Short Takes
by John F. Baker -- Publishers Weekly, 6/21/2004
A first novel by a poet whose verse received a National Book Award nomination in 2000, Kim Addonizio, was bought by MarySue Rucci at Simon & Schuster. It's called Dirty Beautiful and is about two California women and the baby one of them is about to have that will change their lives. Rucci got U.S. and Canadian rights from Rob McQuilkin at Lippincott & McQuilkin, with Jenny Meyer handling foreign rights.... Gerry Howard at Doubleday Broadway signed a book called Cinema by noted movie producer Ismail Merchant, who with director James Ivory has made many films of classic literary works. In it Merchant laments the decline of current cinema into greed and commercialism. The world rights buy was made from Lynn Nesbit at Janklow & Nesbit.... Doris Cooper at the Touchstone Fireside imprint at S&S won a heated auction for a book about teaching third graders, And Miles to Teach Before I Sleep. It's by award-winning teacher Phil Done and was bought for U.S., Canada, open market and audio from agent Jannis Donnaud .... A first novel by a British author, journalist and documentary filmmaker who specializes in India, Justine Hardy, was preempted on both sides of the Atlantic, by Grove's Elisabeth Schmitz here and Atlantic's Clara Farmer in London. It is a look at the Kashmir troubles through the lens of a doomed love affair, and the six-figure world rights sale was made by Elizabeth Sheinkman at the London office of the Elaine Markson agency.... A book described as "the Da Vinci Code for tweens," Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett, with pictures by Brett Helquist, has been sold to Warner Bros. as a movie. The first novel, which tells of a pair of bright Chicago kids trying to solve the theft of a Vermeer painting, is published by Scholastic, and Stephen Moore of the Paul Kohner agency made the sale on its behalf.
