Mapping Retirement
A year and a half ago, former Playboy editor Barry Golson published a piece in AARP, the Magazine, about the phenomenon of boomers retiring to Mexico, which resulted in a deal with Scribner for the forthcoming Gringos in Paradise. The book, about Golson's adventures trying to build his dream house in a hamlet north of Puerto Vallarta, will be published next fall. Now Lisa Drew and Susan Moldow have signed Golson (with his wife, Thia, a former editor of the Boomer Report) for another book entitled Retirement Without Borders, which will consider the attractions of all kinds of overseas locales as exotic, safe and economic alternatives to Florida and Sun City. The deal for North American rights was brokered by Ellen Geiger at the Frances Goldin Literary Agency. Golson, meanwhile, has postponed his retirement to start an online travel Web site.
In Hunter's Kitchen
This isn't the first deal related to Hunter S. Thompson since his suicide in February, but it is the first book that promises to bring readers right into Thompson's living room—or kitchen, as it were. Woody Creek, Colo., sheriff Bob Braudis and local artist Michael Cleverly, two close Thompson buddies who logged many hours in the kitchen of Owl Farm, will reveal several decades' worth of up-close-and-personal anecdotes in The Kitchen Readings—Hunter Thompson in Woody Creek. Harper Entertainment/William Morrow editor Josh Behar acquired world rights from agent Paul Bresnick; the book is slated for publication in early 2007.
Behrendt on Dating
Now that he's clued readers in to deadbeat boyfriends and doomed relationships in the bestselling books He's Just Not That Into You (with Liz Tuccillo) and It's Called a Break-up Because It's Broken, Greg Behrendt will turn his attention to more encouraging aspects of the male-female minefield in a new, yet untitled book. The third book in this franchise, co-written with his wife, Amiira Ruotola-Behrendt, zeroes in on the art of dating. Broadway's Ann Campbell acquired North American rights from Andrea Barzvi at ICM in a seven-figure deal.
The Egegik Diaries
Many readers may associate author and filmmaker Bill Carter primarily with the Balkans; his documentary Miss Sarajevo and the subsequent memoir Fools Rush In helped bring attention to the war-torn region. But Carter has recently spent more than three years working as a commercial fisherman in Egegik, on the Alaskan peninsula. He will describe the beauty and danger of the experience in Red Summer, which Scribner's Colin Harrison acquired from Betsy Lerner at Dunow Carlson Lerner. The deal was for North American rights; publication is tentatively set for fall 2007.
Virgin's Kama Sutra
Following on the recent news that Virgin Books will launch in the U.S. market through an arrangement with Holtzbrinck, KT Forster, managing director of Virgin, has acquired world English rights to Deepak Chopra's Kama Sutra in a major six-figure deal from Robert Gottlieb and Eileen Cope at Trident. The internationally bestselling Chopra reinterprets Vasyayana's historic text; it will be published in the U.K. in May and in the U.S. in June 2006.
Debut to Atria
Atria's Greer Hendricks has acquired world rights to Chandra Prasad's first novel, titled One of the Boys, from agent Rosalie Siegel. Set during the Depression, the novel tells the story of Adele, whose impoverished family pin all of their hopes on her brother, and who takes his place at Yale, in disguise, when he is killed in a mining accident. Prasad is a Yale grad and the editor of Norton's Mixed: An Anthology of Short Fiction on the Multiracial Experience.
