After a profoundly subdued couple of weeks, there was a sudden burst of activity in the production of books set to appear in the next month or two that examine aspects of the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington on September 11. These are some of the ones announced by press time.
How Did It Happen? is the provocative title of a book that Public Affairs is planning on the events of September 11, along with the editors of Foreign Affairs magazine. Public Affairs' Peter Osnoshas signed the magazine's editor, James F. Hoge Jr., and managing editor Gideon Roseto assemble a group of experts on foreign, Islamic and military affairs to present a profile of the events, pressures and diplomatic moves that formed the background to the terrorist attack on New York and Washington. The book, says Osnos, will be not a symposium of opinions but a series of narratives on different aspects of the world scene that set the stage for the attacks. The group of 15 to 20 contributors will include Fouad Ajami, Benjamin Barber, Samuel R. Berger, Wesley K. Clark, William Perry, Alan Wolfe and Fareed Zakaria. The house aims to publish, in trade paperback, as early as possible in November.
Rodale is partnering with Beliefnet Inc. to do a book called From the Ashes: A Spiritual Response to the Attack on America: Experience, Strength and Hope from Spiritual Leaders and Extraordinary Citizens, an anthology of essays and commentary by a range of religious, spiritual and inspirational leaders. All profits will be donated to the NYC Bravest Scholarship Fund for the education of the children of firefighters who lost their lives. The publisher has a particular interest because two of the lost firefighters were participants in the program outlined in Rodale's Dr. Shapiro's Picture Perfect Weight Loss, and had worked closely with the New York Fire Department while publicizing the title to bestsellerdom. From the Ashes is scheduled to ship to stores on October 11 and will appear simultaneously in audio from Highbridge.
Newmarket Press is offering Our Mission and Our Moment, a commemorative edition of the text of President Bush's speech to Congress on September 20 outlining his plans to combat terrorism. This will be ready as a $6 paperback in a first printing of 100,000 on October 11, and Newmarket president Esther Margolis has committed $250,000 from first-printing profits, plus a dollar a book thereafter, to the American Red Cross for disaster relief. The book will also include a chronology of events and some pictures.
Basic Books is another publisher joining with another institution this time the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization to copublish The Age of Terror: America and the World After September 11, edited by Strobe Talbott and Nayan Chanda, in which eight scholars look at ways terrorism can be contained and ultimately overcome. Contributors are Paul Kennedy, Charles Hill, Abbas Amanat, Paul Bracken, Niall Ferguson, John Lewis Gaddis, Harold Koh and Maxine Singer, and the book will be offered simultaneously in the U.S. and U.K. on January 2, 2002.
At Harry Abrams, final touches are being put to an agreement with New York magazine to publish September 11, 2001: New York Attacked: A Record of Tragedy, Heroism and Hope, a hardcover book illustrated with more than 100 pictures, that will be on sale in early November in a first printing of 50,000. The deal was being concluded at press time between the magazine's editor-in-chief, Caroline Miller, and Abrams's editor-in-chief, Eric Himmel (who in private life are husband and wife). Proceeds from its sale will go to the September 11th Fund, specially created to help the families of disaster victims.
Even foreign publishers are getting into the act. From Paris comes word of a book by two French journalists, Mardi, 11 Septembre 2001: Le jour ou le monde á changé (The Day When the World Changed), to be published on October 14 by Editions First. No translation available so far, but the publisher will be looking for foreign buyers at Frankfurt.
