Short Takes
by John F. Baker -- Publishers Weekly, 7/12/2004
Holt's Jennifer Barth bought a book by Time reporter Michael Weisskopf, who was injured in Iraq and thus became the first reporter to penetrate the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where many GIs wounded in Iraq are treated. His book is Untitled on Ward 57 and tells of the soldiers' wounds and efforts at recovery. It was a world rights buy from Joni Evans at William Morris.... A multibook agreement was signed with Food Network star Rachael Ray, whose series 30-Minute Meals has been big on TV and, via small Lake Isle Press, in the bookstores, too. Clarkson Potter editorial director Pamela Krauss bought the new series from agents Suzanne Gluck and Jon Rosen at William Morris, and the first, due next spring, will focus on tasty low-carb recipes.... The "Math Guy" on NPR's Weekend Edition, Keith Devlin, has written a book called The Math Instinct that suggests all humans, and even some animals, have innate mathematical abilities, optimistic though that may sound to some. John Oakes won it at auction for his Thunder's Mouth Press, where it will be a lead title next spring. The agent for the North American rights deal was Ted Weinstein .... Another optimistic notion is that of a book making the case for same-sex marriage aimed at religiously inclined readers. Eric Brandt at Harper San Francisco was the buyer of The Sex War Solution by social psychologist Dan Myers and evangelical writer Letha Dawson Scanzoni. It was a world rights buy from Susan Arellano at the Susan Rabiner agency.
