Gallery Books Nadelson’s ‘Balthazar’
Kate Dresser at Gallery Books took North American rights to journalist and author Reggie Nadelson’s Balthazar: The New York Brasserie at the Center of the World, in a deal brokered by William Clark at William Clark Associates. The book, slated for April 2017, is about the iconic Soho restaurant Keith McNally opened in 1997, in an area of New York City that was then, as Clark put it, “a new downtown Bohemia.” Nadelson’s title, Clark elaborated, will be a history of the restaurant (which serves some half a million meals a year), as well as an examination of downtown Manhattan and, in a larger sense, “food, design, economics, and celebrity.” Balthazar will also feature recipes from the restaurant’s chef de cuisine, Shane McBride. The book’s release is being timed to coincide with the restaurant’s 20th anniversary.
Patty Takes Memoir to Viking
Ann Patty sold world rights to a memoir, Ex Post Facto: Living with a Dead Language, to Viking’s Paul Slovak. Patty, who became a freelance editor in 2009 after a career spanning over 30 years in New York trade publishing, was represented by Meg Ruley at the Jane Rotrosen Agency. The book, which is set for 2016, picks up when Patty was let go from Harcourt in 2008. Feeling, as Viking explained, “lost” and “lonely,” she began auditing courses in Latin at Vassar College. Patty hoped to “reinvent herself” through the course work, and in the book she melds aspects of her own life with “the confounding grammar of Latin.” Viking called the book “an inspiring account of finding engagement and purpose... at an advanced age.” Patty currently lives in Rhinebeck, N.Y.
Liwska, Kerr Park ‘Llama’ At Bloomsbury
In a six-figure, two-book deal, Bloomsbury’s Sarah Shumway acquired world rights, at auction, to Renata Liwska and Mike Kerr’s Crafty Llama. Holly McGhee at Pippin Properties brokered the world rights deal for the husband-and-wife pair. Kerr is an artist who teaches at Alberta College of Art and Design, and Liwska is a bestselling illustrator of titles like The Quiet Book (HMH, 2011); this book, which Kerr will be writing and Liwska illustrating, marks their first picture book collaboration. Crafty Llama, set for fall 2017, is, McGhee said, about a llama who knits, “creating one-of-a-kind cozy accessories for all of her friends.” The second book in the deal is currently set for fall 2018.
Dutton Children’s Keeps Smith for Two More
Lauded YA author Andrew Smith signed a new two-book deal with Dutton Children’s Books. For his 2014 novel with Dutton, Grasshopper Jungle, Smith earned a number of accolades, winning both the 2014 Boston Globe-Horn Book Award and the 2015 Printz Honor. In the new deal, which is for two currently untitled YA novels, Julie Strauss-Gabel took North American rights from agent Michael Bourret at Dystel & Goderich Literary Management. The books are scheduled for 2016 and 2017, respectively.
Sutton Brings Lustig and Zitter to Avery
In the first of two acquisitions for Penguin’s Avery imprint, Caroline Sutton acquired North American rights to Robert Lustig’s The Agony of Ecstasy. Lustig, an M.D., is the author of the bestseller Fat Chance (Hudson Street Press, 2012), about ways to ward off heart disease. Agony, Avery said, examines the misguided way we, as a society, try to achieve happiness. The book argues that “pleasure and happiness are biochemically oppositional” and that many of our larger cultural problems, such as obesity, “come from our pursuing pleasure, which in fact suppresses rather than increases happiness.” Janis Donnaud, who has an eponymous shingle, represented Lustig in the deal.
In the second acquisition, Sutton took world rights to Jessica Nutik Zitter’s Critical Decisions. Zitter is an ICU doctor who also writes for the New York Times’ Well blog and the Huffington Post. The book examines, Avery explained, “our final decisions about care at the end of life.” Zitter was represented by James Levine at Levine Greenberg Rostan.
Stevens’ ‘Part’ Nabbed By HarperCollins
In a two-book deal, Courtney C. Stevens (Faking Normal) sold her new YA novel, Dressing the Part, to Rosemary Brosnan at HarperCollins. Kelly Sonnack at Andrea Brown Literary represented Stevens in the world English rights deal. Dressing the Part, Sonnack said, examines the construct of femininity and “what it means to be camouflaged among the people you love.” The second book in the deal is currently untitled.
Correction: This article has been updated from its original version to reflect the fact that Gallery bought North American rights, and not world rights, to Balthazar.
