Roosevelt and the Court



NYU Law School professor Noah Feldman will write his next book, presently untitled, on a quartet of Supreme Court justices whose legal theories and influence on Franklin Roosevelt had a great impact on American society during the Great Depression. Warner Twelve publisher Jonathan Karp preempted world rights from Heather Schroder at ICM. Feldman's first work of history will examine the roles of Felix Frankfurter, Hugo Black, Robert Jackson and William O. Douglas in shaping the New Deal and foreign policy before they ascended to the Supreme Court. A former clerk to Justice Souter, Feldman is the author of three other books, most recently Divided by God: America's Church-State Problem and What We Should Do About It. Warner Twelve looks to publish in 2009.

Free Lunch Exposé

Adrian Zackheim, publisher of Penguin's Portfolio imprint, has signed up the next book by Pulitzer Prize—winning reporter David Cay Johnston, titled Free Lunch: Who Is Getting Rich Off Government and Sticking You with the Bill. The book will show how deregulation has thwarted competition, depressed wages and rewarded misconduct, revealing which famous Americans owe their fortunes to favors from the government. Johnston is the author of Perfectly Legal, which took on the U.S. tax system and was a bestseller for Portfolio in 2004. Agent Alice Martell made the world rights deal; Portfolio will publish in late 2007.

Memoir Deals

Harmony's John Glusman has acquired world rights to Andrew Pham's The Eaves of Heaven, which tells the story of Pham's father, who witnessed the demise of his ancestors' feudal world in Vietnam, the collapse of the French Indochina empire, the Japanese occupation during World War II, the rise of the Vietnamese Communists and the fall of Hanoi as well as Saigon. Pham is the author of Catfish and Mandala: A Two-Wheeled Voyage Through the Landscape and Memory of Vietnam, which Glusman published while at FSG. Jandy Nelson of Manus & Associates brokered this deal; Harmony plans a fall 2007 publication.

And Counterpoint's Amy Scheibe has signed up The Pharmacist's Mate's Amy Fusselman for two new memoirs in a world rights deal negotiated by PJ Mark at McCormick & Williams. In the first book, 8, Fusselman will blend childhood memories with various subjects such as her attempts to learn how to ride a motorcycle, her search for healers and her observations of her two young sons. Counterpoint will publish 8 in June 2007.

Expat's Debut

Twenty-nine-year-old Tod Wodicka has just sold U.S. rights to his untitled novel to Pantheon's Dan Frank; Zoe Pagnamenta at PFD NY handled the deal on behalf of Kevin Conroy Scott at Conville & Walsh. The novel's narrator is a 63-year-old American widower who sells his family's inn in upstate New York and buys a one-way ticket to Europe, where he immerses himself in the pursuit of medieval reenactments. Wodicka is an American who lives in Germany; U.K. rights have been sold to Jonathan Cape, and Nieuw Amsterdam subsequently preempted Dutch rights.

WWJD?

Paul Slovak, who oversees the Jack Kerouac publishing program at Viking, has acquired world English rights to What Would Jack Do? by John Leland, a New York Times reporter and author of Hip: The History. The book will be a critical reappraisal of On the Road, making the case that Kerouac's classic still matters; the book will be published in September 2007 to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the original publication of Kerouac's classic. Agent Paul Bresnick negotiated the deal.

The Briefing

James L. Swanson, theNew York Times bestselling author of Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer, has sold two new, untitled books, one on the weeks following Lincoln's assassination and another on the Civil War period, to Henry Ferris at William Morrow; Richard Abate at ICM sold world rights.... Yankee legend Yogi Berra has sold a new book, Team Player, about the value and virtue of being a team player both on the field and off, in the face of society's increasing resistance to this precept, to John Wiley's Stephen Power; agent Andrew Blauner brokered the world English deal, and the book will be written with David Kaplan, the director of the Yogi Berra Museum and Learning Center.... Crown's Heather Jackson has acquired world rights to entrepreneur Tim Ferriss's Drug Dealing for Fun and Profit, a new take on the evergreen work-life and career-trap problems we all face, based on his popular Princeton lectures of the same name; Stephen Hanselman of LevelFiveMedia brokered the deal.... Elizabeth Dyssegaard at Smithsonian Books has acquired two new books by Jake Page, The Natural History of Dogs and Uprising: The Story of the First American Revolution—the Pueblo Revolt of 1680; Joe Regal at Regal Literary sold North American rights. Page is the former editorial director of Natural History magazine and science editor of Smithsonian.