Appetite for Destruction
Stacy Creamer, v-p and publisher at Touchstone Fireside, bought U.S., Canadian, and open market rights to a memoir by former Guns N' Roses bassist Duff McKagan. McKagan, who spent 13 years with GnR (and cofounded the band), writes about his early days playing in Seattle, becoming sober (after a near-death experience in 1994), his GnR and post-GnR career (with bands like Velvet Revolver), and unexpected pursuits such as his passion for literature and playing the stock market. Agent Dan Mandel at Sanford J. Greenburger closed the deal, and McKagan is working on the book with former Playboy editor Tim Mohr.
Bird Brains
Joel Greenberg tackles the disappearance of the passenger pigeon in his new book, A Feathered River Across the Heavens, which Walker & Company's Jacqueline Johnson bought world rights to at auction. Greenberg, an avid birder and research associate at Chicago's Field Museum, examines how the passenger pigeon, once the most common bird on the planet, became extinct after decades of being hunted. Wendy Strothman brokered the deal, and Walker is planning a September 2014 publication.
Canine Companion
Jennifer Enderlin at St. Martin's Press bought world rights to a currently untitled book by Susan Wilson (One Good Dog) from Andrea Cirillo at the Jane Rotrosen Agency. Dog—a novel, about a Boston millionaire who develops a special bond with a pooch, that SMP published in March—drew comparisons to Marley and Me and became an Indie Next pick. In Wilson's new novel, scheduled for 2011, a woman goes cross-country looking for her missing dog.
High School Confidential
Jenna Johnson at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt pre-empted North American rights to Jennifer Miller's debut novel, which the house is pitching as Special Topics in Calamity Physics meets Portnoy's Complaint. Extremophile, which Mollie Glick at Foundry Literary + Media sold, follows an eccentric teen—she sets her moral compass to Edward R. Murrow and is intent on becoming the youngest-ever editor-in-chief of her prep school's newspaper—who stumbles on a secret society and a strange tragedy in the past of her favorite teacher.
Shiver My Timbers... Again
John Glusman at Harmony Books nabbed North American rights to Sir Andrew Motion's Return to Treasure Island. Motion, the former poet laureate of England, delivers a sequel to Robert Louis Stevenson's classic, this time following the adventures of the original characters' offspring—including Long John Silver's daughter, Natty, and Jim Hawkins's son, Jim Jr.—in a new search for buried treasure. Jonathan Cape is publishing in the U.K., and British agent Simon Trewin brokered the deal. Harmony is planning a fall 2012 publication.
Briefs
Jill Marsal at Marsal Lyon sold world rights, at auction, to Dr. Paul Stoltz and James Reed's Hire Education, to Courtney Young at Portfolio. In the book, subtitled Employ the Right Mindset to Get and Keep the Best Job, the authors give guidance on how to land, and keep, the right job. Portfolio is planning a spring 2011 publication.
Nation Books' Carl Bromley bought world rights to a currently untitled book by online journalist and former New York Times correspondent Chris Hedges. The book, expanded from Hedges's columns on Internet news site Truthdig, argues about the dangers the U.S. faces from the far right. The title, sold unagented, marks Hedges's third book with Nation and is scheduled for December 2010.
