New Houghton Mifflin publisher Janet Silver preempted a new novel by Amitav Gosh from agent Barney Karpfinger, for U.S. rights; the untitled novel is about a young American woman biologist on a group of islands in the Bay of Bengal. Silver's deal also includes reprint rights to two earlier Gosh novels, The Circle of Reason and Shadowlines .... A metabolism and diet book, Fire It Up! by identical twins Tammy and Lissie Lakatos, was bought as an S&S Fireside original by Doris Cooper from agent Laura Dail; she got world English rights.... The new Millbrook imprint Roaring Brook Press had its first paperback auction for a first YA novel, Shattering Glass by Gail Giles, sold to Aladdin Books at S&S.... Morrow's Jennifer Brehl bought On Hitler's Mountain: A Nazi Childhood by Irmgard Hunt, who grew up in Berchtesgaden, where the Nazi leader had his retreat; Brehl bought world rights (excluding Germany, which went to DVA) from agent Sarah Burnes at Burnes & Clegg.