The Week in Preempts
Bruce Nichols at the Free Press has preempted The Colonel's Road by Lawrence Kaplan in a significant six-figure world rights deal with agent Gail Ross. Kaplan, an editor at the New Republic, will reveal the struggle for the soul of the military through the story of four army colonels from their West Point days in the 1970s to the present. Free Press plans a fall 2009 publication.
Allison McCabe at Crown preempted a novel by Gerri Brightwell titled The DarkLantern from Zoe Fishman at Lowenstein-Yost in a six-figure world rights deal. Set in Victorian London, this is about how a household's many secrets, both upstairs and down, wreak havoc on the household's master and his study of anthropometry, the science of establishing identity through body measurements. A spring 2008 publication is expected.
Warner's Rick Wolff has preempted world rights to Globality: Competing with Everyone from Everywhere for Everything by Boston Consulting Group partners Hal Sirkin, Jim Hemerling and Arindam Bhattacharya; Esmond Harmsworth and Todd Shuster at Zachary Shuster Harmsworth negotiated the deal. This business book will examine the post-globalization landscape, showing how the U.S. and today's other well-established economic players will be challenged and in some cases overwhelmed by rapidly developing economies in China, India, Korea and more. John Butman will assist in the writing, and Warner looks to pub in spring 2008.
Soft Skull's Richard Nash has preempted Dennis Fitzgerald's Informants: How Solving Crimes Has Been Outsourced to Criminals; agent Jodie Rhodes sold world rights. Fitzgerald, a former DEA special agent who recently served as legal adviser for the U.S. Department of Justice and the State Department in the former Soviet Union, will reveal how the U.S. criminal justice system has outsourced much of the role traditionally reserved for trained intelligence agents to an army of paid informants. A 2008 publication is anticipated.
Three Deals for Court
Penguin's Kathryn Court has acquired two new books by prolific cultural critic John Leonard; agent Susan Bergholz sold North American rights in a negotiation that involved four other substantial bidders. The first book, an untitled memoir, is billed as a virtual map of where America has been for the past 50 years, and Viking will publish in early 2009. Simultaneously, Penguin will publish an anthology of Leonard's most recent reviews and commentaries, currently titled Swimming with Snarks: Good Books, Bad People, Chicken Littles and Kamikazes.
Court also bought world rights to Perfumes: The Guide by Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez via agent Thomas Colchie. The book will include reviews of more than 1,200 fragrances, from "Undoubted Masterpieces" to the "Monumentally Awful." Turin is the author of The Secret of Scent, recently published by Ecco, and is also the subject of Chandler Burr's The Emperor of Scent. Viking will publish in April 2008.
Wrapping things up for the week, Court acquired a spy thriller by C. J. Sansom titled Winter inMadrid via agent JeanNaggar, who sold U.S. rights. Currently a bestseller in the U.K. (Macmillan has shipped more than 200,000 copies), the novel is set in 1940s Spain and has a love story at its center. Sansom is the author of the Matthew Shardlake novels; Viking expects to pub in winter 2008.
The Briefing
Harmony's Julia Pastore won an auction conducted by agent Matthew Carnicelli for brain and movement expert Anat Baniel's Move into Life: The Nine Essentials for Lifelong Vitality; Carnicelli sold world rights for six figures. Baniel, a protégé of Moshe Feldenkrais, an Israeli physicist who pioneered the mind-body connection, will write the book with Hal Zina Bennett. Harmony plans to publish in spring 2008.
