Shalom Auslander explores the past, Madeleine Albright talks WWII, Alison Bechdel dissects her mom, A.J. Jacobs gets healthy, and Augusten Burroughs delivers survival tips. These are just a few of the topics the major American houses will be exploring as they descend on Frankfurt with their big offerings of the season.

Grove/Atlantic
Among the big books on Grove/Atlantic’s foreign rights list is PEN/Hemingway winner Patricia Engel’s House of Stars (fall 2012 or winter 2013), a novel set in Paris and narrated by a young American Latina woman. From NBA finalist Christine Schutt is Prosperous Friends (fall 2012), which the house calls a “witty dissection of marriage.” James Howard Kunst-ler has Too Much Magic (July 2012), which extends the arguments the author brought to bear in his bestselling The Long Emergency, and presses readers about the dangers of our country’s dependence on foreign oil. G/A will also be pushing two titles from Mysterious Press, which was relaunched this fall. The first is from Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Joseph Wambaugh, Harbor Nocturne (Aug. 2012), the newest title in the author’s Hollywood Station mystery series; rights sold in France. The second MP title is Thomas Perry’s Poison Flower (Mar. 2012), which follows the author’s popular Seneca guide, Jane Whitefield, in “the most dangerous case of a long career.”

Hachette
One of the hot titles from Little, Brown this year is the new one from Emma Donoghue, Astray. The story collection, from the author of the bestseller Room, “spans centuries and continents” and features “fascinating characters that roam across the page.” Another big fiction selection is Wm. Paul Young’s currently untitled new novel (FaithWords, Apr. 2013), a follow-up to the author’s bestselling The Shack, which has sold more than 15 million copies since 2008. Glee star Chris Colfer, who won a Golden Globe for his portrayal of the flamboyant Kurt Hummel on the show, has the modern-day fairy tale The Land of Stories (LBYR, Aug. 2012), about brother-and-sister twins who wind up in a magical world; rights sold in Brazil. On the nonfiction side is Alex Pang’s Taming the Digital Monkey (LB), a “smart and practical book of ways to reclaim our lives in an age that is more digital by the day,” from a history and philosophy professor at Stanford; Dutch rights sold. And the Lady Gaga/Terry Richardson photo book and collaboration, Lady Gaga × Terry Richardson (GCP, Nov. 2011), will also be up for grabs in Frankfurt; rights sold in Germany and the U.K.

HarperCollins
A major novel on HC’s foreign rights list is Karl Taro Greenfield’s Triburbia (Harper, Apr. 2013), a work set in TriBeCa that the house is calling a “novel-in-stories” and comparing to Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad and Tom Rachman’s The Imperfectionists. Trotting out a number of big memoirs, HC will also be selling Prague Winter by Madeleine Albright (Harper, May 2012), in which the former secretary of state recalls 12 of what HC dubs “the most turbulent years in world history,” 1937 to 1948; rights sold in, among other countries, Germany. Then there is the untitled memoir from Demi Moore (Harper, Oct. 2012), in which she will chronicle her early years as well as her rise to fame and difficult relationship with her drug-addled mother; U.K. rights sold. Jerry Lee Lewis, writing with Pulitzer-winner Rick Bragg, has Burn & Rave (It Books, Sept. 2012), which the house says “promises to be as controversial as his life and his legendary stage performances”; HC has world rights, excluding France, Holland, and the U.K., which are being handled by Andrew Nurnberg. And another big music bio on the docket is Nothin’ to Lose: The Making of Kiss (1972–1975) by Gene Simmons, writing with Paul Stanley, about the band’s formation; the book is being pubbed to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the quartet.

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
From Anthony Shadid is House of Stone: A Memoir of Home, Family, and a Lost Middle East (Mar. 2012), in which the Pulitzer winner recounts his family’s experience rebuilding an ancestral home in Lebanon. Alison Bechdel is out with her new graphic memoir, Are You My Mother: A Comic Drama (May 2012), in which the author of the bestselling Fun Home explores how she turned into the “gifted artist her mother always wanted to be”; U.K. rights sold. From runner Scott Jurek is Eat and Run: My Unlikely Journey to Ultramarathon Greatness (June 2012), about how his plant-based diet helped change his career. Corey Olsen has Exploring the Hobbit (Sept. 2012), a companion volume to J.R.R. Tolkien’s novel from the webmaster of www.tolkienprofessor.com, who teaches English at Maryland’s Washington College; rights sold in Brazil. And from William Mann is Hello Gorgeous: Becoming Barbra Streisand (Nov. 2012), a biography of the star from the bestselling author of Kate (about Katharine Hepburn) and How to Be a Movie Star (about Elizabeth Taylor).

Macmillan
Among the big books FSG will be shopping in Frankfurt is Paul LeFarge’s new novel, Luminous Airplanes (FSG, Oct. 2011), which recently earned a PW starred review and, through what we called “a wholly integrated narrative,” follows a computer programmer from upstate New York to San Francisco; rights sold in the U.K. From Vanderbilt history professor Joel Harrington is God’s Executioner (FSG, spring 2013), a nonfiction account of Meister Franz Schmidt—a 16th-century executioner who took the lives of at least 361 people—culled from Schmidt’s journals. From Magdy El Shafee is Metro (Metropolitan Books, May 2012), which the publisher claims is “the first graphic novel of the Arab world.” The book is set in Mubarak’s Egypt—Shafee was born in Libya and is a popular cartoonist—and follows a man who, with pressure to pay off loan sharks, botches a bank robbery. Metro has been banned in Egypt since 2008, and rights have sold in the U.K. From BBC producer David Snodin is Iago (Henry Holt, Jan. 2012), which puts more than a twist on Shakespeare’s play as it follows two brothers who arrive in Cyprus in 1523 to find that the governor (Othello) and his wife (Desdemona) have been murdered and the supposed killer, Iago, who has been locked away in a cell, is now on the loose. (Steve Rubin acquired Iago back in April 2010, just before that year’s London Book Fair, in one of his first major purchases after joining Macmillan; rights sold in the U.K.) And from Augusten Burroughs is This Is How (SMP, May 2012), a guide to surviving life’s worst tragedies from the author of the bestselling memoir Running with Scissors; the book’s lengthy, and cheeky, subtitle is Proven Treatment to Overcome Shyness, Molestation, Fatness, Spinsterhood, Grief, Disease, Lushery, Decrepitude & More for Old and Young Alike.

Penguin
A book Penguin’s foreign rights staff will be talking up is Owen Laukkenen’s The Professionals (Putnam, Mar. 2012), the debut novel from a British M.F.A. graduate and former professional poker player about four friends who, unable to find jobs after graduating from college, become professional kidnappers. From James Kimmel Jr. is the novel The Trial of Fallen Angels (Amy Einhorn, fall 2012), about a young lawyer who, after unexpectedly dying, is selected to prosecute or defend the recently deceased in the afterlife, at the “final judgment”; rights sold in various countries including Brazil, Germany, and the U.K. From popular British novelist Alex George is A Good American (Amy Einhorn, Feb. 2012), which follows three generations of an American Midwestern family. Shalom Auslander, the author of The Foreskin’s Lament, has his new novel, Hope: A Tragedy (Riverhead, Jan. 2012), about, per the house, “trying to escape the past”; rights sold in, among other countries, Germany, Israel, and the U.K. Another major book from Penguin is the currently untitled memoir from Stephanie Madoff Mack (Blue Rider Press, Dec. 2011), in which the widow of Mark Madoff and daughter-in-law of Bernie gives her take on “both the public crisis and her own deeply personal tragedy.” From the author of the multimillion-copy seller The Dance of Anger, Harriet Lerner, there’s Marriage Rules (Gotham, Jan. 2012), a “compact manual of relationship advice”; rights sold in Germany. And from Claire Bidwell Smith is the memoir The Rules of Inheritance (Hudson Street Press, Feb. 2012), about the Los Angeles grief therapist’s 20s, which were bookended by the death of both her parents.

Random House
Among RH’s big titles in Germany is Debbie Macomber’s Starting Now (Ballantine, May 2012), the latest entry in the bestseller’s Blossom Street series, about “two lost people who find a new beginning together”; rights sold in the U.K. From Janet Evanovich is Explosive Eighteen (Bantam, Nov. 2011), the newest title in the bestselling series about bounty hunter Stephanie Plum; rights sold in Germany and the U.K. From Adam Johnson is The Orphan Master’s Son: A Novel (RHPG, Jan. 2012), about a North Korean orphan who becomes a low-ranking spy. The house calls the work “an unforgettable glimpse into a totalitarian regime”; rights have sold in, among other places, Israel, Italy, and the U.K. From Caroline Stoessinger there’s A Kind of Prayer (Spiegel & Grau, Mar. 2012), a collection of life lessons from Alice Herz-Sommer, the world’s oldest living Holocaust survivor; rights sold in various countries including France, Germany, and the U.K. From Reid Hoffman is The Start-Up of You (Crown Business), a guide, from the founder of LinkedIn, to applying the tricks of successful entrepreneurs to your own career; rights sold in Brazil and the U.K. CNN national security analyst Peter Bergen offers up details on the decade-long search for Osama bin Laden in Manhunt (Crown); rights sold in, among other countries, Denmark, Norway, and the U.K. And from Lee Lipsenthal is Enjoy Every Sandwich (Crown Archetype), a guide to embracing “a more joyous way of living” from a doctor diagnosed with a terminal illness; rights sold in Brazil, Finland, Germany, and Italy.

Simon & Schuster
One of the big titles from S&S in Germany will be Dick Cheney’s memoir, In My Time (Threshold, Aug. 2011), in which the former vice president “provides a frank and brutally honest look at his life”; rights sold in several countries. From Arthur Fleischmann is Carly’s Voice (Touchstone, Mar. 2012), a nonfiction account from the father of a girl with severe autism; rights sold in several countries including Germany and Italy. Another big book on the S&S list is A.J. Jacobs’s Drop Dead Healthy (S&S, Apr. 2012), in which the bestselling author of The Year of Living Biblically chronicles his attempt to “become the healthiest man in the world”; rights sold in Germany and the U.K. From Dr. David B. Agus is The End of Illness (Free Press, Jan. 2012), a hypothesis from a professor at USC’s medical school that posits the best way to combat diseases such as cancer is to prevent them. S&S says Agus offers “a radically different approach that will change not only how we care for ourselves but also how we develop the next generation of treatments and cures.” And from Gabrielle Giffords and her husband, Mark Kelly, writing with Jeffrey Zaslow, is Gabby: A Story of Courage and Hope (Scribner, Nov. 2011), in which the couple recount their lives together as well as the difficult recovery Congresswoman Giffords went through after being shot in Arizona; Zaslow is a Wall Street Journal reporter and coauthor of The Last Lecture; U.K. sale pending as of this writing.