Building Ideas

Harper executive editor Gail Winston bested several bidders in an auction for Sarah Williams Goldhagen’sArchitecture Matters in a North American rights deal with Chris Parris-Lamb at the Gernert Company. Goldhagen, architecture critic for the New Republic, will draw readers’ attention to the manifold ways in which the built environment constructs and influences our daily lives, while making a case for correcting the notion that “the rich live in architecture, and the rest of us inhabit buildings.”

Aczel to Harmony

Harmony executive editor John Glusman has signed up Amir D. Aczel’sCern, taking world rights from Al Zuckerman at Writers House. About the world’s most powerful particle accelerator that will go online in fall 2009, the book will incorporate information from interviews with 11 Nobel winners and 30 other leading physicists on the significance of the experiment.

War Stories

Berkley Caliber senior executive editor Natalee Rosenstein acquired world English rights to Ryan A. Conklin’sAn Angel from Hell: A Screaming Eagle’s Story of Modern War via E.J. McCarthy.The MTV Real World: Brooklyn cast member, 23, was on the front lines in Iraq three years ago; the book will detail his experiences as a turret gunner for the 101st Airborne “Angel Company.” Conklin received his second deployment notice while living in the Real World house. Pub date is early 2010.

Free Press senior editor Amber Qureshi acquired world rights to Anna Badkhen’sA War Reporter’s Pantry in a deal with Felicia Eth. Russian-born Badkhen, 30, who’s been around the world reporting on war, will share some of her adventures, culinary and otherwise, in the book, including a recipe for blini, the most important ingredient of which is vodka.

Writers on Writers

Hanne Winarsky at Princeton University Press has signed up the third title in the publisher’s Writers on Writers series, a yet-to-be-titled portrait of W.H. Auden by Alexander McCall Smith; Robin Straus sold world rights. The inaugural title in the series, Phillip Lopate’s Notes on Sontag, is due out this May; no pub date for McCall Smith or the other book signed up so far, which is C.K. Williams on Walt Whitman.

Eating Guides to Da Capo

Renee Sedliar at Da Capo Lifelong has acquired world rights to a guide to live foods by Ani Phyo, Ani’s Eco-Easy Raw Bible: Over 200 Fast Raw Food Recipes for Healthy Green Living. Tina Wexler at ICM made the sale, and pub date is spring 2010.

Sedliar also signed up an untitled book by Vegan Soul Kitchen author Bryant Terry via Danielle Svetcov at Levine Greenberg. This guide to cheap, quality, local/seasonal eating with more than 100 recipes will pub in fall 2010.

Spradlin Sells Two

At Putnam Books for Young Readers, Tim Travaglini acquired North American rights to Michael P. Spradlin’sRaven’s Shadow via Steven Chudney. Set in Washington, D.C., after the 1824 election, the novel pits teenagers Abraham Lincoln, Charles Darwin and Edgar Allan Poe against a mysterious monster who will become known to the modern world as Dracula. Spradlin, the author of the trilogy the Youngest Templar, is a sales manager at HarperCollins.

And at Harper Paperbacks, Gabe Robinson bought Spradlin’s It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Zombies, a book of zombie Christmas carols to be illustrated by Jeff Weigel. Chudney sold world rights.