Deals

LEAP DAYS: A Mid-Life Chronicle by radio personality and print journalist Katherine Lanpher, in which she stylishly and humorously examines the process of starting over in Manhattan in her forties, to Time Warner executives Jill Cohen and Karen Murgolo for the new Springboard imprint, in a good deal.

Patricia Hampl’s BLUE ARABESQUE: In Search of the Sublime, explores the meaning in the gaze of the voluptuous odalisque figures that Matisse painted so obsessively in the south of France between the two wars, to Ann Patty at Harcourt in a nice deal.

THE SUMMER BOOK by visual designer Suzanne Brown celebrates through a collection of photographs, line drawings and text the magical moments of summer, capturing the essential spirit of the season, while offering a practical guide to the warm weather lifestyle, to Ann Branson at Artisan Book in a very nice deal.

DEEP IN THE MOUNTAINS, an historical novel by Terrence Cheng, author of Discover Honor book Sons of Heaven, about the friendship between a 15 year-old Chinese boy from New York City and a famous Shanghai painter who teaches him art and Chinese history, to Jacqueline Ching, Senior Editor, Watson Guptill Publications, in a nice deal.

In one of the first big pre-Frankfurt deals, Hyperion publisher Ellen Archer and editor Leslie Wells have bought Natural Selection, a “Jaws-meets-Jurassic Park” thriller by first-time novelist Dave Freedman, from agent Marly Rusoff in a preempt.
The “major six-figure deal” includes world rights, and publication is expected in summer 2006. The novel describes the evolution of a predatory species that, following a series of cataclysmic environmental disasters, is forced out of its deep ocean habitat into a violent and terrifying encounter with man.
Freedman holds a science and engineering degree from Princeton and a master’s degree from Harvard. According to Rusoff, he’s already working on several other novels with a similarly scientific inclination.

THE FLORIST’S DAUGHTER by Patricia Hampl, which picks up where her award-winning memoir A Romantic Education left off, taking Hampl into middle age, and ending with the death of her mother to Ann Patty at Harcourt in a very nice deal by agent Marly Rusoff.

German rights to Roland Merullo’s GOLFING WITH GOD a novel that blends philosophy, mysticism, and enchantment with golf instruction to Gerhard Reimann at Goldman-Arkana/Random by Jacqueline LeDonne for Marly Rusoff & Associates.

Five-time Jeopardy loser (and eight-time winner) Bob Harris’s PRISONER OF TREBEKISTAN, exploring the full spectrum of the game show experience, including the world of obsessed Jeopardy players, game strategies and shortcuts, the actual human cost of cramming all that arcane knowledge in your head, and how it feels to triumph wildly and lose magnificently, to Shana Drehs at Crown, in a very nice deal, by Marly Rusoff at Marly Rusoff & Associates (world English).

NO: Why Kids Need It and How Parents Can Say It by best-selling author David Walsh, Ph.D. a world leading authority on parenting and family life, will provide parents with an arsenal of tactics, explanations, and examples for effectively using the word NO, the building block for self discipline, respect, integrity and a host of other character traits that lead to a happy and productive life, to Leslie Meredith of Free Press by agent Marly Rusoff in a good deal (NA).

Swedish rights to ALL THE NUMBERS by Judy Merrill Larsen in which a recently divorced teacher and mother is just learning to make her way through the uncharted territory of single motherhood.