Riverhead's Sean McDonald signed two new books by satirist George Saunders, whose previous work, including CivilWarLand in Bad Decline, has won several awards; one will be a novella, the other a new book of stories, and the North American rights deal was signed with ICM's Esther Newberg.... Doubleday's Kendra Harpster won a literary first novel at auction, an untitled work by Shari Goldhagen, who writes short stories as a reprieve from her day job writing for the National Enquirer. Goldhagen 's book, an untitled tale of the vicissitudes of two orphaned brothers over many years, was bought for world English and audio from Alex Glass at Trident Media Group.... Also at Trident, Jenny Bent and John Silbersack sold a book by former veteran Republican congressman (and now Fox TV figure) John Kasich called What's Wrong with This Country: Setting Right the American Pendulum, which suggests a bipartisan approach is needed in these divisive times to focus on enduring American ideals. His book will be co-written with Daniel Paisner, and Warner's Rick Wolff paid six figures at auction to get it.... Stephanie Tade at Rodale bought a book by a large, cheerful lobbyist and man-about-politics in Washington named Michael S. Berman. His book, Living Large: A Big Person's Journey to Happiness, suggests that even fat people can enjoy life, a lesson that should go over big in a nation that is often horizontally challenged. His coauthor will be Laurence Shames, who writes Florida-set mysteries and also wrote Not Fade Away. The deal, for world rights, was made with Washington uber-agent Bob Barnett, for publication in 2006.