An April 1st Selection of Books....No Joke...

From Publishers Lunch Weekly:

FICTION:

DEBUT:

Kelly O'Connor McNees's THE LOST SUMMER OF LOUISA MAY ALCOTT, imagining a romance that could have taken place in summer of 1855, when poverty forced the Alcott family to move to a New Hampshire village where Louisa may have fallen in love and ultimately had to chose between a man she loved and her dream of becoming a writer, to Amy Einhorn of Amy Einhorn Books, in a pre-empt, by Marly Rusoff of Marly Rusoff & Associates (NA).

GENERAL/OTHER:

Melanie Benjamin's ALICE I HAVE BEEN, in which Alice Liddell at eighty looks back on her entire life, including her years as a child spent with Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, who would be inspired by Alice to write ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND as Lewis Carroll, to Kate Miciak at Bantam Dell, by Laura Langlie (world).

Eric Gansworth's EXTRA INDIANS, exploring the ghostly presence of American Indians in contemporary culture, and the attempts to exert their real stories in the national identity, to James Cihlar at Milkweed, for publication in Fall 2010 (World).

Winner of the 2009 Commonwealth Writers Prize for Southeast Asia, Christos Tsiolkas's THE SLAP, exploring contemporary multicultural middle class values in suburban Melbourne, through a range of characters' reactions to a singular incident: one man slaps another couple's child at a neighborhood picnic, to Alexis Washam at Penguin, by Wenona Byrne at Allen & Unwin.

NYT bestselling author Sara Poole's POISON, the first of three historical novels set in Renaissance Italy during the reign of the Borgias, featuring the daughter of the official court poisoner, to Charles Spicer at St. Martin's, by Andrea Cirillo at Jane Rotrosen Agency.

Alice Kaplan's TO LIVE IN FRANCE, the stories of three women who went to live in France as students, Jacqueline Bouvier (1949-1950), Susan Sontag (1957-1958), and Angela Davis (1963-1964) and how each was uniquely and profoundly affected by a year of study in Paris and how that year not only shaped the rest of their lives but the course of American culture and politics, to Alan Thomas of University of Chicago Press, by Marly Rusoff of Marly Rusoff & Associates (World English).

Alice Kaplan's TO LIVE IN FRANCE, the stories of three women who went to live in France as students, Jacqueline Bouvier (1949-1950), Susan Sontag (1957-1958), and Angela Davis (1963-1964) and how each was uniquely and profoundly affected by a year of study in Paris and how that year not only shaped the rest of their lives but the course of American culture and politics, to Alan Thomas of University of Chicago Press, by Marly Rusoff of Marly Rusoff & Associates (World English).

NONFICTION...

BIOGRAPHY:

Author of five NYT bestsellers about the Kennedy family, Edward Klein's TED KENNEDY: The Dream That Never Died, a balanced and ultimately redemptive portrait of the ailing Senator, promising revelations about Kennedy's relations with the Kopechne family; internal Kennedy family friction, and niece Caroline's abrupt withdrawal from consideration for the New York senatorial slot, to Rick Horgan at Crown, for publication in May 2009 (tying in with a Vanity Fair excerpt), by Dan Strone at Trident Media Group (world).

BUSINESS/INVESTING/FINANCE:

Former Secretary of the Treasury and former ceo of Goldman Sachs Henry Paulson, Jr.'s book, including his "personal recollections of key moments and decisions" and "his insights on what has happened since he left office," also "about where I see markets developing and where I think policies should go," with a focus on "my recollection of the events that I was at the center of," to Rick Wolff at Business Plus, on an exclusive submission, for publication in October 2009, by Robert Barnett at Williams & Connolly.

HISTORY/POLITICS/CURRENT AFFAIRS:

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Linda Greenhouse's ABORTION AND THE COURT: Roe v Wade and the Struggle to Define Abortion Rights, presenting the Supreme Court's various decisions regarding abortion in the context of the roiling times in which the decisions were wrought, dispelling much anachronistic thinking about what rights the Roe v Wade decision actually granted to women, to Don Fehr at Kaplan (world).

Chief political columnist for Politico and NYT bestselling author Roger Simon's untitled book, about presidential stagecraft from FDR to Obama - full of telling anecdotes and previously unheard behind-the-scenes details - that examines how presidents shape and are shaped by their own image-making, and how this can make or break their presidencies, to David Patterson at Holt, by Gail Ross at Gail Ross Literary Agency (NA).

MEMOIR:

Brooke Berman's NO PLACE LIKE HOME, a humorous and touching memoir about the author's quest for artistic success and home in thirty different apartments in New York City, over a span of twenty years; based on the author's award-winning play, HUNTING AND GATHERING, to Julia Pastore at Harmony, in a very nice deal, for publication in Summer 2010, by Swanna MacNair at Fletcher & Company (NA).

POP CULTURE:

Founding editor of Valleywag Nick Douglas's TWITTER WIT: Brilliance in 140 Characters or Less, the first authorized Twitter book, a collection of the thousand funniest tweets, with submissions from celebrities and unknown bloggers and a foreword by Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, to Kate Hamill at It Books, for publication in fall 2009, by Luke Janklow at Janklow & Nesbit (world).

SCIENCE:

Physicist and journalist James Owen Weatherall's SEND PHYSICS, MATH, AND MONEY!, exploring the role of physicists and mathematicians in creating the models that became the basis of an industry - and the source of the current financial meltdown - and tracing the history of "complex financial instruments" such as derivatives, from the Greeks to the early Japanese and Dutch futures markets to the Chicago Mercantile Exchange to their ultimate use in global finance, to Amanda Cook at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, at auction, by Zoe Pagnamenta of the Zoe Pagnamenta Agency (NA).

Wrap...