DEAL OF THE WEEK
Chomsky, Robinson Sell ‘Myth’
In her first acquisition at Penguin Press, Sara Bershtel bought world rights to Nathan J. Robinson and Noam Chomsky’s The Myth of American Idealism for six figures. Robinson (Responding to the Right) is the editor-in-chief of Current Affairs magazine. His agent, Mark Gottlieb at Trident Media Group, said the book, subtitled How U.S. Foreign Policy Endangers the World and slated for fall or winter 2024, offers a “highly accessible and readable critique of American power, showing how recent U.S. foreign policy decisions have caused disastrous harm across the globe.” Chomsky (Hegemony or Survival) was represented by Anthony Arnove at the Roam Agency.
Adams’s ‘Rules’ Go to Dell
Dell’s Shauna Summers acquired world rights to three novels by Sarah Adams. The first, The Rule Book, is a sequel to the April 2022 bestseller (and BookTok hit) The Cheat Sheet. Dell said The Rule Book “features an aspiring sports agent assigned to represent her college ex-boyfriend, who’s now an NFL football star.” The other two titles in the deal, brokered by Kim Lionetti at BookEnds Literary, will be entries in the author’s Rome, Kentucky series.
McCallum’s ‘Girls’ Land at Flatiron
North American rights to the debut YA novel Free Girls by Kristen McCallum were bought by Sarah Barley and Sydney Jeon at Flatiron Books. The publisher said the book is about a teenager named Jas who is “adjusting to her new home, new family, and new life while keeping the secret that she’s spent the last year in a juvenile detention center.” Free Girls was sold by Sara Shandler and Joelle Hobeika at Alloy Entertainment and is tentatively slated for fall 2024.
Penguin Buys Molly in Paris
Molly Ringwald sold North American rights to a memoir, The Paris Years, to Ann Godoff at Penguin Press. Penguin said the actor shares intimate details about “the transformational years she spent living and working in Paris in her 20s,” adding that the book, which had no pub date at press time, is “a love letter to the country and culture that inspired her to dare, to take chances, and to chart her path as an artist and as a woman.” Jin Auh at the Wylie Agency represented Ringwald in the agreement.
Gendron ‘Coaches’ for Prism
For Chronicle Prism, Cara Bedick nabbed North American rights to Alice Gendron’s The Mini ADHD Coach. Gendron has a popular Instagram account of the same name, and the publisher called the book, set for August, “the first truly accessible self-help book for ADHD readers.” It includes “tips and ADHD hacks that can help readers to work with their condition.” PRH UK’s Catherine Wood brokered the sale.
Clancy Gets ‘Interrupted’ at Princeton
Princeton University Press’s Alison Kalett acquired world English rights to Pregnancy Interrupted by Kate Clancy. The author is a professor of anthropology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and the publisher said that the book, subtitled The New Science of Miscarriage and scheduled for 2025, gives readers “a clear-eyed and compassionate guide for conceptualizing the science” behind pregnancy loss. Clancy pulls from personal and professional experience to show how “of all the possible outcomes of an encounter between a sperm and an egg, a baby is the least likely, yet most expected; the least biologically supported, but the most culturally demanded.” Clancy is also the author of the April-slated Period: The Real Story of Menstruation (also from Princeton). She was represented by Michelle Tessler at Tessler Literary Agency.
Correction: An earlier version of this article mistakenly included a headline stating that Gendron's The Mini ADHD Coach was acquired by Princeton University Press; it was acquired by Chronicle Prism.
