Short Takes

National Book Foundation chief Neil Baldwin is writing a new book called The American Revelation: Ten Ideals That Shaped Our Country, and Diane Reverand at SMP won North American and first serial in an auction run by John Silbersack at Trident Media Group; she hopes to publish early in 2005.... Next book from Orchid Thief author Susan Orlean (played by Meryl Streep in the movie Adaptation) is a book tracing the life of the Orca whale Keiko, who played the lead in the hit movie Free Willy and is now back home in the Icelandic waters of his birth. Jonathan Karp at Random bought world rights from agent Richard Pine, for publication next July.... Public Affairs president Peter Osnos bought world rights in a book by ultimate Washington insider Joseph A. Califano Jr., a former Cabinet member and powerful lawyer with some stories to tell about Watergate and the drive against drugs that he spearheaded. It's called, appropriately, Inside, and was bought from Bob Barnett at Williams & Connolly for publication next spring.... A book by former financial deal maker Susan Scherbel, the only significant female player in an almost exclusively male business, was pre-empted for six figures by Harper's Marion Maneker after the author had met several interested publishers for an untitled book on global capital markets being offered by West Coast agent Jodie Rhodes. Maneker took world rights, on the basis of his marketing know-how.... A book about the triumph of Internet pioneer Google, by the former cofounder of both Wired and Industry Standard, John Battelle, was bought for world rights by Adrian Zackheim at Penguin's Portfolio imprint. He made the buy from Esther Newberg at ICM, and the book's tentative title is The Search: Business and Culture in the Age of Google.