Deals: Memoir Preempt

Little, Brown executive editor Tracy Behar preempted North American rights to Thomas Buergenthal's memoir, A Lucky Child, via George Lucas at Inkwell on behalf of Profile Books in the U.K. Buergenthal, an expert in human rights law and a judge at the International Court in the Hague, will share the story of his odyssey as a child through two ghettos, Auschwitz, the Auschwitz death march and Sachsenhausen, to a new life in the U.S. A Lucky Child is already a bestseller in Germany, Holland and Spain.

Touchstone Fireside senior editor Michelle Howry won world rights to Antiques Roadshow: Behind the Scenes in an auction conducted by Judy Linden at the Stonesong Press. The newest book derived from PBS's #1-rated series will be penned by executive producer Marsha Benko, who will reveal the real-life stories behind some of the show's most popular treasures, appraisers and guests. The book will also detail the secrets readers need to know to get their own heirlooms on the air. Stonesong will produce the book; publication set for January 2010.

St. Martin's executive editor Charlie Spicer preempted world rights to Paul Doiron's The Poacher's Son with an offer to Ann Rittenberg as she boarded a plane to BEA. The first in the three-book deal introduces Maine game warden Mike Bowditch, who finds himself in a manhunt for a suspected murderer—his own father. Doiron is the editor-in-chief of Down East, the magazine of Maine.

Elsewhere at SMP, Katie Gilligan at Thomas Dunne bought the next two books in Sharyn McCrumb's Appalachian Ballad series in a six-figure deal with Irene Goodman. The first, The Devil Amongst the Lawyers, is a portrait of Appalachian culture misrepresented by a group of reporters covering a rural murder trial.

Jonathan Brent at Yale University Press bought North American rights to Edward Berenson's The Statue of Liberty: A Transatlantic Story via Sandra Dijkstra. The cast of characters involved in the story of the statue's history includes Gustave Eiffel, sculptor Auguste Bartholdi, poet Emma Lazarus and newspaper magnate Joseph Pulitzer. Berenson is director of NYU's Institute of French Studies; the book will be published as part of Yale's Icons of America series.

Dijkstra also sold Waystations Along a Crooked Road: Contraband Camps, Freedpeople's Relocation, and the Elusive Meaning of Freedom by Chandra Manning in a North American rights deal with Jane Garrett at Knopf/Vintage. Manning, Georgetown professor and author of What This Cruel War Was Over: Soldiers, Slavery and the Civil War (Knopf, 2007) will explore the dramatic change in the nation's racial climate occasioned by the Civil War, with particular focus on emancipation and race in the North during and after the war.

Ellen Archer and Barbara Jones at Voice bought North American rights to Maddy Dychtwald's Power Shift: How Women's Rising Economic Control Will Change the World via Doris Michaels. Dychtwald, senior v-p at Age Wave, will examine changing economic trends regarding women and money in America, revealing how women think and feel about money and how women's increasing control of money will transform our global society. Pub date is January 2010.

Archer and Sarah Landis bought North American rights to a novel by Gabrielle Burton called Impatient with Desire; Lisa Bankoff at ICM made the sale. This sweeping historical tale imagines the ill-fated Donner party of 1846 through Tamsen Donner's fictional journal entries and letters. Pub date is 2010.