Ray Bradbury, A. Scott Berg, Maya Angelou, Mary Higgins Clark, David Halberstam, Oliver Stone, Gore Vidal and UCLA's own Jared Diamond and Joyce Appleby are some of the literati who are expected to lure hundreds of thousands to campus April 27-28 for the seventh annual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. Over the last year, faculty and staff authors have been both prolific and wide-ranging in the subjects they've chosen to illuminate. Here is a sampling of their offerings.

"Reclaiming the Fire: How Successful People Overcome Burnout" (Random House) by Steven Berglas, lecturer at The Anderson School.

Why does a successful, talented actor like Robert Downey Jr. risk a soaring career with drug use leading to a conviction and repeated arrests? There are scores of professionals who, at the peak of their career, sabotage their own success and experience what Berglas calls the "supernova burnout." Berglas, a clinical psychologist who also serves as an adjunct faculty member at Harvard Medical School, examines the painful paradoxes that haunt many people who seem to have achieved their dream. "That's the paradox of success," Berglas says. "The more successful you are, the fewer novel challenges in your life. You're getting large amounts of money for being talented and successful, but you must do only one thing day after day. Golden handcuffs are just as real as steel handcuffs." Through case studies, Berglas portrays the lives of successful corporate executives, business managers, lawyers and athletes as they struggle to find new meaning and job satisfaction. The bottom line is to find ways to keep your career fresh and satisfying. "Variety is the spice of life," he says. "The fact that people forget this truth when they go to work is among the most devastating problems facing careerists today."

—Carol Tucker

"Beyond Our Control? Confronting the Limits of Our Legal System in the Age of Cyberspace" (The MIT Press) by Stuart Biegel, senior lecturer in the Graduate School of Education & Information Studies and the School of Law.

Although it appears to be a freewheeling entity, the Internet is under greater control than we generally believe, says Biegel, a recognized pioneer in cyberspace law and policy. While the music industry, for example, wrestles to restrain easy access to copyrighted music, law enforcement officials routinely trawl the Internet to hunt terrorists, and marketers observe online e-commerce to track shopping habits. "There's a myth that the Internet is not under control," Biegel says. "It's not true." The average user has many concerns about the Internet, from spam to pornography -- issues that make legal limitations sound attractive to many. Privacy is a major issue, even more so, says Biegel, since the passage last October of the post-9-11 USA Patriot Act, which makes all users more susceptible to cybersurveillance. "There is a danger," he says, "that the choice to be anonymous will be taken away from you."

—Judy Lin-Eftekhar

"Viking Age Iceland" (Penguin Books) by Jesse L. Byock, archaeologist and professor of Old Norse/Icelandic and Medieval Scandinavian Studies.

Colorful tales of murder, marriage, feuds and heroic struggle in a hostile environment. Sound like a rip-roaring read? The Old Icelandic Sagas, written in the 12th century by unknown authors about everyday life in the 10th and 11th centuries during the Viking period, are just that to fans worldwide who celebrate these rousing stories as world-class literature. In his book, Byock uses the sagas, as well as archaeological and historical data, to open a wide window on this medieval island nation of Norse settler farmers, giving us an unparalleled view of their proto-democratic government, their laws, adherence to the social conventions of moderation, their social and judicial systems, customs and daily struggle to survive. "It's an exciting story of their adaptation to a harsh environment and about the first great movement west across the Atlantic," says Byock who, as a youth, spent years herding sheep on farms along Iceland's northern fjords.

—Cynthia Lee

"Sleeping with the Dictionary" (UC Press) by Harryette Mullen, poet and associate professor of English and African American Studies.

With her four previous collections of poetry, Mullen developed a reputation for tackling such weighty themes as identity politics and commercialism. In her latest collection, she assumes a more playful posture.

"Sleeping with the Dictionary," hailed as a breakthrough by "Publisher's Weekly," takes inspiration from all manner of word play: acrostic, anagram, homophone, parody and pun. For instance, the title of the list-like verse, "Any Lit," is an anagram for "litany." For send-ups of Shakespeare's famed Sonnet 130 ("Dark Lady") such as "Dim Lady" and "Variations on a Theme Park," Mullen was inspired by random word-replacement games pioneered by the international literary avant-garde group Oulipo.

Fans of Mullen's more overtly political works will not go hungry. Even such avant-garde poems as "Any Lit" harken back to her African-American heritage. Prose poem "Natural Anguish," meanwhile, was inspired by the Ebonics debate. Still, Mullen is concerned more here with the politics of language than politics per se.

—Meg Sullivan

"A Forest of Time: American Indian Ways of History" (Cambridge University Press) by Peter Nabokov, professor of American Indian Studies and World Arts and Cultures.

"Totem poles were our history books," says a Tlingit man in Nabokov's book detailing Native American history through an extensive analysis of folklore, rituals, geography, prophesies and other sources. "Unfortunately, the missionaries who came early on in the 1800s and the public officials thought that totem poles were our idols." Nabokov -- who has lived and worked among the Navajo, Lakota, Crow and several other Indian nations -- finds historical meaning in rituals, legends and myths. He demonstrates how stories told by generations of Native Americans carry hidden references to the conditions of their times. In his exploration of geography, a place becomes an anchor for history. "I'm sure many orthodox academic historians will object," Nabokov says. "But I wanted to make an argument that we should consider alternative histories. If we do so, we will find ourselves in a wonderfully rich world."

—Marina Dundjerski

"Off Keck Road" (Vintage Books) by Mona Simpson, visiting professor of English.

At just 167 pages, Simpson's latest novel is short, but by no means slight. "Off Keck Road" skillfully spans 50 years in the seemingly dissimilar lives of two women in Green Bay, Wis. Bea, a successful, college-educated career woman, and Shelley, a polio victim from a poor family, are different on the outside, but have more in common than they realize: loneliness, a history of missed opportunities and a touching decision to stay behind in their home-town, close to family. "The two characters started separately, then began to seem to be part of the same world. It probably came out of a certain sense of the language," says Simpson, herself a Green Bay native. "I'd taken a trip home to visit family in Wisconsin, and I was struck by the language -- the slang, the diction, the way the sound of the words went in the mouth. It reminded me of my childhood."

—Wendy Soderburg

Also published over the last year: four books by Acting Law Professor Khaled M. Abou El Fadl, including "Conference of the Books: The Search for Beauty in Islam" (University Press of America/Rowman and Littlefield); "The Provisional City: Los Angeles Stories of Architecture and Urbanism" (MIT Press) by Dana Cuff, professor of architecture and urban design/planning; "Culture and Customs of China" (Greenwood Publishing Group) by Richard Gunde, assistant director of the Center for Chinese Studies; "A Fresh Start" (Celestial Arts) by UCLA fitness instructor Susan Smith Jones; "Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing" by Jane Margolis, associate research educator at the Graduate School of Education & Informa-tion Studies (MIT Press); "The Indie Producers Handbook: Creative Producing from A-Z" (iFilm Publishing Company) by Adjunct Associate Professor Mryl A. Schreibman; "African Politics in Postimperial Times" (African World Press) by Political Science Professor Emeritus Richard Sklar; and "Warped Space, Art, Architecture, and Anxiety in Modern Culture" (MIT Press) by Anthony Vidler, professor and chair of art history.

A Footnote

To find out more about this year's Festival of Books, go to www.latimes.com/extras/festivalofbooks.

This year, the campus will be well-represented among the many exhibitors. Look for a UCLA booth in Dickson Plaza, where K-12 educational outreach programs and services will be showcased to provide teachers and parents with information on key resources offered by 14 UCLA groups.

Then browse the adjacent UCLA Pavilion for books from the BookZone. There will also be information from UCLA Extension and items for purchase from the Hammer and Fowler museum stores. In the children's area, visit UCLA Ocean Discovery Center's touch tanks to connect with the denizens of Santa Monica Bay.