Next in Globalization

Paul Elie at FSG bested four other bidders in an auction for Aerotropolis by John Kasarda and Greg Lindsay; agent David Kuhn sold world rights for six figures. The "aerotropolis," a term popularized by University of North Carolina business professor Kasarda, is a combination of giant airport, planned city, shipping facility and business hub. The book will take a look at this emerging phenomenon, now reshaping life from Dubai to Amsterdam to the D.C. suburbs, to show us how we will live in the near future. Lindsay is a contributor to Fast Company, for which he profiled Kasarda; Lindsay also crisscrossed the globe for three weeks for Advertising Age without ever stepping foot outside an airport.

Carson's Best Friend

Joanne Carson, ex-wife of Johnny and friend of Truman Capote, has been immersed in canine epilepsy and the treatment of dog health-related problems for nearly three decades; she received a Ph.D. in nutritional biochemistry and physiology 25 years ago. She just sold a book, How to Spoil Your Dog Rotten: A Scientifically Proven Program for the Health and Longevity of Your Best Friend, which Victoria Wilson at Knopf acquired at auction from agent Harvey Klinger, who sold North American rights. Carson will donate all monies from the book to the HemoPet Center for Animal Recovery and Rehabilitation, the country's first blood bank for animals. A fall 2008 pub is anticipated.

Triple Crown

In another auction this week, Sally Kim at Shaye Areheart Books took North American rights to debut novelist Will Lavender's Obedience; Laney Katz Becker negotiated the six-figure buy, her first fiction deal for Folio Literary Management. This psychological thriller is set on a small college campus where students taking a logic and reasoning class must use their deductive skills to solve the fictionalized disappearance of a young girl, only to stumble upon a real-life disappearance that mirrors the scenario set out by their professor. Pub date is spring 2008; rights have so far been sold in Holland, Italy and Sweden.

Elsewhere at Crown, Rick Horgan acquired world rights to the next book by bestselling Jawbreakerauthors Gary Berntsen and Ralph Pezzullo; Heather Mitchell at Gelfman Schneider made the major six-figure sale. This is a debut novel titled The Walk-In, which will draw on former CIA operative Berntsen's biography to show what happens when a defector "walks in" to an embassy with information suggesting millions are in peril, and a CIA interrogator must urgently determine whether the defector is telling the truth. Likely pub date summer 2008.

In a mid-six-figure deal, Allison McCabe acquired U.S. rights to a first novel by Jane Johnson, publishing director at HarperCollins UK, via Russell Galen at Scovil Chichak Galen. Titled Crossed Bones, the book is about a London woman who becomes obsessed with the story of a Cornish girl kidnapped in 1625 by Moroccan pirates, and travels there to investigate the case. Johnson herself lives in a remote area of Morocco with her Berber husband. Tentative pub date is 2008; the book has already been sold in the U.K., Canada, Germany, Italy, France and Holland.

The Briefing

Basic's Lara Heimert bought world rights to a new book by Arthur Brooks titled The Politics of Happiness; Lisa Adams at the Garamond Agency made the sale. The book will examine the latest research in psychology, social science, medicine, genetics and economics to help readers understand which political policies are likely to make them happy or miserable. Brooks, a professor at Syracuse University, is the author of Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism.... Marian Wood has bought two new novels by Philip Kerr for her imprint at Putnam, both featuring Bernie Gunther, the German PI of Kerr's Berlin Noir trilogy; Caradoc King at AP Watt sold North American rights, and anticipated pub dates are winter 2008 and winter 2009.... Gayatri Patnaik at Beacon has acquired North American rights to Washington University professor Christopher A. Bracey's The Black Conservative Tradition, a nonpartisan exploration of what it means to be a black conservative; Jacqueline Hackett at Watkins/Loomis made the sale, and pub date is February 2008.... Baseball historian and author of Voices of the GameCurt Smith has inked a two-book deal with Eugene Brissie at Lyons Press, with Ken Samelson to edit, via agent Andrew Blauner. The first is The Voice: Mel Allen's Untold Story, which will provide an in-depth account of the rise, fall and rise again of the legendary broadcasting figure; this will pub in April 2007, in time for opening day. The second book, for spring 2008, will take sportscaster Vin Scully as its subject.... Wendy Holt at Da Capo bought world rights to A Little Fruitcake: A Childhood in Holidays, from Homo Domesticus author David Valdes Greenwood; this is a stocking stuffer of 12 boyhood Christmas stories. No agent, and pub date is fall 2007.... Sheila Curry Oakes at St. Martin's has acquired world rights to Great Hairby Nick Arrojo from agent Lauren Galit; Arrojo, hairstylist on TLC's What Not to Wear, will reveal styling secrets for all hair types. Tentative pub date is fall 2008.