As if YA books hadn't sparked enough controversy lately, the listservs are buzzing about Inexcusable (Atheneum/ Seo, Nov.), a novel about date rape, told from the point of view of the accused boy. Author Chris Lynch has written several acclaimed novels for teens, including the Printz Honor—winning Freewill.... At BEA, former Random House editorial director Jon Karp touted Brian Strause's Maybe a Miracle as the "funniest book you'll ever read about a girl in a coma," and booksellers seem to agree. Though Karp left the house a week later, Random is behind the book: printing has gone from 25,000 to 50,000 copies.... The Water Mirror (Oct.), the first in a YA fantasy trilogy set in Venice, was a bestseller in its native Germany and has been translated into 16 languages. It's the first novel by Kai Mayer to be published here; McElderry Books reports 60,000 copies in print after two trips back to press.... S&S adult editor Geoff Kloske , a newly minted dad, has kids on the brain these days. He's written a snarky picture book of very short bedtime stories, Once Upon a Time, the End (Atheneum/Schwartz, Oct.), illustrated by Barry Blitt , which is already in its second printing.... Craig Clevenger , author of the 2002 sleeper The Contortionist's Handbook, was another BEA favorite, judging by the lines around the MacAdam/Cage booth when he appeared there. That may explain why the print run has jumped from 10,000 to 25,000 for his second novel, Dermaphoria (Oct.), a dark tale of a guy who wakes up in jail with his memory wiped clean, charged with exploding a drug lab.... Gabrielle Zevin 's first book, Elsewhere , is an intriguing YA novel about where people go when they die. Zevin, a screenwriter, is also getting lots of attention for her film Conversations with Other Women, starring Helena Bonham Carter and Aaron Eckhart , which was just shown at the Telluride Film Festival.... Doubleday is on a roll with two titles for history mavens. River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey by Candice Millard (Oct.) makes a thrilling narrative out of TR's punishing 1912 journey down an Amazon tributary that's drawing comparisons to last year's hit Shadow Divers. Meanwhile, historian H.W. Brands , best known for his 2002 Ben Franklin bio, has made a bet on Andrew Jackson (Oct.) that's paying off. Orders for the founding father's bio are much bigger than for his recent histories of Texan independence and California's Gold Rush.