Short Takes

Jon Katz has quickly become a popular writer on the popular subject of dogs, and now his editor, Bruce Tracy at Villard, has signed him for his guide to owning and training a canine friend: Katz on Dogs. It was a two-book world rights deal made with Richard Abate at ICM, tentatively set for publication in fall 2005.... A first YA novel by an author who normally writes big historical fantasies for the adult market was won at auction by Knopf's Michelle Frey. The author is Australia's Juliet Marriller, the book is Wildwood Dancing, plus a second novel, and Frey bought North American rights for six figures from Russell Galen at Scovil Chichak Galen.... The only current nonfiction bestseller among several titles riding on the coattails of The Da Vinci Code is Secrets of the Code, an anthology of expert opinions and explanations edited by Dan Burstein, and foreign rights agent Danny Baror reports sales for it totaling more than $175,000 in nine countries.... Broadway's Anna Campbell bought a book by journalist Dan Hurley that attacks the largely unregulated and powerful industry of dietary drug supplements. Natural Causes: Death, Lies and Politics in America's Herbal Industry was bought for North American rights from agent Jane Dystel.... A new novel by Elizabeth Noble, whose The Reading Group was a big bestseller in Britain (and will be done here by Harper in January 2005) was bought by Kate Travers at HarperPerennial. It's the story of a woman abandoned by her husband who returns to the States after the death of her estranged father, and Travers bought it from Shana Kelly at William Morris. Noble, incidentally, is married to David Young, who heads Time Warner Books in the U.K.