Gallery Announces Spears Memoir Date

Gallery Books will publish Britney Spears’s memoir, The Woman in Me, on October 24 in the U.S. The memoir will also be released that day by S&S divisions in Australia, Canada, India, and the U.K. Foreign rights have been sold in 15 territories. The book was previously acquired in the U.S. by Gallery Books senior v-p and publisher Jennifer Bergstrom and executive editor Lauren Spiegel, who bought world and audio rights from CAA. In making the announcement, the Simon & Schuster imprint said that in the memoir the pop icon reveals “the strength at the core of one of the greatest performers in pop music history,” adding, “With remarkable candor and humor, Spears’s groundbreaking memoir illuminates the enduring power of music and love—and the importance of a woman telling her own story, on her own terms.”

One Signal Takes Litman’s ‘Lawless’

Julia Cheiffetz at One Signal acquired world rights to a book about the Supreme Court by Michigan Law School professor Leah Litman, who is also cohost of the Strict Scrutiny podcast. Cheiffetz won the book, which One Signal said is “in the vein of Elie Mystal’s Allow Me to Retort,” in an auction conducted by Amelia Atlas at CAA. Lawless: How the Supreme Court Came to Run on Conservative Grievance, Fringe Theories, and Bad Vibes explains, the publisher said, how the “ ‘politics of conservative grievance’ is driving the Supreme Court” and “the law is being shaped by little more than ‘vibes,’ ” and explores how “this all threatens to reinforce minority rule and undo our democracy unless and until we get real about it.” Publication is planned for June 2025.

‘Dreaming’ Comes True for Little, Brown

Tracy Sherrod at Little, Brown took world English rights, at auction, to MIT professor and Whiting Award–winning poet and essayist Joshua Bennett’s The Orbit of Our Dreaming. Little, Brown described the nonfiction work as “an entwined personal narrative and historical account of how early talent is recognized and celebrated in Black communal spaces, how individuals find their place within a tradition, and the importance of cultivating a more expansive understanding of giftedness—as well as a more inclusive vision of community—for us all.” David Kuhn and Nate Muscato at Aevitas Creative Management brokered the deal for Orbit, which is set to be published Sept. 2, 2025.

Skin Guide Goes to Hay House

At auction and in a six-figure deal, Allison Janice, senior acquisitions editor at Hay House, acquired world rights to Skincare Simplified: A Dermatologist’s Guide to Better Skin. Written by dermatologists Muneeb Shah, aka Doctorly and DermDoctor, with more than 20 million social media followers, and Jarett Casale, the book is “a skincare guide designed to help readers achieve their best skin using evidence-based principles,” according to Mark Gottlieb of Trident Media Group, who handled the deal. Publication of Skincare Simplified is slated for fall 2024.


Park Row Snags ‘Stone Witch’

In a mid-six-figure preempt, Park Row Books editor Laura Brown acquired world English plus audio rights to The Stone Witch of Florence by debut novelist Anna Rasche. Park Row said Stone Witch “follows a remarkable young woman who draws upon the strange and ancient magic of gemstones to investigate a series of shocking crimes in plague-stricken Florence.” Rasche is a historian and gemologist, and the novel is based on original research on the uses of gemstones in medieval medicine she conducted at the Cooper Hewitt Museum and on site in Italy. Stefanie Lieberman at Janklow & Nesbit represented Rasche, and the novel is planned for a fall 2024 release.

This article has been updated for clarity.