An Interesting mess of books...

From Publishers Lunch Weekly:

FICTION...
DEBUT:

Imogen Robertson's INSTRUMENTS OF DARKNESS, featuring a reclusive anatomist and a sea captain's wife cum country estate mistress, who combine efforts to discover the truth behind a series of brutal murders all linked to the mysterious Thornleigh Hall, to Pamela Dorman at Pamela Dorman Books, in a two-book deal, by Headline Publishing Group (US).
Jane Morpeth at Review acquired world rights.
Translation: Joanna Kaliszewska at Headline

29-year-old Emma Rathbone's debut novel THE PATTERNS OF PAPER MONSTERS, about an anguished yet observant 17-year-old boy trapped in a juvenile detention center, to Oliver Haslegrave at Reagan Arthur Books, for publication in 2010, by Jim Rutman at Sterling Lord Literistic (NA).

Tiphanie Yanique's HOW TO ESCAPE FROM A LEPER COLONY, a short story collection set mostly in the US Virgin Islands, part oral history, part postcolonial narrative, a loving portrait of a wholly unique place, to Fiona McCrae at Graywolf, for publication in March 2010, by Elise Capron at Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency (World).

GENERAL/OTHER:

Dieter Schlesak's CAPESIUS: the Chemist of Auschwitz, about the personal encounter between victims and perpetrator that used to be next-door neighbors, based on a true story, blending narrative, documentation and flashbacks based on interviews, letters and recordings, to Jonathan Galassi at Farrar, Straus, in a nice deal, by Piergiorgio Nicolazzini at Piergiorgio Nicolazzini Literary Agency (world English).
Translation: piergiorgio.nicolazzini@pnla.it

Author of Dear American Airlines Jonathan Miles' WANT NOT, a darkly comic novel that traces the lives of three characters, a dumpster-diving freegan, a 9/11 widow recently remarried, and a linguistics expert charged with determining a way to warn future generations about this generation's nuclear waste, as each searches for fulfillment amidst the detritus and excess of everyday life until their worlds collide, to Susan Canavan at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, for publication in 2011, by Sloan Harris at ICM.

UC Irvine MFA and book editor Brando Skyhorse's novel in stories, AMEXICANS, for publication in June 2010, and a memoir, THINGS MY FATHERS TAUGHT ME, for publication in October 2011, to Amber Qureshi at Free Press, at auction, by Susan Golomb at Susan Golomb Agency.

Lisa Moore's FEBRUARY, about complex love and cauterizing grief, set around the disastrous sinking of an oil rig off the coast of Newfoundland, to Elisabeth Schmitz at Grove/Atlantic, for publication in February 2010, by House of Anansi Press (US). All other rights are with Anne McDermid Associates.

THE TEN BEST DAYS OF MY LIFE author Adena Halpern's 29, in which a 75-year old woman gets one day of youth, and brings her family together in surprising and inspiring ways, to Trish Lande Grader at Touchstone Fireside, in a two-book deal, for publication in Spring 2010, by Brian DeFiore at DeFiore and Company (NA).

NON-FICTION...
BIOGRAPHY:

NYT bestselling author of IMPERIAL HUBRIS and MARCHING TOWARD HELL and former head of the CIA's Osama bin Laden Unit Michael Scheuer's OSAMA BIN LADEN: A biography, showing bin Laden to be a talented and ruthless politician and a formidable enemy the West has seriously underestimated, to Tim Bent at Oxford University Press, by Stuart Krichevsky at the Stuart Krichevsky Agency (World).

Whitbread award-winning historian John Guy's biography of Thomas Becket: once a close friend and advisor to Henry II then fierce opponent and martyred victim, the story of one man's fierce resistance to the overwhelming forces of government still resonates today, to John Flicker at Random House, by Grainne Fox at Fletcher & Company, on behalf of Peter Robinson in the UK (NA).

BUSINESS/INVESTING/FINANCE:

Chairman Emeritus of AOL; owner of many sports teams including the Washington Capitals [NHL]; documentary film producer; philanthropist; and serial entrepreneur Ted Leonsis's THE BUSINESS OF HAPPINESS, which explains the connection between personal happiness and professional success, with contributions from major celebrities (Robert Redford, Bono, Ashley Judd, etc.), to Marji Ross at Regnery, by Laney Katz Becker and Jeff Kleinman at Folio Literary Management (NA).

COOKING:

Bon Appetit's THE BON APPETIT DESSERTS COOKBOOK, a comprehensive guide to all things sweet and wonderful, with more than 850 recipes, to Kirsty Melville at Andrews McMeel.

HISTORY/POLITICS/CURRENT AFFAIRS:

Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal's book about his life, "lessons I've learned throughout my life," and policy ideas, written with Peter Schweizer, to Regnery, for publication in 2010, by Glen Hartley at Writers' Representatives.

Evan Mandery's THE KILLING COURT, the story of two landmark Supreme Court cases: Furman v Georgia in 1972 that abolished the death penalty and Gregg v Georgia that reinstated it a mere four years later, focusing on the people involved: the justices themselves, the lawyers and the plaintiffs; and, what happened in those four years that made the Court "change its mind," to Christopher Lehmann-Haupt at Delphinium, in a nice deal, for publication in 2011, by Janet Reid at FinePrint Literary Management.

MEMOIR:

THE GHOSTS OF MISSISSIPPI author Dean Faulkner Wells' THE PILOT'S DAUGHTER: A Memoir of the Faulkners of Mississippi, in which William Faulkner's niece tells the story of growing up as the famous author's surrogate daughter, providing insights into both William and the Faulkner family which have never been published, to John Glusman at Harmony, at auction, by Jeff Kleinman at Folio Literary Management (NA). Rights: Celeste Fine at Folio Literary Management.

NARRATIVE:

Jeff Deck and Benjamin Herson's THE GREAT TYPO HUNT: Changing The World, One Punctuation Error at a Time, in which two young men set off on a quest to right the wrongs of punctuation, and find more than they'd bargained for (the typos become a window into history, education, racism, and life), until they correct one error and fall onto the wrong side of the law, to Julia Pastore at Harmony, in a pre-empt, by Jeff Kleinman at Folio Literary Management (World English).
Translation: Celeste Fine of Folio Literary Management

Judy Dutton's SCIENCE FAIR SEASON, detailing the secret lives of kids competing in the high-stakes world of international science fairs and what it takes to win, to Sarah Landis at Hyperion, in a pre-empt, by Douglas Stewart at Sterling Lord Literistic (NA).

SPORTS:

New York Magazine's sports columnist and the founder of Deadspin.com Will Leitch's BASEBALL 2.0: Fathers, Sons, and the Great Game in the New Century, assessing various beloved aspects of the game -- from umpires (a disproportionate number of whom apparently live with their mothers) to statistical trends, all the while experiencing, with his dad and his buddy, a contest that will decide each team's season, to Will Balliett at Hyperion, for publication on Father's Day 2010, by David Gernert at The Gernert Company (NA).

Wrap...

Idiots abound...

From Levine Breaking News:

FAT PEOPLE CAUSE GLOBAL WARMING:

The rising number of fat people was yesterday blamed for global warming. Scientists warned that the increase in big-eaters means more food production a major cause of CO2 gas emissions warming the planet. Overweight people are also more likely to drive, adding to environmental damage.

**********************
This is damned foolishness. I guess "overweight" people are now the next ones in the barrel for all those righteous assholes out there among us.

And...I'm reading today that CA is about to add 10 cents to the cost of a glass of beer. What about the bottles?

Wrap.....

San Diego's paper...going Dem or staying Repub?

From Voice of San Diego:

U-T's Editorial Page Waits for Cue from New Owner

Will the paper keep the conservative mark on its opinion pages? Other Black Press dailies support Democrats, but the new owner's CEO gave money to GOP

www.voiceofsandiego.org

[Use link above to continue reading]

Wrap...

So Here Are Our Navy SEALs....

From the San Diego Union-Tribune:

MICHAEL STETZ
No stardom, no glitz, just honor for SEALs
2:00 a.m. April 19, 2009

I half-expected them to appear on “The Today Show.”

Or maybe toss out the first pitch at that new Yankee Stadium. Or show up in grainy video on TMZ.com, grabbing a latte at Starbucks.

I'm conditioned that way. In this age of instant celebrity, I figured the three Navy SEAL snipers who took out three pirates off the coast of Somalia last week would get the full star treatment.

Lady GaGa gets it. David Beckham gets it. Even a sweet Scottish spinster who can belt out Broadway tunes is getting it.

Not these guys. We won't even learn their names. They remain anonymous because they and the Navy want it that way.

The SEALs are true heroes, of course, but they're the old-fashioned kind. They do the amazing and then slip back into the scenery, leaving us to wonder who they were.

They're different. Way, way different. And that's refreshing.

http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/apr/19/1m19stetz223819-no-stardom-no-glitz-just-honor-sea/

[Use link above to continue reading]

Wrap...

We Owe?....Here's the List....

From Levine Breaking News:

FIGURES ON U.S. GOVERNMENT SPENDING AND DEBT:

Total public debt subject to limit April 16 11,125,587
Statutory debt limit 12,104,000
Total public debt outstanding April 16 11,183,899
Operating balance April 16 257,351
Interest fiscal year 2009 thru February 148,762
Interest same period 2008 198,518
Deficit fiscal year 2009 thru February 764,525
Deficit same period 2008 264,541
Receipts fiscal year 2009 thru February 860,877
Receipts same period 2008 967,153
Outlays fiscal year 2009 thru February 1,625,402
Outlays same period 2008 1,231,694
Gold assets in March 11,041

Wrap...

Future Books On The Way....

From Publishers Lunch Weekly:

FICTION...
DEBUT:

Catherine Hall's DAYS OF GRACE, about an intense war-time friendship, a suppressed passion, a jealous crime and a corrosive secret kept for decades, to Molly Stern at Viking Penguin, with Kendra Harpster editing, in a very nice deal, by David Marshall at Marshall Rights on behalf of Portobello Books (NA).
Translation: arose@granta.com

THRILLER:

Scott Turow's INNOCENT, a sequel to the bestseller Presumed Innocent, as Rusty Sabich and Tommy Molto are, once again, pitted against each other in a riveting psychological match after the mysterious death of Rusty's wife, to Deb Futter at Grand Central, for publication in May 2010, by Gail Hochman at Brandt & Hochman (NA).

GENERAL/OTHER:

Andrew Winer's THE MARRIAGE ARTIST, weaving together the present-day story of a New York art critic investigating the apparent double-suicide of his wife with the artist whose career the critic made, and the story a child prodigy in Nazi-controlled Vienna who creates dazzlingly illuminated Jewish marriage contracts, to Webster Younce at Holt, for publication in 2010, by Jennifer Rudolph Walsh at William Morris Agency (NA).

Nadifa Mohamed's BLACK MAMBA BOY, about a young Somali boy's thousand-mile journey through East Africa in the midst of World War II, based on family stories, to Courtney Hodell at Farrar, Straus, for publication in Spring 2010, by Ben Mason at Conville & Walsh (US).

Gods of Aberdeen author Micah Nathan's MEMPHIS IS BURNING, about a recent college grad who takes a job as a driver for a mysterious old man who may or may not be a still-living Elvis, and the perilous 900 mile trip they make from Buffalo to Memphis to find the elder's granddaughter, which is also the protagonist's journey to self-discovery, to Brett Valley at Three Rivers Press, by Jud Laghi at LJK Literary Management (NA).
Film/TV: Sarah Self at The Gersh Agency

NON-FICTION...
BUSINESS/INVESTING/FINANCE:

Formerly of The Wall Street Journal and Fortune, Erik Calonius's VISION, a contrarian look at how a few business leaders fearlessly set goals for the very long term, executing plans over ten or twenty years resulting in legendary achievements, including the latest neuroscience on visionary thinking, with tips on developing your own vision, to David Moldawer at Portfolio, by Danielle Svetcov and James Levine at Levine Greenberg Literary Agency (world).

Author of The Rise of the Creative Class Richard Florida's RESET: How the Economic Crisis Will Forever Change Our Economy, Society, and the Way We Live, to Hollis Heimbouch at Harper Business, in a pre-empt, and Anne Collins at Random House Canada, in a pre-empt; by James Levine at Levine Greenberg Literary Agency.

Rights to Caroline Rothmuller at Campus/ Elsevier in Brazil, by International Editors, on behalf of Levine Greenberg.

Former NYT writer and author of WHEN THE WAR WAS OVER, Elizabeth Becker's untitled work examining the thriving seven trillion dollar travel and tourism industry, how it too often wreaks havoc around the globe, and how some are fixing the problem, to Alice Mayhew at Simon & Schuster, by David Halpern at The Robbins Office (NA).

History/Politics/Current Affairs
International Herald Tribune columnist and frequent NYT contributor Anand Giridharadas's INDIA CALLING, a portrait of the paradoxes of India's economic and cultural transformation, told not only as a journalist but also as a young Indian-American seeking to reconcile the India his parents left behind with the globalized and liberalized country it has become, to Paul Golob at Times Books, in a pre-empt, by Steve Wasserman at Kneerim & Williams (world).

Bill Press's TOXIC TALK, an analysis of the causes, effects, and possible antidotes to far right domination of US air waves, to Tom Dunne at Thomas Dunne Books, by Ronald Goldfarb at Goldfarb & Associates (World).

HUMOR:

Author of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Seth Graham-Smith's ABRAHAM LINCOLN: Vampire Hunter, a re-imagined biography of the president, if he were a vampire hunter, to Benjamin Greenberg at Grand Central, by Claudia Ballard at William Morris Agency.

MEMOIR:

Death-row attorney and expert on death penalty law at the University of Houston David Dow's THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN EXECUTION, an "emotional and memoiristic account" of his work representing death-row inmantes, focused on a case in which he became convinced of his client's innocence, to Jonathan Karp at Twelve, at auction, for publication in February 2010, by Simon Lipskar at Writers House (US).

Former secretary-general and Nobel Prize winner Kofi Annan's memoirs, called "a personal biography of global statecraft, as much memoir as a guide to world order, past, present, and future," drawing on a detailed record of his interaction with major world figures and covering both the highs and lows of his initiatives and tenure, providing a guide for global leadership in the 21st century, to Ann Godoff at Penguin Press, by Andrew Wylie of The Wylie Agency (world English).

NARRATIVE:

Glenn Plaskin's KATIE: Up & Down the Hall, The True Story of How One Dog Turned Four Neighbors into a Family, based upon his Family Circle article "Granny Down the Hall," about his close relationship to an octogenarian neighbor, and the Cocker Spaniel that witnesses how three generations of strangers and a dog create their own little family amidst the pressures, haste and intensity of big-city life, to Harry Helm at Center Street, for publication in September 2010, by Jan Miller of Dupree/Miller (NA).

Eric Siblin's THE CELLO SUITES: In Search of Bach's Masterpiece, part biography, part music history, and part literary mystery, weaving together three strands of an evolving story involving Johann Sebastian Bach, Pablo Casals and the search for a missing baroque masterpiece, to Joan Bingham at Grove/Atlantic, for publication in December 2009, by Swanna MacNair at Fletcher & Company (US).

POP CULTURE:

THE SOUNDS OF STAR WARS, featuring an audio module and illustrations, presenting the sounds of Luke Skywalker's lightsaber, the Millennium Falcon's hyperspace drive, and Jabba the Hutt's laugh along with stories behind them, produced under license by Lucasfilm, to Chronicle, for publication in fall 2010 release, produced by Becker & Mayer (NA).

SCIENCE:

Primatologist and journalist Andrew Westoll's THIRTEEN CHIMPANZEES, a remarkable group portrait of chimpanzees and the people who care for them at Fauna Sanctuary in Quebec as they recover from the trauma of years of use as laboratory subjects and learn how to trust humans and, more importantly, how to be chimps again, to Lindsey Smith at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, for publication in Spring 2011, by Swanna McNair at Fletcher & Company, on behalf of Martha Magor at Anne McDermid Associates (US).

Pop!Tech conference curator and futurist Andrew Zolli and Ann Marie Healy's RESILIENCE: The Science of Why Things Bounce Back, introducing the concepts and players in the new field of resilience science, taking readers from groundbreaking ecological expeditions inside the Caribbean coral reefs to research in fields as wide ranging as neuroscience, robotics, primatology and diplomacy, and examining the latest insights from resilience science "hot houses" like the Max Planck Institute in Germany and the Resilience Alliance in Sweden, offering readers a tool kit of practical lessons that will enable businesses, institutions and ecosystems to better "bounce back" in the midst of shock and change, to Will Murphy at Random House, at auction, by Zoe Pagnamenta at the Zoe Pagnamenta Agency (NA).

German rights to Gerhard Riemann at Random House Verlag, in a pre-empt, by Petra Eggers at Eggers & Landwehr, on behalf of Pagnamenta.

Wrap...

Space & Solar Power Capture...

From The Christian Science Monitor:

Solar power captured in space, beamed to Earth

Blog: West Coast energy giant PG&E unveiled a plan this week to put solar panels in orbit and wirelessly beam energy down to Earth by 2016.

Read More ...

http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2009/04/14/solar-power-captured-in-space-beamed-to-earth/

[Use link above to continue reading]

Wrap...

Update on SEAL vs Seal...

The Washington Post wasted no time correcting their headline from Seals to SEALs, and their quick response is very much appreciated.

Had one of the original Green Berets email that the various groups, like the Rangers and the Green Berets, et al, also resent being grouped under the single title of Special Forces. They, too, would like credit for what their own groups do.

The original Green Beret guy, Edward Fitzgerald, also wrote a wonderful book on their training experiences entitled, "Bank's Bandits".

Wrap...

SE-a A-ir L-and equals US Navy SEALs...Pay Attention!!!

From Washington Post:

Mombasa, Kenya, April 12 -- An American captain being held by Somali pirates was freed unharmed Sunday in an operation carried out by U.S. Navy Seals, U.S. military officials said. Three of the pirates were killed and the fourth was captured.

************* Good God!!! Blasted reporters and editors STILL don't know that it's NOT Seals..it's SEALs. SEAL is an acronym which stand for the various places from which SEALs can and do attack: SEa Air Land. They are not a stamped wax seal nor are they fish.

And every other newspaper, it seems, even NBC San Diego online. They all screw it up.

Wrap...

Navy SEAL: If I catch 'em, I'll kill ''em.....

From The Houston Chronicle:

Survivor of war loses dog to random violence
Beloved pet's killing reopens old wounds for former Navy SEAL
By DANE SCHILLER
Copyright 2009 Houston Chronicle
April 9, 2009, 3:15PM

Dasy, a Lab, was shot April 1 at age 4.

All it took was the gunshot fired outside his Walker County home to trigger training ingrained in former Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell, the lone survivor of a dramatic battle in Afghanistan in 2005.

He did a sweep through the house. Checked on his mother. And bolted out the door, where he found dead his beloved Labrador retriever, Dasy, a dog given to him to help him recover from his own wounds and the loss of his fellow Navy comrades.

“I could tell she tried to get away because there was a blood trail,” Luttrell recalled in a phone interview Wednesday. “When I saw she was dead, the only thing that popped into my head was, ‘I’ve got to take these guys out.’ ”

Shrouded in darkness, Luttrell, who’d just been released from the hospital after another round of surgery, crawled under a fence, skirted a ditch and sneaked up on four strangers in a sedan who apparently killed the dog on a whim. Luttrell said they were oblivious as he raised a 9 mm pistol from about 25 yards away and had one of them dead to rights.

But as the car pulled away, he didn’t fire.

Instead, he scrambled back to his pickup and launched what became a wild 40-mile chase that reached speeds of over 100 mph and crossed three counties.

“I did everything right; I didn’t do anything wrong,” he told the Houston Chronicle of the April 1 incident. “Make sure everyone knows they cold-bloodily murdered.”

Luttrell stayed on the line with a 911 emergency operator as he tried to catch the car, which was just a bit too fast for his four-door truck to overtake.

“I told them, ‘You need to get somebody out here because if I catch them I’m going to kill them,’ ” Luttrell recalled telling the operator.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/6365427.html

[Use link above to continue reading]

Wrap...

Selection of Very Different Books...

From Publishers Lunch Weekly:

FICTION...

DEBUT:

Richard Harvell's THE BELLS, the confession of a thief, kidnapper, and unlikely lover, a boy with the voice of an angel whose exquisite sense of hearing became his life's greatest blessing and curse -- he escapes his murderous father and finds refuge in a church choir, only to endure becoming one of the world's most famous castrati -- to Sarah Knight at Shaye Areheart Books, in a pre-empt, by Daniel Lazar at Writers House, for publication in Fall 2010 (world).
Canadian rights to Anne Collins at Random House Canada, at auction, by Daniel Lazar.

Helen Simonson's MAJOR PETTIGREW'S LAST STAND, set in the English countryside, about a retired British Major and a Pakistani shopkeeper whose shared love for Kipling draws them together, but whose romance scandalizes the small village they live in, to Susan Kamil at Random House, in a pre-empt, for publication in 2010, by Julie Barer at Barer Literary (NA).

Gin Phillips' Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Award-winning debut novel THE WELL AND THE MINE, set in a small Alabama coal-mining town during the Depression, exploring the value of community, charity, family, and hope during a time of hardship, to Geoff Kloske at Riverhead, for republication in trade paperback in April 2009, by Hawthorne Books & Literary Arts (world).

SCI-FI/FANTASY:

Tad Williams's SLEEPING LATE ON JUDGMENT DAY, HAPPY HOUR IN HELL, and ANGELS RUSH IN, a new urban fantasy series about an afterline investigator, who searches for a missing soul and finds himself caught in a battle much larger than he could have imagined, to Betsy Wollheim at Daw, by Matt Bialer at Sanford J. Greenburger Associates (NA).

THRILLER:

Author of CITY OF THE SUN and the forthcoming WHERE THE DEAD LAY David Levien's next two thrillers, to Jason Kaufman at Doubleday, by David Gernert at The Gernert Company.

GENERAL/OTHER:

Lola Shoneyin's THE SECRET LIFE OF BABA SEGI'S WIVES, a Nigerian Big Love, about the unexpected consequences that result when a polygamist brings home a fourth wife who is not only younger, but a college graduate, to Carrie Feron at William Morrow, in a pre-empt, by Ayesha Pande at Collins Literary.
UK: Jessica Woollard at The Marsh Agency

Monica McInerney's AT HOME WITH THE ARKWRIGHTS, following four adult siblings as the compete for their family inheritance, to Laura Ford at Ballantine, in a very nice deal, for publication in 2011, by Grainne Fox at Fletcher & Company, on behalf of Jonathan Lloyd at Curtis Brown UK (US.)

CHILDREN'S/PICTURE BOOK:

NFL stars and brothers Peyton Manning and Eli Manning, along with their father, retired quarterback Archie Manning's FAMILY HUDDLE, about the brothers and their family, to Scholastic, for publication in September 2009.
Peyton and Eli Manning will also serve as the first Scholastic Book Clubs' ClassroomsCare Ambassadors of Reading, and Scholastic will donate up to one million books in the Manning name to children who might not otherwise have access to quality children's books.

High-school teacher and sister of President Obama, Maya Soetoro-Ng's LADDER TO THE MOON, wonders what her four-year-old daughter might have learned from her grandmother had the two ever met, celebrating her mother's enduring legacy of service, to Karen Lotz at Candlewick, by Jennifer Gates at Zachary Shuster Harmsworth Literary Agency.

BUSINESS/INVESTING/FINANCE:

CONFESSIONS OF AN ECONOMIC HIT MAN author John Perkins' PERSPECTIVES OF AN ECONOMIC HIT MAN, an insider's perspective on the events that created the current economic crises and the solutions for the future, to Roger Scholl at Broadway, for publication in Fall 2009, by Paul Fedorko at Trident Media Group (World).

HISTORY/POLITICS/CURRENT AFFAIRS:

Author of STRAPLESS Deborah Davis's BOOKER T. COMES TO WASHINGTON: The Infamous White House Dinner, the Scandal that Followed, and the Unlikely Partnership that Transformed America, using the story of the first time a black man had dinner in the White House as a window into 1901 America, the backstory of blacks who served in the White House (and occasionally penned the White House tell all), and the remarkable rise and partnership of Booker T. Washington and the host President Theodore Roosevelt, to Peter Borland at Atria, in a pre-empt, in a good deal, by Scott Waxman at Waxman Literary Agency.

MEMOIR:

Emmy award-winning journalist Rita Cosby's HEROES AMONG US, a deeply personal story of courage, humanity, and history, to Anthony Ziccardi at Pocket, with Abby Ziddle editing, for Spring 2010 publication, by Steve Troha and David Vigliano at Vigliano Associates (NA).

Wrap....

CIA is hidebound....

From Christian Science Monitor:

The CIA's National Clandestine Service urgently needs reform.
By Joseph W. Augustyn
from the April 7, 2009 edition

Fairfax, Va. - A few years ago, as a case officer with what is now called the National Clandestine Service (NCS), I was involved in an operation that had the potential to yield valuable intelligence on a rogue state's financial stability and political intentions toward the United States.

To help me, I needed another Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer with the background and expertise of a sophisticated international banker. Given the nature of the operation and the political and diplomatic risks involved if exposed, I also needed CIA headquarters approval.

I got neither.

Why? Because the type of operation I was proposing had not been done before, and the person I needed to help did not exist on the CIA payroll.

Let me be clear: What the NCS has accomplished post-9/11 has been remarkable. The clandestine service has helped keep America safe and continues to be the envy of every spy service in the world. What makes this achievement even more remarkable, however, is that the NCS has done this with a bureaucracy, an organizational structure, a personnel promotion system, and an approach to operational activity better suited to the 20th century. At some point, the NCS needs to change in the face of 21st-century challenges. That time has come.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0407/p09s02-coop.html

[Use link above to continue reading]

Wrap...

New Army Field Manual now online...

From Secrecy News:

TACTICS IN COUNTERINSURGENCY AGAIN ONLINE

"Tactics in Counterinsurgency" (large pdf), a new Army Field Manual that was published on the website of the U.S. Army Combined Arms Center and then removed from public access, is now available on the FAS website.

The new manual, a substantial addition to the literature of counterinsurgency, was reported last week in the Washington Post and Inside the Army. "After The Post raised questions about its contents last week," wrote Walter Pincus of the Post on March 31, "it was taken down" from the Army website, even though the document is marked for unrestricted release.

An email inquiry to the Army inquiring why it had been removed was not answered.

See "Tactics in Counterinsurgency," U.S. Army Field Manual Interim 3-24.2, March 2009 (6.2 MB PDF, 307 pages).

"Setbacks are normal in counterinsurgency, as in every other form of war," the new manual advises (p. C-5). "You will make mistakes, lose people, or occasionally kill or detain the wrong person.... If this happens, don’t lose heart, simply drop back to the previous phase of your game plan and recover your balance."

Wrap...

From posts to Cheney...

Man, I have been remiss in getting posts up here. That's what happens when time skids past. I've just visited the Indy Weblogs at Newsfare.com and was shocked to see just 4 posts on the 7PM list...by 2 bloggers. Weekends are usually slower than weekdays, but this is beyond the pale when posts usually number around 60 or so in the majority of 4 hour sections. Old posts disappear every 4 hours and new ones come up. Might see 4 posts total at 3AM, but usually there are more than 4 even at that hour.

75 degrees here in San Diego today. Nothing but blue in those skies. Perfect beach weather.

Three of us drove downtown to the Gaslamp Qtr on 5th Ave late yesterday afternoon. Had dinner at Chianti's, a super good Italian restaurant. And they have tiramasu to kill for! Wonder how that fabulous dessert came to be.

About now 16,500 conventioneers are either already up and running or ready to be tomorrow morn at the Convention Center. Yeah, the big one down on Harbor Drive. In a few days, another one of the same size is due in. The restaurants in the Gaslamp love it, as do the nearby hotels.

The topic of the day, of course, is Prez Obama's trip to the G-20 gathering in London, followed by he and Michelle's visits to various other nations on the other side of the pond. They've received great receptions from the citizens wherever they went. I believe people not only like Obama very much but are also so relieved he's not a Bush or Cheney clone they can hardly stand it.

Which leads me to wonder what W's reception will be when he throws out the first ball at the Rangers' opening game. I'll give him this much: He says Obama deserves his silence. He's right. Cheney, of course, can't keep his nasty mouth shut.

Wrap...

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...

Finally, Good News....ACLU saved the day...

From Information Clearing House:

Judge Must Release Woman Sentenced to Jail for Being Poor, ACLU Says in Court Papers:

The American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan asked for an emergency hearing today on behalf of an Escanaba woman sentenced to 30 days in jail because she is too poor to reimburse the court for her son's stay in a juvenile detention facility.

http://aclumich.org/issues/due-process/2009-03/1353

[Use link above to continue reading]

PS: By damn it's excellent to see real justice being done! To have put that poor woman in jail over $104.00 she didn't have the money to pay was absolutely dispicable.

Wrap....

Takin' Nukes Apart...

From Secrecy News:

DOE ON VERIFIABLE DISMANTLEMENT OF NUCLEAR WARHEADS

In anticipation of future nuclear arms control agreements that would require the dismantlement of nuclear warheads, the Department of Energy undertook a technical study during the Clinton Administration to determine how such dismantlement could be verifiably accomplished. The resulting report, experts say, is still the best available treatment of the subject.

A copy of the unclassified report, marked "official use only," was obtained by Secrecy News and posted online today.

The DOE authors identified ten types of activities that could be used in a warhead dismantlement regime, involving various forms of monitoring at successive stages of the process. One or more of the ten could be employed, depending on the degree of confidence desired.

In principle, it should be fairly straightforward to dismantle a given nuclear warhead with confidence. However, "determining that an item to be dismantled is actually a nuclear warhead is very difficult" without compromising classified information, the report states. The use of x-rays or radiographs to confirm that an object is in fact a warhead "would be highly intrusive and would reveal highly classified nuclear warhead design information" to foreign inspectors, potentially exposing design vulnerabilities and other sensitive information. Such concerns might be addressed by other forms of monitoring, the report says.

The study concluded that "transparency measures for monitoring warhead dismantlement can be applied... with up to a moderate level of confidence that dismantlement has taken place if implemented at the Unclassified to [Confidential] level." Verification that an actual weapon has been dismantled -- which is a more demanding standard than mere "transparency" -- can be achieved with an appropriate exchange of classified nuclear weapons design information.

The report provides a detailed description of the dismantlement process, a summary of previous dismantlement studies (including one by the Federation of American Scientists and another by the JASONs, but not the 1960s-era Project Cloud Gap study), and other valuable information that could serve to inform and accelerate current analyses of nuclear warhead dismantlement.

See "Transparency and Verification Options: An Initial Analysis of Approaches for Monitoring Warhead Dismantlement," prepared by the Department of Energy Office of Arms Control and Nonproliferation, May 19, 1997.


US ARMY ON COMBATING WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION

The U.S. Army's future ability to combat weapons of mass destruction (CWMD) in the 2015-2024 timeframe is the subject of a new Army doctrinal publication (pdf).

"The thrust of current Army CWMD capabilities ... is to protect against and recover from WMD," the document explains. However, "The Army is deficient in the capabilities required to proactively detect, identify, track, and engage threat WMD networks before they can launch...." See "The U.S. Army Concept Capability Plan for Combating Weapons of Mass Destruction for the Future Modular Force 2015-2024," TRADOC Pamphlet 525-7-19, March 25, 2009.

The Army publishes a little-known annual journal called "Combating WMD," the third issue of which has recently appeared. Each issue includes some noteworthy historical or doctrinal material.


_______________________________________________
Secrecy News is written by Steven Aftergood and published by the Federation of American Scientists.

The Secrecy News Blog is at:
http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/

Wrap...

A Quick Step Back in Time...

KPBS has a radio program entitled "A Way With Words" wherein they and callers discuss phrases oft used and words that call for definitions. Where'd that phrase come from, what does that word mean. Seldom heard kinds of things that older generations used or new generations are using. So an email from a writer friend just stopped me cold yesterday. Here it is:

Oh the whole family is colored (well, except for Wendy, my aunt from England who makes milk look dark). The rest of us are indeed colored – in the old Crayola boxes our color used to be called “flesh” until Crayola got a smidgen of a clue.

Just consider that. Whoa!!!

Wrap....

Visitor at breakfast on the hotel patio...

Every morning, Monday thru Friday, I drive down to Old Town, San Diego, to enjoy breakfast on the hotel patio. Always have the LA Times and the San Diego Union-Tribune papers with me. The reason I started eating breakfast out every morning was so I could read those papers uninterrupted.

You know what they say about "best intentions"? Yep.

So there I sat this past Monday morn, happily reading away. It's true, as a Navy SEAL told me, that "motion catches the eye". It surely did. Caught movement to my right and looked up to see this guy in camoflage halfway to my table. Then realized he was an old friend whom I hadn't seen for a few years.

He'd phoned a few days before and I told him where I'd be at breakfast time. So here he was. I jumped up and we hugged and patted each other's backs.

I'll tell you, I was delighted to see him alive. He's a full-fledged hero. Did the invasion of Iraq (which we never should have invaded, by the way). Before that, was a Federal Firefighter. Before that, a Marine. Between the firefighter and Marines, he was in a cross county race, another vehicle hit his, threw him out on the road in a huge cloud of dust, and before he could move, he was hit by another vehicle going 90 miles per hour. Tore his right leg off just below the knee.

No matter. He got a new leg, worked like hell and passed a physical test again to rejoin the firefighters. Thus he became the first firefighter amputee in the USA. And he joined the Army National Guard. Whereupon he was sent off to combat in Iraq.
Where, in trying to rescue another soldier in the midst of a firefight, he tore his own stomach open, bandaged it, and pulled the wounded soldier to safety, bullets flying the entire time. He's still in the Army...Master Sgt. PsyOps.

One of the most physically strong guys I've ever met. We were walking on South Embarcadero Island, behind the Convention Center, one afternoon. They have exercise gear built in along the path. He stopped at the pull-up bar and began to do pull-ups...FAST...talking away all the while.

So there we were at breakfast. I'd just finished but had a slice of wheat toast spread with strawberry jam. Didn't want it, so pushed it over and told him, "Eat toast". He did. I poured more coffee in my cup and lit a smoke.

While stationed down in Georgia, he'd decided, since everybody he knew was constantly yelling at him that he ought to write a book, to get himself a ghostwriter, since he can't write worth a damn. Not that kind of writing anyway.

So what did he do? Googled "ghostwriter" and found a gal in Georgia who does that work. What they do, since they've never met, is he talks and sends her the tape. She writes. Didn't take long until I discovered she didn't know proper manuscript format.

That evening, I emailed him to tell him how a book manuscript is laid out. Ah me. How this is gonna end, I have no idea, but I'm NOT going to get involved.

It was neat to see him again. Old times are not ... And no, I didn't get the papers read until that evening.

Wrap....

People watching at Seaport Village...

Okay, I'm back from Seaport Village. Damn, but it was nice down there, but while I was walking out on North Embarcadero, a Coast Guard boat...sirens wailing, was heading under the bridge to somewhere. Hope they made it in time.

Sitting on the deli's back porch with coffee and just watching people, I see this elderly, thin guy in tan slacks and a plaid shirt stop at the hot dog stand across the way. He orders, then very quickly pulls 4 napkins from the holder, stuffs them into his pants pocket. Pulls another napkin. Blows his nose. Walks over to the trash can and throws it in. Goes back to the window. Pulls 3 more napkins and stuffs those into his pocket. Is served a small drink..either 7-up or water. Pulls 2 more napkins, stuffs them in his pocket. Walks away. Then comes back. Is given either a hot dog or french fries. Pulls 3 more napkins, stuffs them in his pocket and finally leaves. Damndest thing! :)))

Middle aged couple comes up on the porch. She sits down. He goes in, comes back with drinks, then goes back in again and comes out with one sandwich, which they split. Soon as they're thru, they just get up and leave their trash on the table instead of putting it in the trash right inside the door. Hmmm...

And comes this awful screeching from a small blond kid standing on a bench next to a woman with a stroller. Heads turn. So funny. Women just look and look away. Guys look, grin, and turn away. Finally a woman comes out of the deli. Looks like she has french fries. Heads straight to them. Kid goes silent the second he puts one into his mouth. :)))

I put out my smoke, polish off the rest of my coffee, gather up the trash, drop it in the trash barrel and split. Past the carousel, cross the driveway, into the car and gone. :)))

Wrap...

The Prisoners of Gitmo List....

From Information Clearing House:

Guantánamo: The Definitive Prisoner List :

The following list is the culmination of a three-year project to record the stories of all the prisoners held at the US prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/guantanamo-the-definitive-prisoner-list-part-1/

[Use link above to continue reading}

Wrap...

Never thought I'd see the day....

From Levine Breaking News:

OBAMA PLANS TO NAME TASK FORCE TO OVERHAUL TAX CODE:

President Barack Obama plans to name a task force to review and overhaul the U.S. tax code, a spokesman for the Office of Management and Budget said today. Obama will ask the Economic Recovery Advisory Board, led by former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Paul Volcker, for a top- to-bottom review of the 96-year-old law in an effort to rebalance the federal tax code, spokesman Tom Gavin said in an interview.
**********************

Say what?!!! Talk about something that is long overdue. Perhaps they'll get rid of those overseas tax shelters the corporations have long made use of to hide money they don't want to pay taxes on. YAAAYYYYY!!!

Wrap...

The Latest Books Coming Out....

From Publishers Lunch Weekly:

FICTION....

DEBUT:

Adrienne McDonnell's debut THE DOCTOR AND THE DIVA, about a young, Harvard-educated obstetrician in Boston who imperils his promising career when he becomes attracted to one of his patients, a beautiful opera singer who has struggled for years to get pregnant -- inspired by the author's ancestor and based on family letters and memories of elderly relatives who have long been haunted by the secret, to Pamela Dorman at Pamela Dorman Books, in a pre-empt, for publication in summer 2010, by Lisa Bankoff at ICM (NA).

WOMEN'S/ROMANCE:

Tessa Dare's next three historical romances (tentatively titled the Stud Club trilogy), in which a duke, a warrior, and a scoundrel are united by chance, divided by suspicion, and brought to their knees by love, to Kate Collins at Ballantine, for publication in 2010, by Helen Breitwieser at Cornerstone Literary (world).

GENERAL/OTHER:

Masha Hamilton's 31 HOURS, counting the hours preceding a terrorist attack in the New York City subway from the perspectives of characters who are connected to the looming tragedy including a Saudi graduate student, a highly idealistic, American student whom the student has recruited, the American's girlfriend, and his divorced parents who are brought back together in their search for their missing son, to Fred Ramey at Unbridled Books, by Marly Rusoff of Marly Rusoff & Associates (NA).

Adam Langer's THE THIEVES OF MANHATTAN, about a fake memoir that reveals the theft of a priceless ancient manuscript from a most unusual library and the down-on-his-luck writer who becomes embroiled in what turns out to be an elaborate confidence game designed to scam the publishing world, to Cindy Spiegel at Spiegel & Grau, by Marly Rusoff of Marly Rusoff & Associates (NA).

Tish Cohen's third novel, THE SATURDAY DAUGHTER, in which a sister and brother discover that the mother they thought abandoned them as children has actually been searching for them, and that their father, whose memory is decaying from Alzheimer's, had kidnapped them away years ago, to Jeanette Perez at Harper Perennial and Jennifer Lambert at Harper Canada, by Daniel Lazar at Writers House (NA).

Author of MISTRESS SHAKESPEARE and THE LAST BOLEYN, Karen Harper's Kat Ashley novel, a novel in the form of a memoir by Katharine Ashley, Queen Elizabeth I's faithful governess and lady-in-waiting, to Rachel Kahan at Putnam, for publication in 2010, by Meg Ruley at Jane Rotrosen Agency (NA.)

CHILDREN'S/MIDDLE GRADE:

Jon Voelkel and Pamela Voelkel's JAGUAR STONES trilogy, beginning with MIDDLEWORLD, about a 14-year-old who follows his parents down to South America after they disappear on an archaeological dig, and begins a wild adventure through the Mayan underworld against a background of haunted temples, zombie armies and human sacrifice (a previously published edition already sold 10,000 copies), to Elizabeth Law at Egmont, for three books, at auction, by Daniel Lazar at Writers House.

CHILDREN'S/YOUNG ADULT:

Rachel Hartman's SERAPHINA, pitched "in the vein of Gail Carson Levine and Tamora Pierce," about a teenage girl coming of age in a world where dragons can take human form, set against a series of magical secrets, royal scandals, family loyalties, moving to Jim Thomas at Random House (originally sold to Atheneum), for two books, at auction, by Daniel Lazar at Writers House (world English).

NON-FICTION....

BIOGRAPHY:

Mother of Mattie J.T. Stepanek, the NYT bestselling author and humanitarian who died of Dysautonomic Mitochrondrial Myopathy at age 13, Jeni Stepanek's MESSENGER: The Legacy of Mattie J.T. Stepanek and Heartsongs, telling of the years before Mattie got sick, how he handled losing his older brother when he was three to the same disease, his decision to dedicate himself to helping people embrace peace and hope, and how, when he became a celebrity, Jeni helped to keep him grounded, including previously unpublished material from Mattie (poetry, excerpts from his essays, and email correspondence with some of his famous friends), and a foreword by Maya Angelou, to Carrie Thornton at Dutton, in a pre-empt, for publication in November 2009, by Dan Strone at Trident Media Group (world).

HISTORY/POLITICS/CURRENT AFFAIRS:

Taras Grescoe's STRAPHANGER, a narrative look at the end of the golden age of the car, as visionary designers and urban planners in cities around the world develop innovative alternatives to urban sprawl and congestion to create the inconceivable: a car-free urban world, to Webster Younce at Holt, in a pre-empt, by Michelle Tessler at Tessler Literary Agency (World).
Nicole.dewey@hholt.com

Obamanomics author and former LBO expert at Goldman Sachs John Talbott's THE 86 BIGGEST LIES ON WALL STREET, knowing the players and how the game is played, to Dan Simon at Seven Stories, for publication in June 2009 (World).

HUMOR:

Maxime Valette and Guillaume Passaglia's F MY LIFE, based on the website (and the original French website and book), telling horrible, horrific, and humorous anecdotes of others' misfortune, now with never-before-seen-entries and illustrations, to Ryan Doherty at Villard, for July publication, by Elsa Lafon at Michel Lafon Publishing (world English).

MEMOIR:

Former President George W. Bush's memoir DECISION POINTS, about a dozen personal and presidential choices, such as his choice of Dick Cheney as VP and sending troops to Iraq, his religious faith and his criticized response to Hurricane Katrina, to Stephen Rubin at Crown, with Sean Desmond editing, in a major deal, reportedly for $7 million (Lynn Sher in the Daily Beast), for publication in fall 2010, by Robert Barnett of Williams & Connolly.

Pat Conroy's THE DEATH OF SANTINI, about his often abusive and complicated father's final days, and Pat's coming to terms with him (a Marine fighter pilot who inspired the novel The Great Santini, remembered by many for Robert Duvall's Oscar-nominated film portrayal of him), to Stephen Rubin and Nan Talese at Doubleday, by Marly Rusoff at Marly Rusoff & Associates (world).

Twesigye Jackson Kaguri with Susan Urbanek Linville's THE PRICE OF STONES: Building a School in Africa, the inspiring story of the author's struggle to found a school for AIDS orphans in his home village in Uganda, to Carolyn Carlson at Viking Penguin, in a pre-empt, by Caitlin Blasdell at Liza Dawson Associates (World).

POP CULTURE:

NBCC-nominated New Yorker critic Richard Brody's NEW WAVE IS NOW, an argument that the French New Wave heritage is not just highly influential, but is actually stifling contemporary filmmaking, to Riva Hocherman at Metropolitan, for publication in 2013, by Anna Stein at Irene Skolnick Agency (NA).

Wrap...

Writers..$75 a year Business License?!!!!!

From San Diego Union-Tribune:

2:00 a.m. March 22

City fees on writers – foolish or immoral?

The San Diego City Council continues to delay and trivialize grave revenue management issues that have faced us for decades – essentially putting putty in the dike when a new concept in flood control is needed. To cite current, onerous examples: business taxes and the forcing of “small businesses” to pay separate fees for trash removal...

http://www3.signonsandiego.com/news/opinion/

[Scroll down list...Click on link above to continue reading]

Wrap...

The price for Bush's "book"....

From Levine Breaking News:

***George W. Bush is getting $7 million for his memoir, tentatively titled "Decision Points," scheduled for a 2010 release by Crown, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group.

Wrap...

Interesting Books Coming....

From Publishers Lunch Weekly:

FICTION...

INSPIRATIONAL:

Platinum-selling country recording artist Sara Evans' debut novel, the first in a series, written with author Rachel Hauck, an "emotional, Southern-flavored, multi-generational tale, featuring a compelling love story," to Thomas Nelson, in a four-book deal.

THRILLER:

Dagger Award-winning author (Sharp Objects, Dark Places) Gillian Flynn's GONE GIRL, about a Chicago man who arrives home on his anniversary to find his wife missing and indications of a struggle and he swiftly becomes the prime suspect, as the subsequent investigation reveals more than anyone could have imagined about this seemingly-perfect young couple, plus another literary thriller, to Sarah Knight at Shaye Areheart Books, by Stephanie Kip Rostan at the Levine Greenberg Literary Agency (world and audio;).

Edgar-nominated thriller writer, Meg Gardiner's two new novels featuring forensic psychiatrist (she psychoanalyzes dead people) Jo Beckett, again to Ben Sevier at Dutton, by Deborah Schneider at Gelfman Schneider (US).

Three of Gardiner's books, to Patrick Janson-Smith at Blue Door, by Sheila Crowley at Curtis Brown UK.

Paul Grossman's THE SLEEPWALKERS, set in pre-Nazi Berlin, in the final weeks of the Weimar republic, which pits the rising Nazi tide against a Jewish detective on the Berlin police trying to solve a case of human medical experimentation, to Michael Homler at St. Martin's, in a pre-empt, in a two-book deal, by Jon Sternfeld at the Irene Goodman Agency (World).

GENERAL/OTHER:

NYPL Young Lions finalist Zachary Mason's THE LOST BOOKS OF THE ODYSSEY, originally published by Starcherone books, imagining an ancient encrypted book, recently decoded, that contains a series of surprising alternatives to the narrative of Odyssey as it has come down to us, to Jonathan Galassi at Farrar, Straus, for publication in fall of 2009, by Bill Clegg at the William Morris Agency (NA).

Sheila Kohler's BECOMING JANE EYRE, about how Jane Eyre came to be written, which at the same time gives us a marvelous sense of Charlotte Bronte's life with her father, two younger sisters and only brother in the isolated parsonage on the Yorkshire moors, to Kathryn Court at Penguin, by Robin Straus at Robin Straus Agency.

Michelle Moran's MASKS OF THE REVOLUTION, about the life of Madame Tussaud, in which young Marie Tussaud joins the gilded but troubled court of Marie Antoinette, and survived the French Revolution by creating "Death Masks" of the beheaded aristocracy, to Heather Proulx at Crown, by Daniel Lazar at Writers House (NA).

Jessica Francis Kane's THE REPORT, set in London during WWII, the story of a man charged with the responsibility of investigating a shocking air raid shelter accident and how he decides to handle the question of blame, to Fiona McCrae at Graywolf, in a nice deal, for publication in spring 2010, by Liz Darhansoff at Darhansoff, Verrill, Feldman (world).

BUSINESS/INVESTING/FINANCE:

Former Wall Street "Quant", physicist, and director of the Columbia University financial engineering program Emmanuel Derman's TIME DECAY: A Meditation on Options Theory, Life, and the Passage of Time, exploring our relationship to risk and the dangers of relying on models for any kind of endeavor, financial or otherwise, to Hilary Redmon at Free Press, for publication in May 2011, by John Brockman at Brockman (NA).

HISTORY/POLITICS/CURRENT AFFAIRS:

The final volume in historian Rick Perlstein's "Backlash" trilogy, covering the 1970s and the rise of Ronald Reagan (following Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America, and Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus), to Jonathan Karp at Twelve, for delivery in approximately five years, by Tina Bennett at Janklow & Nesbit (NA).

The Last Spy author and journalist Andrew Meier's THE HOUSE OF MORGENTHAU, the epic story of one of the great American families, men and women who set down roots in the New World and lost everything only to grow rich again, who played pivotal roles in the Wilson and FDR administrations, helped elect JFK, decried mass murder during the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust, waged war, and created a dynasty; based upon full access by the Morgenthau family to family papers, correspondence, diaries, photographs, and home movies -- and lengthy interviews with surviving members, including outgoing New York DA Robert Morgenthau, to Susan Kamil and Tim Bartlett at Random House, at auction, by Lynn Nesbit at Janklow & Nesbit (NA).

Humor
Simon Tofield SIMON'S CAT, based on the popular animated series, to Karen Kosztolnyik at Grand Central, in a pre-empt, in two-book deal, by Andrea Joyce of Canongate UK (US).

Eric Idle, ed.'s MONTY PYTHON LIVE!, with contributions by John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin of memories of their wild touring years in a four-color oversized paperback also including some of their most famous routines and memorabilia as well never-before-published scripts, to Hyperion, for publication in fall 2009, by Matt Bialer at Sanford J. Greenburger Associates (world English).

Lilit Marcus's SAVE THE ASSISTANTS: A Book for the Beleaguered, based on the blog of the same name devoted to the darkly humorous ups and downs of assistant life, expanding on the horror stories, celebrity assistant gossip, and a boss glossary, and adding prescriptive advice on how to gracefully navigate the world of office politics, to Hyperion, for publication in April 2010, by Rebecca Gradinger at Finchley Road Literary.

Kasper Hauser's OBAMA'S BLACKBERRY, an imagined glimpse into Obama's beloved PDA, merging the already funny new language of text and email ("hey bb watcha doin L8r? ; ) with specific satire of America's most-watched people: the first family, Biden, Palin, DiFi, Rush, Hannity, Bush, Oprah, and the first puppy, to John Parsley at Little, Brown, in a pre-empt, for publication in June 2009, by Danielle Svetcov at Levine Greenberg Literary Agency (World).
john.parsley@hbgusa.com

Memoir
USAir Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger's memoir, to William Morrow, reportedly for between $2.5 million and $3.2 million by various reports, at auction, in a two-book deal (the second said by the Daily Beast to be a collection of inspirational poetry), by Jan Miller at Dupree Miller & Associates.

Pop Culture
Founder of www.petswhowanttokillthemselves.com Duncan Birmingham's PETS WHO WANT TO KILL THEMSELVES, embracing our universal tendancy to infantilize our pets, containing photos of pets dressed up in clothing and looking miserable, with commentary from the author, to Heather Proulx at Three Rivers Press, in a pre-empt, by Kate Lee at ICM.

GQ correspondent and This American Life contributor Brett Martin's DIFFICULT MEN, a look at the rise of cable television dramas since the late 1990's, examining the cultural, technological and artistic forces that turned the 13-episode format into the ideal vehicle to tell the 21st Century American story, with The Sopranos' David Chase, The Wire's David Simon, and Mad Men's Matthew Weiner, among others, as main characters, to Eamon Dolan at Penguin Press, by Daniel Greenberg at Levine Greenberg Literary Agency (World).

Sports
Author of HUNTING EICHMANN Neal Bascomb's THE NEW COOL: A Season Inside the Super Bowl of Smarts and How the FIRST Robotics Competition May Be the Future of Education, which follows three high school teams during the design, buildout and head to head combat of their robots in stadiums around the country, a highly pressured world where teams succeed due to both innovation and cooperation, founded by the genius and visionary Dean Kamen and now a worldwide phenomenon, to Rick Horgan at Crown, at auction, by Scott Waxman at Waxman Literary Agency (NA).

General/Other
740 Park author Michael Gross's PLATINUM TRIANGLE, a social history that will uncover the lives and lifestyles of the owners of the most extravagant trophy homes in Beverly Hills, Bel Air and Holmby Hills -- the Los Angeles estate district, again to Peter Gethers for Broadway, by Dan Strone at Trident Media Group.

Wrap....

Big News..San Diego's newspaper sold...

Articles around the nation via google.com :

So the news broke this morning that San Diego's newspaper, the San Diego Union-Tribune, has been sold to David H. Black of Black Press thru a mergers and acquisitions corp, Platinum Equity of Beverley Hills, CA.

That news has gone nationwide. Believe me, San Diegans are mighty interested in just who is taking over the paper. They're also delighted to have David Copley no longer involved. The U-T has been a very Republican leaning paper, but at this point, San Diegans have more registered Democrats than Republicans, so we're hoping the new owner will lean Democratic. Hope springs eternal.

http://news.google.com/news?ned=us&ncl=1316691576

[Use link above to continue reading}

Wrap....

Back to normal next week...

A quick note to rejoice that the Indys have returned! Cannot tell you how delighted I was to see them. Take a look at the left side of this blog...and there they are in all their glory! Many thanks to the guy in San Francisco who produced this, to me, miracle!

The gathering of writers this eve was great...right up until the patio filled with people, adding to the crowd inside, plus a DJ piped out to the patio and practically drowning everybody out. So voices were raised and the roar of the crowds there, celebrating St Pat's Day, made it impossible to hear or converse. We wrapped up our gathering early and got out of there. Next Tues should be back to normal.

Wrap...

Restaurant patios and enjoying people....

And still no Indys!!! Really miss reading what all those folks have to say about everything everywhere.

Had breakfast, as usual, on the hotel patio this morn. Along comes one of the delivery men. A young man. Very nice guy. Has a copy of a novel I wrote with a Navy SEAL about his two tours in Vietnam. Said he really liked it. Then I find that he, himself, had seen combat in the Army in Iraq. Two tours. More, both he and his wife were there, she being Army too. And they'd wed over there. Was sort of strange that they weren't allowed to marry here, but could in Iraq.

Anyway, it seems that when he joined, he was trained as a tank mechanic. He got over there and suddenly he's assigned to fix trucks! Strange things happen in the military. :))

I really enjoy sitting on the patio. Always meeting interesting people. Last week met an 80 year old lady who asked if she could join me. Feisty as hell, that lady. And then of course the English historian who joined us last Friday.

As a writer, I'm fascinated by other humans. Not a thing in this world interests me more. Everybody has a story and every one of them is interesting. Writers are observers, so I sit on that patio or on the back porch of the Deli at Seaport and just observe. Yesterday, I see this youngish couple take a table on the plaza below. She waits. He goes and gets a pitcher of beer. Pours hers, then his. But didn't sit down. Instead, he walked a distance away, stood alongside the sidewalk, lit a cigarette, smoked it, then returned to the table. I think they won't be a couple very long.

Down in Texas, there's a columnist/blogger named Leon Hale. Guess he must be closing in on 80. Sits on his porch and writes his blog posts about anything and everything that comes to mind. And his commentors...he has a big batch of them...talk about similar things that have occured in their lives. Talk about a relaxing read. I get a bit stressed by the end of the day, I just get right over to Mr Hale's blog, read and relax. It reminds me of sitting behind the adults on my grandmother's porch and listening to them talk when I was a kid.

In 45 minutes, I'll be leaving for the Tues eve writers' gathering in Mission Valley. We gather on a nicely enclosed patio there. Fans and heaters both overhead and big TVs hung up there too. Lots of sports fans in the bar/restaurant. Can smoke on the patio. So always check on the soup du jour. Those cooks make the most delicious tomato soup and luscious cream of broccoli. But not often. Most times vegetable barley or beef vegetable or chicken rice and similar kinds. Problem is, those latter soups are spicy hot! Burn my tongue, my throat, even my lips. Ouch! I swear the cooks lace them with jalapeno pepper juice. Dread to think what they've fired up tonight. One of those and I'm for a big Idaho baked potato with butter, sour cream and chives. Only thing I dislike is driving straight into the setting sun on the way home, now that the time has changed.

Wrap...

Suffering with Indy withdrawal pains....

Woe is me. I'm in the midst of terrible withdrawal symptoms. The Indy Weblogs (or the Indy 500s if you prefer)at Newsfare.com have disappeared. Don't know what's happened. The San Francisco guy who gets them online...there are about 450 different blogs...has changed his server. Must be all out war up there by this time.

In any case, every 4 hours, 24 hours a day, the old posts go away and a new set appears...the recent posts. The Indys are Dems and post political thoughts, except for a few who are, now that it's spring, talking about their gardens. What a group they are. There are doctors, lawyers, Indian Chiefs, scientists, journalists, DC folks...you name it, they post. And they have plenty to say. Except for a few, very very intelligent people.

So they're a pleasure to read and I'm missing them something fierce, since I read thru at least 3 sets of their posts daily.

Thank heavens for newspapers. I finally took the time to set up a folder just for the newspapers on my favorites list. Turned out there were at least 30 or more. And still my favorites list goes on and on with blog after blog. Good thing because I can't get to the Indys. Haven't been able to since yesterday morning, when everything disappeared. Cannot imagine what's happened in San Francisco to cause this, and neither can the guy who originated the whole idea in New Jersey.

So here I am in San Diego. Deprived of the Indys, I went walking down at Seaport Village early this afternoon. Love living next to the Pacific. Looked at the harbor, but no sight of the whale that has detoured into it. Did see the Navy SEALs in a couple of their very fast boats, just whipping along on the Coronado side, obviously heading for their base over there. Quite a mess of guys, they are. As are the Seabees whose base is just across the Strand from the SEAL base. Wonder how many people know that the Seabees train with the Marines? Pass MCRD on Pacific Hwy on the way to Seaport.

Always end the walk at the Seaport Deli. Get coffee, light a smoke, and sit on their back porch...it's a wooden building with porches all around...and watch the people running around the little plaza there while the Andean musicians play.

Talk about the passing parade! Every kind of person, some with ice cream from the Baskin Robbins alongside or standing in line at the Fudge Factory or with their kids at the carousel, or just sitting at the round tables on the plaza.

Life is good...but I miss the hell out of the Indys.

Wrap....

WWW...Snoop!

From Levine Breaking News:

WEB FOUNDER WARNS AGAINST WEBSITE SNOOPING:

Surfers on the Internet are at increasing risk from governments and corporations tracking the sites they visit to build up a picture of their activities, the founder of the World Wide Web said on Friday. Tim Berners-Lee, whose proposal for an information management system at the European Organization for Nuclear Research CERN 20 years ago led eventually to the World Wide Web, said tracking website visits in this way could build an incredibly detailed profile of who people are and their habits.

Wrap...

Week's selection...Films and Books....

From Publishers Lunch Weekly...

FICTION...
DEBUT:

Robin Oliveira's MY NAME IS MARY SUTTER, set in the mid-19th century, following the aspirations and difficulties of a brilliant, somewhat odd, yet remarkable young midwife from Albany, New York whose lofty hope of becoming a surgeon far exceeds what her family, physicians, and medical schools of her time are willing to accept, and she travels to Washington, DC to work in the Civil War hospitals, only to find the challenges formidable and the pull of home unavoidable, to Kathryn Court at Viking Penguin, in a pre-empt, by Marly Rusoff of Marly Rusoff & Associates (NA).

Maile Chapman's YOUR PRESENCE IS REQUESTED AT SUVANTO, the story of an isolated American nurse working at a remote convalescent women's hospital in 1920s Finland and the mounting menace that takes hold of the place, to Ethan Nosowsky at Graywolf, for publication in April 2010, by Jim Rutman at Sterling Lord Literistic (World English).

GENERAL/OTHER:

Liane Moriarty's WHAT ALICE FORGOT, the story of a 29-year-old woman who is madly in love with her husband and pregnant with their first child -- who wakes up at the gym and discovers she's actually 39 years old, has three children and is in the middle of a very nasty divorce, a fall has erased the last ten years of her memory, but it turns out that forgetting might be the most memorable thing that's ever happened to Alice, to Amy Einhorn at Amy Einhorn Books, at auction, by Faye Bender at Faye Bender Literary Agency, on behalf of Fiona Inglis at Curtis Brown Australia (NA).

Author of STANDING STILL, Kelly Simmons's THE BIRDHOUSE, told from the perspective of two sets of diary entries written 40 years apart, about a woman whose innocent family history project with her granddaughter takes a dark turn as long-held secrets that could tear the family apart begin to resurface through the haze of her early Alzheimer's symptoms, to Sarah Walsh at Atria, by Dorian Karchmar at the William Morris Agency.

FILM:

Feature film rights to Ann Pearlman's forthcoming THE CHRISTMAS COOKIE CLUB, to CBS Films, with Academy Award winner Wendy Finerman (P.S. I Love You, The Devil Wears Prada,Forrest Gump") at Wendy Finerman Productions producing, and agent Peter Miller at PMA executive producing.

David Kinney's forthcoming THE BIG ONE: An Island, an Obsession, and the Furious Pursuit of a Great Fish, (now at Grove/Atlantic for April 2009), the story of Martha Vineyard's annual fishing derby, a month-long affair which pits neighbor against neighbor, islander against mainlander, and turns the island upside down in the all-consuming quest for the biggest fish, to Dreamworks co-president Holly Bario, with Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci producing, in a pre-empt, by Sarah Self at The Gersh Agency, on behalf of Larry Weissman at Larry Weissman Literary.

NON-FICTION....
BIOGRAPHY:

Michael Hemmingson's RAYMOND CARVER: A Critical Biography, an interpretative approach to Raymond Carver's life, placing the writer's biography within the context of American history, politics, economics, and the literary landscape of the time, examining the content of the short stories in relation to what was happening in Carver's life, how much was autobiography and how much fiction, and how alcohol affected the common themes of Carver's work, to Gary Mitchem at McFarland, in a nice deal, for publication in 2011 (NA).

BUSINESS/INVESTING/FINANCE:

Barry Ritholtz's BAILOUT NATION: How Easy Money Corrupted Wall Street and Shook the World Economy, cancelled by McGraw-Hill (the book is critical of McGraw's Standard & Poor's rating service, but the publisher claimed it cancelled for other reasons), to Kevin Commins at Wiley, at auction, for publication in May 2009, by Lloyd Jassin.

HISTORY/POLITICS/CURRENT AFFAIRS:

Annie Jacobsen's THE WIZARDS OF GROOM LAKE: The Uncensored History of Area 51, an investigation into the military's storied secret Nevada base -- frequent subject of alien conspiracy theories, urban legends, and other fantastic rumors -- based on the first interviews ever conducted with the commanders, technicians and test pilots who worked there, to John Parsley at Little, Brown, by Jim Hornfischer at Hornfischer Literary Management (world).

URANIUM: War, Energy, and the Rock that Shaped the World author Tom Zoellner's TRAIN: The Idea that Created the Modern World, exploring the past and future of this 190-year-old idea, and structured around a series of trips the author will make along eight of the world's great railway lines, each one illustrating a particular sociological feature of railroads and trains that have affected the lives of millions, to Kathryn Court at Viking Penguin, by Brettne Bloom at Kneerim & Williams (World).

Military historian Barry Strauss's CAPTAINS: ALEXANDER, HANNIBAL AND CAESAR, to Bob Bender at Simon & Schuster, by Cathy Hemming Literary Agency, in association with McCormick & Williams (world).

NYT bestselling author and Jeopardy! record-holder Ken Jennings's MAPHEAD, exploring the world of map nuts and geography obsessives, from the days of "Here be dragons" to the spinning globes of grade school to the revolution that is Google Maps, to Brant Rumble at Scribner, by Jud Laghi at LJK Literary Management (NA).

MEMOIR:

Conor Grennan's story of volunteering at an orphanage in Nepal after college and later opening his own orphanage in Katmandu, and his efforts to reunite lost children with their families, to Laurie Chittenden at William Morrow, at auction, by Trena Keating at Endeavor.

Daughter of John Gotti, Victoria Gotti's GOTTI CONFIDENTIAL, in which she promises to "set the record straight -- warts and all," including "first-hand accounts and contributions from the entire family," adding that "this was not a project I ever intended to do; however, after years and years of rumors and innuendos, this book was born out of necessity," to Louise Burke at Pocket, for publication on September 29, 2009, by Frank Weimann of The Literary Group (world).

Wrap....

Reg smokes gonna be weaker...

From Congressional Quarterly via truthout.org:

Nicotine Regulation Bill Gains Steam

http://www.truthout.org/030909HA

Drew Armstrong and Alex Wayne, Congressional Quarterly: "The federal government would gain the power to decide the strength of each cigarette's nicotine hit under a bill starting to advance through Congress. On Wednesday, the House Energy and Commerce Committee took a major step toward giving the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) broad powers to regulate tobacco."

[Use link above to continue reading]

Wrap...

Poor Genes? No Insurance....

From The Sydney Morning Herald:

Insurance refused due to poor genes

Australians have been refused insurance protection because of their genetic make-up.

http://www.smh.com.au/national/australians-refused-insurance-because-of-poor-genes-20090309-8tc6.html

[Use link above to continue reading]

Wrap...

Correction on smoking tax....

WASHINGTON — Congressional Democrats have chosen an unlikely source to pay for the bulk of their proposed $35 billion increase in children's health coverage: people with relatively little money and education.

The program expansion passed by the House and Senate last week would be financed with a 156 percent increase in the federal cigarette tax, taking it to $1 per pack from the current 39 cents. Low-income people smoke more heavily than do wealthier people in the United States, making cigarette taxes a regressive form of revenue.

Democrats, who wrote the legislation and provided most of its votes, generally portray themselves as champions of the poor. They do not dispute that the tax plan would hit poor communities disproportionately, but they say it is worth it to provide health insurance to millions of modest-income children.

All the better, they say, if higher cigarette taxes discourage smoking.

Wrap...

Smokers...

So I stopped at Robby's liquor store to pick up 2 lotto tickets this morning and he gave me a heads-up:

First thing this morning, the price of a pack of smokes went up $1.00. That's $1.00 per PACK!!! Thus $10 per carton.

Those of us who smoke are a vulnerable population. Easy to trash, easy to tax. We're a deadly danger to non-smokers supposedly. I'm still waiting for somebody to drop over dead having caught a whiff of my smoke. Outside. Think I'm gonna wait a long long time.

An LA Coroner once said that in examining corpses, he could always tell whether that person had lived in the city, but couldn't tell if they smoked.

Me, I have a question: Would you rather be a passenger in a car with a driver who smoked or one who drank? Check out the accident reports.

More, when it comes to language, pay attention: Smoking-RELATED deaths...Related how? To what degree? No question that one covers any and every situation...accurately or not.

Question #2: There's a choice: Do they want the smokers to quit smoking? Or do they want that tax money? Seems to me to be opposing aims.

Needless to say, I am not happy.

Wrap...

All Kinds and Sizes of Books...

From Publishers Lunch Weekly:

FICTION...

DEBUT:

Washington Post contributor Terence Shine's NOTHING HAPPENS UNTIL IT HAPPENS TO YOU, a humorous first novel about life after the pink slip, of finding inspiration in unlikely places and making a fresh start after personal catastrophe, to John Glusman for Shaye Areheart Books, by Elyse Cheney at Elyse Cheney Agency (world).

MYSTERY/CRIME:

NY Times bestseller Laura Lippman's novel, THE GIRL IN THE GREEN RAINCOAT, just serialized in the New York Times Magazine, a twist on Rear Window in which Tess Monaghan on bedrest sees something suspicious outside but can't leave the house, to Carrie Feron at William Morrow, by Vicky Bijur of the Vicky Bijur Literary Agency.

GENERAL/OTHER:

Philip Roth's 31st book, NEMESIS, about a wartime polio epidemic in the summer of 1944 and the effect it has on a closely-knit, family-oriented Newark community and its children, to Andrea Schulz at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, for publication in 2010, by Andrew Wylie at The Wylie Agency.

Nic Pizzolatto's GALVESTON, in which a small-time mob enforcer narrowly escapes a brutal attempt on his life and finds himself on the run with a young prostitute whose secrets threaten both their chances for survival, to Colin Harrison at Scribner, by Henry Dunow at Dunow, Carlson & Lerner (NA).

NON-FICTION....

BIOGRAPHY:

Marc Eliot's CLINT EASTWOOD, following the biographies of Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart, and Ronald Reagan's Hollywood Years, this book follows in the same vein as a definitive biography of the legend himself, Clint Eastwood, to Julia Pastore at Harmony, for publication in Fall 2009, by Alan Nevins at Renaissance (World).

Professor of art history, American studies, and women studies at Baruch College and the Graduate Center of CUNY Gail Levin, Ph.D.'s THE LIFE AND TIMES OF LEE KRASNER: An Artist's Biography, examining Krasner's evolution as an artist during the pre-feminist era and after from a woman's perspective, outside the context of Jackson Pollock, to Henry Ferris at William Morrow, in a very nice deal, by Loretta Barrett at Barrett Books.

BUSINESS/INVESTING/FINANCE:

CMO of Kodak Jeffrey Hayzlett's NO GUTS, NO GLORY: Why Your Business Isn't Working and How To Fix It, courageous ideas on how to reconceptualize any business for success, to Rick Wolff at Business Plus, for publication in Spring 2010, by Wendy Keller at Keller Media (World).

Economists Nouriel Roubini and Stephen Mihm's CRISIS ECONOMICS, introducing the iconoclastic vision that enabled Roubini to foretell the current crisis before other economists saw it coming, looking at of how we got here and what the future may hold, to Eamon Dolan at Penguin Press, by Wes Neff at Leighco (world).

HISTORY/POLITICS/CURRENT AFFAIRS:

NYT Berlin bureau chief Nicholas Kulish and reporter Souad Mekhennet's book based on their recent front page NYT story on notorious Nazi war criminal Aribert Heim, known as Dr. Death, who eluded investigators and might never have been found but for the discovery of a battered briefcase containing documents that help chart Heim's path from his sadistic acts at the Mauthausen concentration camp to his post-war years and eventual flight to Egypt, where he converted to Islam, then later died in penurious anonymity, still one step ahead of Nazi hunters, to Phyllis Grann at Doubleday, by Marly Rusoff at Marly Rusoff & Associates (for Kulish) and Kirby Kim at Endeavor (for Mekhennet) (world English).
Translation/film: Endeavor

William Craig's YANKEE COME HOME: On the Road from Guantánamo to San Juan Hill, a journey along the Spanish-American War battle trail which examines America's century-long relationship with Cuba and the consequences of abandoning our revolutionary ideals, to George Gibson at Walker, by Wendy Strothman at The Strothman Agency (world English).

ILLUSTRATED/ART:

Subject of the Academy Award-winning documentary MAN ON WIRE, Philippe Petit's author-illustrated journal chronicling his latest project: single-handedly building a post and beam "barnette" using 18th century tools and methods, to Bob Miller at Harper Studio, by Susan Ginsburg at Writers House.

MEMOIR:

Anousheh Ansari's BE THE CHANGE! THE MEMOIRS OF ANOUSHEH ANSARI, written with Homer Hickam, detailing Anousheh's escape from Iran, her experience as the first Muslim woman in space, how she fell in love and attained her fortune, and the life lessons she discovered along the way, in a very nice deal, to Airie Stuart at Palgrave, by Frank Weimann of The Literary Group.

REFERENCE:

Boris Kachka's HOTHOUSE, the full story of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, the country's last and greatest independent publishing house, the era and the city that made it, and the people who had fought for (and over) it, to Marcia Markland at Thomas Dunne Books, by Jane Dystel at Dystel & Goderich Literary Management (NA).

SPORTS:

LPGA player Kris Tschetter with Steve Eubanks' BEN HOGAN AND ME, a memoir of her friendship with the late legendary golfer and what he taught her about the sport and about life, to Bill Shinker at Gotham, with Patrick Mulligan editing, by Michael Harriot at Vigliano Associates (world).

Wrap...

From Rush/Jindal to georgewbushstore.com....

From American Progress:

Think Fast...

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) said he was "glad" that RNC Chairman Michael Steele apologized to Rush Limbaugh. Jindal, who has been hailed by Limbaugh as "the next Ronald Reagan," said, "I think Rush is a leader for many conservatives and says things that people are concerned about."

The Wall Street Journal reports that the Obama administration is fleshing out its plan to rescue failing banks. The administration "is considering creating multiple investment funds to purchase the bad loans and other distressed assets that lie at the heart of the financial crisis, according to people familiar with the matter."

Conservatives for Patients' Rights, a new group led by the former owner of the Hospital Corporation of America, is launching a multimillion-dollar campaign today in opposition to President Obama's health care reform agenda. The group "is enlisting a group of veteran Republican consultants to fashion a multi-media battle, warning against the move toward more government involvement."

President Obama's nominee for U.S. Trade Representative, Ron Kirk, "has agreed to pay $10,000 in back taxes for speaking fees that he did not report as income and for deducting the cost of season tickets to the Dallas Mavericks basketball games."

Yesterday, the Justice Department disclosed nine secret legal opinions issued by Bush administration lawyers after the Sept. 11 attacks, which "included assertions that the president could use the nation's military within the United States to combat terrorism suspects and to conduct raids without obtaining search warrants." The memos are "the clearest illustration to date of the broad definition of presidential power approved by government lawyers in the months after the Sept. 11 attacks."

President Obama sent a secret letter to Russia's president Dmitri Medvedev last month "suggesting that he would back off deploying a new missile defense system in Eastern Europe if Moscow would help stop Iran from developing” nuclear warheads and long range missiles. "It's almost saying to them, put up or shut up," said a senior administration official.

According to a senior State Department Official, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said yesterday in a meeting with the foreign minister of the UAE that “she is doubtful that Iran will respond to any kind of engagement and opening the hand out and reaching out to them." Her remarks offer “some evidence of a debate within the administration over the overture to Iran -- a major theme of President Obama’s presidential campaign.”

Just days before a California Supreme Court hearing on Proposition 8, the state's Legislature approved a resolution yesterday "declaring that voters alone did not have the right to adopt the gay-marriage ban." The nonbinding resolution claims that "[s]weeping revisions can only be adopted...if they originate in the Legislature, gain two-thirds approval in that body and then win approval by voters."

"One in every 31 adults, or 7.3 million Americans, is in prison, on parole or probation," a new Pew Center on the States study reports. State spending on prisons quadrupled over the last 20 years, despite the fact that crime dropped 25 percent during that time. "Criminal correction spending is outpacing budget growth in education, transportation and public assistance. ... Only Medicaid spending grew faster than state corrections spending."

And finally: Looking for ways to remember George W. Bush? Visit georgewbushstore.com. The D.C. Examiner reports some of the "classic" and "commemorative" merchandise available on the site. "[T]here's always the 'Thank You President Bush' bumper sticker ($1.50 each, but there are volume discounts for large orders!) or the ever-popular merchandise with the simple 'W' logo."

Wrap...

Putting Psychics Out of a Job...

From Levine Breaking News:

***The U.S. Army has granted researchers $4 million to develop technology to read a persons thoughts.

Wrap...

Obama picks Sebelius...breaking news...

From The New York Times:

February 28, 2009, 6:11 pm
Obama Is Said to Pick Kansas Governor for Health Post
By Peter Baker
WASHINGTON – President Obama asked Gov. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas to become his nominee for secretary of health and human services on Saturday, tapping a red state ally to help him push through his ambitious plan to remake the nation’s health care system.

Ms. Sebelius accepted the president’s invitation and will be introduced by Mr. Obama at the White House on Monday, said an administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid upstaging the formal announcement. The selection comes just days before Mr. Obama hosts a health care summit at the White House next week.

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/28/obama-is-said-to-pick-kansas-governor-for-health-post/

[Use link above to continue reading]

Wrap.

Religion...GONE!!!

From Levine Breaking News:

***Former Times reporter William Lobdell's memoir "Losing My Religion: How I Lost My Faith Reporting on Religion in America" was published this week.

Wrap...

The Latest Catastrophe....

From Tom Dispatch:

Common to sudden catastrophes is the shock of finding the world upside down. The water is suddenly on top instead of under; the rumbling earth swallows houses and spits out lava; the mud wall slides down from above; the flames roar up; the wind spins; the tower topples. In an instant, everything is broken and nothing works. What you relied upon is gone.

The destruction of the World Trade Center towers was that kind of deep disturbance, even if it was man-made. The shock of 9/11 was so profound that we thought it would define the twenty-first century, and even now it's hard for any event to match the immediacy, the drama, the sheer horror of that single autumn day. When the smoke cleared we learned that we had never really been quarantined from the epidemic of planetary violence that, until 9/11, was always "over there." Suddenly, the shocking violence most of us only witnessed on our television screens had blown back to our very doorstep. Our world shifted over night. Fear reigned. It became our ideology. It became their means of controlling us. It was called "homeland security."

In the second big shock of the young century, seven years later, Wall Street collapsed. Although a few wise voices had warned us it could happen, we didn't see that one coming either. If 9/11 put an American sense of physical safety to flight, the meltdown of casino capitalism took away our economic security.

The debris from economic earthquakes may appear less obvious -- being failed institutions rather than twisted beams -- but the damage couldn't be more real. All that wealth incinerated almost overnight translates into lost jobs, lost homes, lost businesses, lost retirements, lost health care, lost education, lost options, lost dreams. Shredded investments and failed businesses mean that struggle, diminishment, indignity, anxiety, anger, defeat, depression, stress, and hardship will stalk us for years to come. What we once counted on is just as gone as any house or community washed away or burned to the ground. Like 9/11, the economic disaster shook the ground we walked on. This time, stress joined fear.

On 9/11, towers crashed to the ground. In this recent crisis, an entire empire of belief went down.

What do you do when your system fails? Start over, sure; but look, we're stuck with a lot of it. The institutions and agencies that were the instruments of the debacle are still with us and we're hard pressed to invent new ones. Wal-Mart is still with us. So is Exxon. So is the Federal Reserve. So is the Department of Homeland Security. And the agencies we look to for rescue are populated with the incompetent and demoralized bureaucrats of George W. Bush's two terms.

There are termites in the walls. Much of the movement that elected Barack Obama will be devoted to reforming that given world. But remember that, when any mature system -- be it a forest loaded with fuel or an economy loaded with debt -- collapses, enormous amounts of energy are released. Capturing that energy and directing it in new ways is the opportunity that lurks in the midst of this crisis.

The future -- the sustainable future where we survive -- will not be created by those who invented the world we have just lost and are reluctantly giving it up, while salvaging as much of their privilege from the ruins as they can. It will be invented by people who have only each other to lose and understand that, in the coming era of chaos, collapse, and reconstruction, we will find support, security, comfort, and solutions within the context of communities -- on the ground, online, overlapping, and emerging. While Washington salvages the past, citizens in unlikely places like Detroit and Moab, Utah, are building the future. "Think globally, act locally" has never rung truer. "Think security, act locally" will also be true and real security will be homegrown, not "homeland." Chip Ward introducing a post by Chip Ward

After the Green Economy, Green Security
How to Build Resilient Communities in a Chaotic World
By Chip Ward

Now that we've decided to "green" the economy, why not green homeland security, too? I'm not talking about interrogators questioning suspects under the glow of compact fluorescent light bulbs, or cops wearing recycled Kevlar recharging their Tasers via solar panels. What I mean is: Shouldn't we finally start rethinking the very notion of homeland security on a sinking planet?

Click here to read more of this dispatch:

http//:www.tomdispatch.com/post/175039
/chip_ward_the_department_of_homegrown_security

[Use link above to continue reading]

Wrap...

Choice of this week's book notices...

From Publishers Lunch Weekly:

FICTION....

DEBUT:

Liza Campbell's MEASURE ME AGAINST THE SKY, in which a young painter idolizes Georgia O'Keeffe and moves to Santa Fe to find her artistic voice, only to discover her true talent lies in creating forgeries; when she becomes involved with her black market dealer, she wonders if love is possible between people who are not honest with one another, and if anyone is ever completely honest, to Martin Shepard and Judith Shepard at The Permanent Press, for publication in October 2010, by Elizabeth Evans at Reece Halsey New York.

SI-FI/FANTASY:

J.R.R. Tolkien's THE LEGEND OF SIGURD AND GUDRUN, a retelling in English narrative verse of the epic Norse tales, with commentary and notes on the poems by Christopher Tolkien, and an introduction by J.R.R. Tolkien drawn from one of his own lectures on Norse literature, to Ken Carpenter at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, by HarperCollins UK.

GENERAL/OTHER:

Sandra Dallas's (Tallgrass) WHITER THAN SNOW, exploring how catastrophe and fate are reconciled when 9 school-aged children are swept away by an avalanche in a 1920s Colorado mountain town and only 4 survive, to Jennifer Enderlin at St. Martin's, in a two-book deal, by Danielle Egan-Miller at Browne & Miller Literary Associates (NA).

Alice Lichtenstein's LOST, in which three disparate lives intersect one weekend when a woman's husband, suffering from dementia, wanders off on a frigid morning and is found dead by a mute boy, exploring the forces of loss, sorrow, and love, to Samantha Martin at Scribner, for publication in March 2010, by Miriam Altshuler at Miriam Altshuler Literary Agency (World).

National Book Critic Finalist Rick Bass's (Why I Came West) third novel, THE LIVES OF THE BROWNS, a fictional account of three real-life 1950s era country singers from Arkansas who produced a unique and eerie harmony -- the Nashville Sound -- that for a brief period made them the biggest thing in country music, to Nicole Angeloro at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, for publication in fall 2010, by Bob Dattila (world).

Sonny Brewer's THE WIDOW AND THE TREE, the tale of a fabled giant oak, guarding a widow's land for hundreds of years, presiding now over a violent crossroad in men's lives and finding the best and worst in them, with cover engraving by Barry Moser, to Pat Walsh at MacAdam/Cage, for publication in Fall 2009, by Caroline Carter at Caroline Carter Literary.

BIOGRAPHY:

Books editor of The New York Observer Adam Begley's UPDIKE, promising a revealing, in-depth portrait, unsparingly exploring the life and times of John Updike as well as the influence they had on his remarkable body of work, to Tim Duggan at Harper, for publication in 2011, by Georges Borchardt at Georges Borchardt (world English).

BUSINESS/INVESTING/FINANCE:

Magazine journalist and author of INSIDE SERGEY AND LARRY'S BRAIN, Richard Brandt's INSIDE JEFF'S BRAIN, a profile of Jeff Bezos at Amazon, to Jeffrey Krames at Portfolio, by Al Zuckerman of Writers House (world).

HISTORY/POLITICS/CURRENT AFFAIRS:

Correspondent for PBS's "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer" and news host for WTTW11's "Chicago Tonight" Elizabeth Brackett's PAY TO PLAY: How Rod Blagojevich Turned Political Corruption Into a National Sideshow, going behind the story of the first governor to be impeached by the Illinois legislature, to Ivan R. Dee at Ivan R. Dee, for publication in May 2009 (World).

HUMOR:

Salon and New Republic writer Gregory Levey's HOW TO MAKE PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST IN SIX MONTHS OR LESS WITHOUT LEAVING YOUR APARTMENT, which picks up where his first book, SHUT UP I'M TALKING And Other Diplomacy Lessons I Learned in the Israeli Government, left off, after the author has returned from his stint as Ariel Sharon's English language speechwriter, and returns to the states, ready to resume his normal life, only to find that everyone he meets -- from little Jewish grandmothers to diplomats -- has their own plan for solving the middle eastern crisis, and decides to settle the issue once and for all, with humorous results, again to Wylie O'Sullivan at Free Press, by Mollie Glick at Foundry Literary + Media.

MEMOIR:

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's memoir in which she "will combine candid narrative and acute analysis to tell the story of her time in the White House and as America's top diplomat, and her role in protecting American security and shaping foreign policy during the extraordinary period from 2001-2009," to Crown, in a major deal, reportedly for "at least $2.5 million" (AP), for publication in 2011, followed by a memoir about her family in 2012, published at the same time in a separate YA version, by Robert Barnett at Williams & Connolly.

Actress (best-known for One Day at a Time) Mackenzie Phillips' memoir, about growing up in a legendary music family (the daughter of John Phillips and stepdaughter of Michelle Phillips), where there was "very little going on inside except sex, drugs and rock-and-roll," the demons she's battled -- including a 20-year fight with drug addiction, a "shocking, life-long secret that she will reveal in-depth for the first time in her book, and finding redemption and peace, to Jennifer Bergstrom at Simon Spotlight Entertainment, with Sarah Sper editing, for publication in March 2010, by Dan Strone at Trident Media Group.

Wrap....

Labor Sec. Solis Confirmed...At Last!!!

From AP via Raw Story:

Senate confirms Solis as labor secretary
By SAM HANANEL – 40 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate has confirmed California congresswoman Hilda Solis as President Barack Obama's labor secretary.

Solis' confirmation gives the agency a decidedly pro-worker tilt after eight years of business-friendly leadership under the Bush administration.

The 80-17 vote comes after more than a month of delays. Some GOP lawmakers were concerned over her work for a pro-union group that supports legislation easing the process for workers to organize unions.

She also had to answer questions about tax liens filed against her husband.

Wrap...

Whistleblower...Ignored...

From Information Clearing House:

Kill The Messenger

By Sibel Edmonds - Video Documentary:

Most Americans have never heard of Sibel Edmonds, and if the U.S. government has its way, they never will. The former FBI translator turned whistleblower tells a chilling story of corruption at Washington's highest levels-sale of nuclear secrets, shielding of terrorist suspects, illegal arms transfers, narcotics trafficking, money laundering, espionage.

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22071.htm

[Use link above to continue reading]

Wrap...

On Dirty Coal...

From Truthout.org :

Joseph Romm

If Obama Stops Dirty Coal, as He Must, What Will Replace It?

http://www.truthout.org/022309EA

Joseph Romm, Climate Progress: "I think it is incumbent on progressives to propose a realistic alternative to new coal plants - and a path to reduce emissions from existing ones. That's especially true since it is increasingly clear carbon capture and storage will not be a major player by 2020."

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Wrap...