Does a mother love a child she has adopted in the same way as she might love a birth child? And why is it such a taboo to ask?
By Kate Hilpern
"If something tragic happened to my adopted daughter I'd be devastated, but I wouldn't die. If something happened to either of my two boys who I gave birth to, I feel I would die," says Tina Pattie. "I don't love my daughter any less, but it's a different kind of love. With my sons, my love is set in stone. It's that ‘die for you love' that would never change, no matter what. With Cheri, it's a love that develops and grows. It's more of a process than an absolute."

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Victor Chou, the Sunworld Dynasty Hotel's new general manger, is optimistic about Taiwan's tourism industry, but says more needs to be done to raise its profile
By Noah Buchan
Victor Chou is obsessed with the hotel industry. The veteran hotelier has seen Taiwan grow from attracting mainly businesspeople working in the IT industry into a tourist destination that expects to top five million visitors by 2008.

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The Aurora may have the most unusual pedigree and appearance in the history of the auto industry
By Jerry Garrett
I always wanted to own a dream car,” said Andy Saunders, 44, who has a flair for customizing cars. “But others had already bought all the dream cars.”

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The Spanish tradition of the Three Kings giving presents is increasingly being challenged by the Anglo-Saxon and northern European Father Christmas
By Sinikka Tarvainen
No Spanish child would question that presents are an inseparable part of Christmas, but who should bring them, the Three Kings or Father Christmas?

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FICTION

‘Smile When You’re Lying' is a savagely funny act of revenge for the years travel writer Chuck Thompson spent servicing the vacation fantasies of gullible readers
By William Grimes
Somewhere out there, right now, everyone's dream vacation awaits. It is a collective dream, created by travel journalists who describe, in a cascade of cliches and superlatives, a world of white-sand beaches, quaint villages and smiling locals eager to share their secret knowledge. It is a world in which all places, regardless of location, history or culture, embody a "bewitching blend of the ancient and modern."

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A sixth volume of essays by the well-read John Updike, who is a frustrated cartoonist, fearlessly tackles subjects ranging from Kierkegaard to Sept.11
By Tim Adams
Has John Updike ever said no? That question dogged my progress through this sixth volume of his essays and criticism, which collects another eight years' worth of occasional prose. There is, apparently, still no anniversary that Updike would willingly deny acknowledgment of, no obit he would pass up, no introduction he feels himself unqualified for (Daniel Fuchs' Hollywood Stories? Send them over. A new translation of The Mabinogion from 12th-century Welsh? Two thousand words by close of play).

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