Short Takes

by John F. Baker -- Publishers Weekly, 8/30/2004

A pair of entertainment-related titles were bought for the Three Rivers imprint at Crown by Carrie Thornton: 20 Years of Alternative Music from Spin Magazine, an anthology of pieces from the magazine with some original essays by Dave Eggers, Ann Powers, Chuck Klosterman and Marc Spitz and others bought from Jim Fitzgerald for publication in fall next year; and a book based on the Off-Broadway show The Marijuana-logues by Arj Barker, Doug Benson and Tony Camin, a series of monologues on the virtues of weed. This was bought from Sandy Choron at March Tenth.... A study of a famous teacher by a keen but critical student was won at auction by HM's recently arrived Amanda Cook. It's The Man on Whom Nothing Was Lost, a portrait of Yale professor (and former top Washington insider and diplomat) Charles Hill, in which Molly Worthen offers a keen portrait, as well as a meditation on the student-teacher relationship. Andrew Wylie made the North American rights sale.... Stephen S. Power at Wiley bought a book about the court of Russia's Nicholas II by Greg King, coauthor of The Fate of the Romanovs. It's a detailed examination, based on unpublished sources and lavishly illustrated, of life at the last czarist court; Dorie Simmonds made the world English rights deal.... Melody Guy at Ballantine bought a book all about the booming Latino market in the U.S. by expert Chiqui Cartagena. He got world, first serial and audio from Alfredo Santana of Santana-Tasuuma Media International.... MarySue Rucci at S&S took a book of stories called The Apple's Bruise by Lisa Glatt, whose A Girl Becomes a Comma Like That won glowing reviews this summer. World rights were bought from Andrew Blauner.... Crown's Rick Horgan bought a book called The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea by journalist Stephan Taity, about the struggle with pirates, including the notorious Henry Morgan, for control of the Caribbean in the 17th century. The North American rights sale was made by Scott Waxman.