Another book by an embedded journalist in Iraq, Generation Kill by Evan Wright, was bought by Penguin's Rob McMahon. Wright was with an advance army group known as the 1st Suicide Battalion because it operated so far ahead of the main force; the buy was from Richard Abate at ICM.... A change-of life book by former Harper publicity v-p Steven Sorrentino was won at auction by Judith Regan at her HC imprint; it's called Luncheonette and describes how the author was forced to return and take over the family eatery by the death of his father. The seller was Stuart Krichevsky.... Arcade's Richard and Jeannette Seaver won an auction for U.S. rights to a huge bestseller in the author's native Norway, The Half Brother by Lars Saabye Christensen. They bought it from its similarly named U.K. publisher, Arcadia, and plan to make it their fiction lead for next spring.