Short Takes

There have been several successful books lately lambasting the mess we're making of the English language, and now Evan Morris, a word expert and Newsday writer, is saying "enough, already!" He's written a book called Apocalypse Noun: Grammar Grumps, Comma Cops and the Much-Exaggerated Death of the English Language, and that mouthful was bought for Bloomsbury by Colin Dickerman. The North American deal was with agent Janis Donnaud.... A book about the spectacular triumph of black athlete Jesse Owens in the Nazi-run 1936 Olympics, and what it meant to the world, was bought for Crown by Shana Drehs. It's called Six Days in Berlin, and author Wayne Coffey previously did another Olympic tale, The Boys of Winter, about the winning 1980 U.S. hockey team. Agent Andrew Stuart made the sale.... Jerry Jenkins, the Left Behind author, has made another deal with Tyndale that will give the house two or three novels a year for the next six years, but it's a much smaller one he just made with Writers Digest Books that caught our attention. Somehow Jenkins is finding time to pen a guide called Writing for the Soul, and it will be launched at next year's BEA, where Jenkins will be a speaker. The deal was signed by a delighted Jane Friedman (no, not that one), executive editor at WDB.... Keys to The Da Vinci Code are legion, but now British author Simon Cox is promising Unlocking the Solomon Key, a guide to the new Dan Brown book that won't even be out till next spring. Shortly thereafter, Cox, who wrote the highly successful Cracking the Da Vinci Code, promises to have his explication ready, and Touchstone/S&S editor-in-chief Trish Todd bought U.S. and Canadian rights from Fiona Brownlee at Mainstream, its British publisher.