On Bargains
Todd Shuster at Zachary Shuster Harmsworth has just closed a six-figure, world rights deal with Houghton's Eamon Dolan for Ellen Ruppel Shell's Cheap: Rising Up from the Bargain Basement. In this exposé of the dark side of contemporary consumer culture, Shell, a correspondent for the Atlantic Monthly and co-director of the Center for Science and Medical Journalism at Boston University, will examine one of the most powerful marketing forces of our time: the bargain. In particular, Cheap will explore the ramifications of consumers' hyper-focus on price, including the outsourcing of jobs, the disappearance of artisans and skilled repair people, and the deterioration of our health and environment. Shell is also the author of The Hungry Gene.
Hot Debut
Dial's Susan Kamil has acquired U.S. rights to Julie Buxbaum's The Opposite of Lovein a major two-book deal brokered by agent Elaine Koster. Buxbaum's first novel centers on a 29-year-old attorney who lost her mother as a teenager and finds her well-constructed life falling apart when she can't commit to the man who loves her. Buxbaum is a graduate of Penn and Harvard Law who practiced law in New York and L.A. before putting her litigation career on hold to write full-time. Dial plans a winter 2008 publication.
In Pocket
Pocket's Maggie Crawford has acquired world English rights to two new, untitled suspense thrillers by Perri O'Shaughnessy (the pseudonym for sisters Pamela and Mary O'Shaughnessy). The deal, made by Nancy Yost at Lowenstein-Yost, will reunite the O'Shaughnessys with Crawford, who edited their books at Dell/Delacorte. The first book is scheduled for a 2008 publication.
Also at Pocket, Lauren McKenna has acquired world English rights to the next two books by The Beach House author Mary Alice Monroe from Trident's Kimberly Whalen. No titles or pub dates yet, but both will be the commercial fiction set in the South familiar to Monroe's fans.
Women in the Media
Paul Golob at Times Books has acquired a new, untitled book by University of Michigan media studies professor Susan J. Douglas from Chris Calhoun at Sterling Lord, who sold North American rights. Douglas is the author of Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Female with the Mass Media, also published by Times. Her new book will be a narrative analysis of how women and women's concerns have been portrayed in popular culture and the mass media of the past 15 years, mining such material as Ally McBeal, Sex and the City, Desperate Housewives and Hillary Clinton and Laura Bush. Times Books plans a winter 2009 publication.
Two More for Tyree
Bestselling author and NAACP Image Award recipient Omar Tyree (For the Love of Money) has signed with David Rosenthal at S&S for two new novels; the U.S. rights deal was negotiated by new Watkins/Loomis agent Jacqueline S. Hackett. The first is titled The Writer and a summer 2007 publication is planned. S&S published Tyree's latest novel, What They Want, this past July.
Behind the Bubbly
Stacey Glick at Dystel & Goderich has just sold Tilar Mazzeo's The Widow Clicquot: the History of a Champagne Empire and the Woman Who Ruled It; Genoveva Llosa at Collins bought world rights. This is to be a popular biography of Barbe-Nicole Clicquot Ponsardin, the woman behind the prominent champagne label who, in the course of the tumultuous years of the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars, assumed control of the Clicquot company and ended up one of the richest and most celebrated women in 19th-century Europe. Mazzeo is an English professor at Colby College, and the targeted pub date is fall 2008. The current CEO of Clicquot, Mireille Guiliano, scored a recent hit with French Women Don't Get Fat.
Glick also just sold Shauna James's Beyond Wonder Bread to Christel Winkler at Wiley, who bought world rights. Based on James's blog, glutenfreegirl.com, this is a food narrative, with recipes, that breaks down the mysteries of the kitchen and teaches its readers to enjoy eating again. James became a gourmand once she went gluten-free. Wiley plans a fall 2007 publication.
The Briefing
Harmony's John Glusman has acquired What Happens Next? A History of American Screenwriting by Marc Norman, the Oscar-winning author of Shakespeare in Love; Peter Matsonat Sterling Lord sold world English rights. This is a behind-the-scenes account of Hollywood in the 20th century and the evolution of the screenplay; Harmony will publish in fall 2007.... Will Schwalbe and Emily Gould at Hyperion have signed up talk-show host Lionelfor a yet-untitled book of political humor; Maura E. Teitelbaumat Abrams Artists sold North American rights. Lionel's nationally syndicated radio talk show, broadcast by WOR, draws one million listeners.
