Question about default new book page outline & linking forum topic to a book

Hi, I am a newbie to Drupal and I am very impressed so far. I have the following questions which I hope someone can help me with:

1. I installed the Book module but when I create a Book page, the default outline setting is to not make it a new book. So the Book page is essentially dangling. Is there any way I can change it so that when a new Book page is created, it always creates a new book?

2. Another related question is, is it possible to automatically create a forum topic when a book is created? I know I can create a forum topic afterward and link it to the Book. I just wonder if there is something that would do it automatically. If not, where should I look at to customize the behavior (I know some PHP, but not an expert, so any direction would help.)

Thank you very much,

Charles