Penguin is launching a new imprint called Current that will publish science books for a general audience. Adrian Zackheim, president and publisher of Penguin's Portfolio and Sentinel imprints, will oversee Current. The new imprint will also rely on the existing editorial, marketing and publicity staff of Portfolio and Sentinel.
Current will, as Zackheim explained, publish books in "every subcategory from quantum physics to neuroscience." But breadth of subject matter won't mean more books; the imprint will only release five to eight titles a year, as part of a boutique model. "We've found that niche publishing has been very successful for Portfolio since 2001, and Sentinel since 2003," Zackheim said in a statement. "This is a logical next category to expand into."
There are two Current titles in the pipeline now, The Youth Pill by David Stipp, which is slated for July 2010, and The Man Who Lied to His Laptop, by Clifford Nass with Corina Yen, scheduled for September 2010. Stipp's book explores the scientific movement to expand peoples' lifespans and Nass, a Stanford professor, examines how to develop successful relationships using rules he learned from studying the interaction between computers.
