexico and Canada to frustrate sneak attacks.

The debates about the future are in full swing, both on the campaign trail and coming soon to bookstores.

I'm sure more "life after Bush" titles are on the presses.

• Tom Wolfe, longtime rainmaker for the august Farrar, Straus & Giroux publishing house, is behaving like a free agent baseball star in search of more cash.

Wolfe, associated with FS&G and its beloved owner, Roger Strauss, for 43 years, left when the firm wouldn't fork over the reported $5 million he was asking for his new novel, tentatively titled "Back to Blood."

He took his white-linen covered fanny to Little, Brown in a reputed $7-million deal after FS&G pointed out that his last doorstop of a book, "I Am Charlotte Simmons," tanked in the profit -- and critical -- departments.

"It's when money rears its ugly head that you have a problem. And we had that with Tom," FS&G's current editor, Jonathan Galassi, told the Associated Press.

New York magazine somehow acquired a copy of Wolfe's 28-page book proposal that drew Little, Brown's attention.

The writer promises to blow the lid off South Florida's sex and sin scene with a host of multi-ethnic characters including Muslims.

You can view some of the details on the magazine's Web site.

• The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation will pay Yale University $1.3 million to turn its archive of Josef Stalin's personal papers into a digital file.

The work will be completed by 2012 and will open scholars to examining rare documents about the Soviet dictator.

• Jules Lobel, University of Pittsburgh law professor and co-author of "Less Safe, Less Free," discusses his book at 10:30 a.m. at the East Suburban Unitarian Universalist Church, 4326 Sardis Road, Murrysville.

The book is critical of the Bush administration's anti-terrorism policies and occupation of Iraq.