Saturday, October 02, 2010

Whole Mess of Good Books Coming....

From Publishers Lunch Weekly:

FICTION
DEBUT...

Ayad Akhtar's unsparing debut novel, AMERICAN DERVISH, about an American Muslim family struggling with faith and belonging in a diverse yet divisive heartland community, to Judy Clain at Little, Brown, by Donna Bagdasarian at Publication Riot Group (world).

Erin Morgenstern's THE NIGHT CIRCUS, set at the turn of the 19th century, which tells the story of two young magicians, pawns in an age-old rivalry between their mercurial, illusionist fathers, and the enchanted circus where their competition (and romance) plays out, leaving the fates of everyone involved - from creators and performers to patrons - hanging in the balance, to Alison Callahan at Doubleday, by Richard Pine at Inkwell Management (World).

Alan Lazar's ROAM, the story of a little dog who gets lost for eight years, and when he is miraculously reunited with his owner, has traveled thousands of miles and lost a leg, in an epic journey across America that includes many narrow escapes and living with a pack of wolves for a time, while never losing his longing for the Great Love, his first owner, to Sarah Durand at Atria, by Henry Dunow at Dunow, Carlson & Lerner (NA).

MYSTERY/CRIME...

Lisa Lutz and David Hayward's HEADS YOU LOSE, a collaborative crime novel written in alternating chapters about a pair of pot-growing siblings who find a decapitated body in their yard and are forced to deal with the consequences, pitched as Weeds meets Adaptation with the humor of The Spellman Files, to Marysue Rucci at Putnam, for publication in Spring 2011, by Stephanie Kip Rostan at Levine Greenberg Literary Agency (world English).

GENERAL/OTHER...

Janice Steinberg's AN INTELLIGENT JEWESS, about an 85-year-old woman, finding a clue to the whereabouts of her twin sister, who disappeared from the little-known Jewish mecca of Boyle Heights, LA on the eve of WWII, and plunging back into memories of her childhood and the momentous historical facts that impacted her family; along the way there are stories within this story - those from the Old Country, and tales of immigration travails - not only about the stories we tell but more importantly those that we believe, especially the ones about ourselves, to Kendra Harpster at Random House, by Susan Golomb at the Susan Golomb Agency (NA).

Natasa Dragnic's EVERY DAY, EVERY HOUR, pitched as reminiscent of The Solitude of Prime Numbers and The Time Traveler's Wife set in Croatia and Paris, about a couple who are meant to be together, but fate keeps them apart; beginning with their meeting as children, when a young boy faints at the sight of his beguiling kindergarten classmate, and following the brief episodes when they reconnect over the course of their lives, through marriages and children, careers and personal tragedies, to Stephen Morrison at Viking, with Alexis Washam editing, by Gesche Wendebourg at DVA.

Rights have also been sold to Chatto, De Bezige Bij, Seix Barral, Flammarion, Feltrinelli, Doubleday Canada, and Gyldendal (for Norway and Denmark).

CHILDREN'S: MIDDLE GRADE...

THE CHRONICLES OF HARRIS BURDICK: 14 Amazing Authors Tell the Tales, in which fourteen notable authors will each contribute a short story for middle-grade readers based on an illustration, including an introduction by Daniel Handler and stories Sherman Alexie, M.T. Anderson, Kate DiCamillo, Cory Doctorow, Jules Feiffer, Stephen King, Tabitha King, Lois Lowry, Gregory Maguire, Walter Dean Myers, Linda Sue Park, Louis Sachar, Jon Scieszka, and Chris Van Allsburg, to Margaret Raymo at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Children's, for publication in Fall 2011.

CHILDREN'S: YOUNG ADULT...

Veronica Rossi's UNDER THE NEVER SKY, about forbidden lovers from radically different societies - following a girl banished from her enclosed, technology-bound city out into the deadly natural world, where she encounters a savage boy who becomes her only chance to survive and return home, to Barbara Lalicki at Harper, in a three-book deal, for publication in Winter 2012, by Josh Adams at Adams Literary (NA).

CLA Award-winning author Lesley Livingston's trilogy STARLING, pitched as a supernatural Bourne Identity that blends Norse, Egyptian, and Greek mythologies with paranormal elements, to Laura Arnold at Harper Children's, by Jessica Regel at the Jean V. Naggar Literary Agency (NA).

NONFICTION

BIOGRAPHY...

CLA Award-winning author Lesley Livingston's trilogy STARLING, pitched as a supernatural Bourne Identity that blends Norse, Egyptian, and Greek mythologies with paranormal elements, to Laura Arnold at Harper Children's, by Jessica Regel at the Jean V. Naggar Literary Agency (NA).

HISTORY/POLITICS/CURRENT AFFAIRS...

NYT bestselling author Stephan Talty's AGENT GARBO: How a Brilliant and Eccentric Double Agent Tricked the Nazis and Saved D-Day, the little known World War II espionage story of Spaniard Juan Pujol, whose intrinsic role in leading Hitler's Abwehr on a wild, several-year goose chase for the landing area of D-Day aided in the success of the famous mission and saved thousands of lives, moving to Bruce Nichols at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, by Scott Waxman at the Waxman Literary Agency (NA).

MEMOIR:

Grammy-winner Shania Twain's autobiography, ranging from her difficult childhood to her recent divorce from music producer Robert "Mutt" Lange, driven by a "sudden urgency to document my life before I ran out of time," to Atria, by Robert Barnett at Williams & Connolly.

Richard Seaver's THE TENDER HOUR OF TWILIGHT, about the publisher, editor, and translator who died in 2009 after twenty years at the head of Arcade Publishing, covering his years in Paris in the 1950s and New York City in the 1960s at Grove Press, as he brought the likes of Samuel Beckett, William Burroughs, Jean Genet, Henry Miller, Octavio Paz, Pauline R�age, the Marquis de Sade, Hubert Selby, Jr, and Malcolm X to American readers -- often finding himself embroiled in what are now landmark censorship battles to do so, to Jonathan Galassi at Farrar, Straus, for publication in spring 2012, by Leon Friedman representing Jeannette Seaver (world).

Wrap....

No comments: