Things are finally slowing down a little for the summer, but there have still been plenty of deals and news to keep June and July satisfying and interesting.

NEW FOREIGN RIGHTS DEALS!

Fiction

The first translation deal for James Buchan’s mysterious new novel, THE GATE OF AIR, is in Bulgaria to Ednorog, via the Nurnberg Agency, Sofia. This is the first time I’ve ever seen Bulgarian rights sell ahead of any other European language, and hopefully this publisher’s enthusiasm will remind other European publishers that James Buchan’s intriguing ghost story has appeal beyond Britain. The Maclehose Press/Quercus publishes THE GATE OF AIR in hardcover on September 4th.
Simon Mawer’s powerful new novel, THE GLASS ROOM, is now sold in the Czech Republic to Kniha Zlin via the Nurnberg Agency, Prague. The author is very pleased about this deal since he has never been translated into Czech before, and the novel mostly takes place in Czechoslovakia, from the 1930s to the the present. Portuguese rights were already pre-empted by Civilizacao, Dutch rights pre-empted by Ambo Anthos, and Italian rights sold at auction to Neri Pozza. Little, Brown will publish THE GLASS ROOM in the UK in January 2009.

Mike Gayle’s new novel, THE LIFE AND SOUL OF THE PARTY, is now sold in Poland to Sonia Draga (via Aleksandra Matuzsak, Andrew Nurnberg Agency Warsaw).  Hodder publishes on August 21st, and it looks to be one of Mike Gayle’s best, following the ups and downs of three London couples across a year of parties.  There’s a strong line-up of publicity and it’s already ranked as a top-selling fiction title on Amazon.  Meanwhile, Mike Gayle’s previous novel, WISH YOU WERE HERE, is on the Nielsen bestseller list in paperback and has brought him fresh praise: “A feel-good read with lots of laughs.’ (Woman)
“This has the makings of another Mike Gayle classic . . . this is spot on, easy beach read. Just add sangria.” (Independent )
“As you’d expect from Gayle, the laughs flow thick and fast, making this a top match for your sunny holiday spirits.” (Glamour )
Mike Gayle’s primary agent, Simon Trewin, just did a new UK deal with Hodder for two new novels. 

Non-fiction

Italian rights to Tom Cox’s hilarious memoir of his life with cats, UNDER THE PAW, are sold to Rizzoli in a pre-empt! In May I reported a German pre-empt by Ullstein. Simon and Schuster’s recently published UK hardcover is selling well; the #1 selling pet book on Amazon!

Danny Wallace’s new book, FRIENDS LIKE THESE, is now sold in Germany to Droemer and now also in Korea to Mimumsa! Previously, US rights sold to Little, Brown and Swedish rights to Forum. Ebury’s UK edition is now published and is an instant bestseller, hitting the Nielsen list at #13 with over 6000 copies sold in just the first week, and FRIENDS LIKE THESE was as high as #25 on Amazon where there is posted a fun promotional video.  Danny Wallace has been all over the press, radio, and tv here in the UK.

PETITE ANGLAISE by Catherine Sanderson is now sold in Brazil to Editora Globo, via Tassy Barham who is just back from the FLIP festival in Parati, Brazil. This is the ninth translation deal for PETITE ANGLAISE!  Penguin published in the UK with excellent reviews and Spiegel & Grau/Doubleday just published the US edition.  You can read more about PETITE ANGLAISE and Catherine’s life as a young writer, mother, and newlywed in Paris on her wonderful and internationally famous blog. 

Tassy Barham has also negotiated a Brazilian pre-empt with Record for WHY US?: HOW SCIENCE REDISCOVERED THE MYSTERY OF OURSELVES by James Le Fanu! Civilizacao already pre-empted WHY US? for Portugal.  HarperCollins/UK and Pantheon/US will publish in February 2009.

My assistant, Lettie, has negotiated a great Portuguese deal for Paul McKenna! Lua de Papel will launch Paul McKenna in Portugal with his two biggest bestsellers: CHANGE YOUR LIFE IN 7 DAYS and I CAN MAKE YOU THIN. Paul McKenna’s books are now being published in 24 languages, and his popularity is building in the US. Incredibly, he has never before been published in Spanish, but now with Portugal on board, I’m sure it won’t be long. His newest book, I CAN MAKE YOU RICH, was a bestseller in hardcover last year and is now again on the UK bestseller list in paperback. We recently sold three books in Japan (via Hamish Macaskill/The English Agency). You can read more about all of Paul McKenna’s books at his website here.

We’re also beginning to sell translation rights to two major new self-help books by Paul McKenna’s mentor, Richard Bandler, who is also the co-founder of NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming). NLP is one of the most important and successful personal development models of all time and Richard Bandler’s work is taught in educational systems, universities, hospitals and businesses across the globe. GET THE LIFE YOU WANT and RICHARD BANDLER’S GUIDE TO TRANCE-FORMATION are the first new books written by Richard Bandler in over ten years and will be the first of his books to be published by a major publisher. Richard Bandler is represented by Robert Kirby of United Agents who sold UK rights to HarperCollins. GET THE LIFE YOU WANT will be published in January 2009, followed by RICHARD BANDLER’S GUIDE TO TRANCE-FORMATION . Health Communications will publish both books in the USA (the same publisher as the hugely successful “Chicken Soup for the Soul” books).  So far translation deals are done in Italy and Romania. 

NEW U.S. DEALS!

Caroline Dawnay has accepted a pre-empt from Colin Dickerman of Bloomsbury USA for North American rights to Susie Boyt’s enchanting new book, MY JUDY GARLAND LIFE. This is an irresistible and unique mixture of memoir, biography, cultural analysis, and hero worship. The opposite of a “misery memoir”, it’s a “cheer memoir” that will speak to anyone who’s nursed an obsession or ever held a candle to a star. Virago/Little, Brown will publish in the UK in October 2008. Even though MY JUDY GARLAND LIFE is Susie Boyt’s first book of non-fiction (she’s written four acclaimed novels), Waterstone’s Fiction marketing planner, Rodney Troubridge picked it in The Bookseller as his top choice of October books, “As someone completely allergic to The Wizard of Oz I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed Susie Boyt’s part fan-letter, part biographical tribute, MY JUDY GARLAND LIFE. It manages to avoid sentimentality and keeps a delightful charm throughout. Her own unusual family (the Freuds no less) provide some good background too.” This confirms that you don’t need to be a fan of Judy Garland yourself to delight in Susie Boyt’s enchanting book!

Jane Borodale’s debut novel which Pat Kavanagh recently sold to Harper Press/UK (see my previous posting about this below) is now sold in the US by Zoe Pagamenta in New York to Viking in a pre-empt! It is the first acquisition by editor Pam Dorman for her new imprint, Pam Dorman Books. In the US the title will be THE BOOK OF FIRES. As reported in a recent New York Observer article, Pam Dorman has a “rare intuition for spotting debut novels of a certain character that could sell millions of copies.” She was the US editor to acquire Bridget Jones’s Diary and she followed that success with Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees, Kim Edwards’ The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, and Jacquelyn Mitchard’s The Deep End of the Ocean.” I’m sure Jane Borodale will be well published on both sides of the Atlantic! The UK title is currently still THE CADUCEUS ROCKET.

GREAT REVIEWS and AWARD!

Sylvia Brownrigg’s beautiful new novel, MORALITY TALE, is now published by Picador. The review in the Saturday Guardian, “Love in three dimensions”, articulates many of the same thoughts I had when I read the manuscript last summer. In the beginning you may think it’s a familiar story of the love triangle and the confession of an adulterous wife, but Sylvia Brownrigg brilliantly turns it into a more clever, surprising, and illuminating tale of marriage and betrayal than you may have ever read before.  I’m even more delighted with the review in The Observer (July 13th): “Reading this extraordinary book is like stirring boiling soup: the narrative has an obsessive, repetitive quality. And yet it is unpredictable, driven by uncomfortable moral challenges. Brownrigg is especially acute about living in the present, an escapist art, like falling in love, shelving all thoughts of tomorrow and yesterday.” There’s also praise in Waterstone’s Book Quarterly: “Will appeal to fans of Anne Tyler, and those who appreciate more thoughtful, philosophical prose,” and Sainsbury’s Magazine chose MORALITY TALE as one of the “Best beach reads”: “A brilliant, witty evocation of marriage.” I’ve already written about the great US reviews in a recent posting below.  All translation rights are still available.

Dannie Abse’s THE PRESENCE has won the prestigious Wales Book of Year Award! You can read the Guardian’s article about the award here.  Several months after the death of Dannie’s wife, Joan, in a car accident, he began to write a diary which is both a record of present grief and a portrait of a marriage which lasted more than fifty years.  THE PRESENCE, published in hardcover by Hutchinson last summer, was also shortlisted for the PEN/Ackerley Prize.  Vintage will do a beautiful paperback edition in October (cover pictured above).   I first became aware of this astonishing gem of a book last week when a Korean publisher offered for the Korean translation rights (via the Shin Won Agency in Seoul). Dannie Abse’s primary agent, Robert Kirby, has now given me an impressive set of press with praise from Boyd Tonkin, The Independent: “You will never read a stronger, pithier expression of what it is like to live under ‘the benign tyranny of a most loved ghost.’”
The Sunday Times: “A remarkable and tender document.”
Carol Ann Duffy, Daily Telegraph: “A fragment of autobiography written from the most private part of a poet’s heart, with a pen dipped in blood and tears. That it transcends this to become both elegiac and celebratory, to inhabit both the suffered present and the beloved past, places it almost beyond the scope of routine criticism.”
and Owen Sheers, Independent on Sunday: “A surprisingly joyful and compelling book…Imbued with all the best qualities of what it means to be human and in love.”
Since I have not yet mentioned or sent THE PRESENCE to any foreign publishers, I intend to feature it when everyone returns from summer holidays in September. 

Looking forward to seeing many United Agents’ authors at the Edinburgh Book Festival, and to as many pages of reading and miles of walking as I can fit into August in Scotland and Wales.

Pat Kavanagh just sold Jane Borodale’s intriguing debut novel in a two-book deal to Clare Smith/Harper Press!  HarperCollins will publish THE CADUCEUS ROCKET in late Spring or early Summer 2009.  Zoe Pagnamenta is handling the US submission in New York.  I delighted in the manuscript from start to finish, finding it unusually suspenseful and accomplished for a first novel, and I think many modern women will be captivated by the independent-spirited heroine, a country girl who becomes apprentice to a secretive London fireworks maker. There are romantic undertones, vivid detail about the creation of fireworks, and surprising twists at the end.  I’m hopeful that even in the midst of summer, THE CADUCEUS ROCKET will spark interest across Europe!

Andrew Martin’s brilliant railroad mystery series set in the Edwardian-era (1901-1910) and featuring detective Jim Stringer has been shortlisted for the Library Dagger in the UK’s most prestigious crime and thriller awards – the CWA / Duncan Lawrie Daggers 2008. The winners will be announced at the Awards Dinner to be held at the Four Seasons Hotel in London’s Park Lane on Thursday 10th July. Faber & Faber has just published the fifth Jim Stringer mystery, DEATH ON A BRANCH LINE which seems to be the most suspenseful and international so far, and Jim Stringer’s suffragette wife, Lydia, plays a bigger role in the story.  I was completely absorbed by the previous book, MURDER AT DEVIATION JUNCTION, and I’m looking forward to reading DEATH ON A BRANCH LINE in a few weeks on the train north to Edinburgh!  The Sunday Times just picked it as one of the 100 Best Holiday Reads (40 of which are fiction). Neri Pozza published the first book in Italy and Harcourt in the US. UK Sales are building and reviews have been increasingly strong with each title:
“The best sleuth that 200 years of the railways have ever produced.” Independent on Sunday
“Superior potboilers.” London Review of Books
“Crime narratives dispatched with a Dickensian relish…Delectable stuff.” Daily Express
“Unerringly sharp and pioneeringly original, it locks the reader in from start to finish.” Spectator
“Martin could be compared, in a way, to W.G. Sebald…He is possessed of a sense of humor quite missing in Sebald. But he does share that writer’s mood of alienated possession of the past. His is an original voice, and the historical novels are the best I have read this century.” Katherine A. Powers, The Boston Globe

The paperback of Christopher Brookmyre’s ATTACK OF THE UNSINKABLE RUBBER DUCKS is #1 in Scotland on both the Top 10 Scottish charts and the Top 10 General paperback charts (ahead of Alexander McCall Smith, Khaled Hosseini, Kate Mosse)!  Last summer this brilliant mystery was an instant bestseller in hardcover.  I was delighted when Abel Gerschenfeld/Denoel pre-empted French rights to ATTACK OF THE UNSINKABLE RUBBER DUCKS with one of the most memorable responses I’ve ever received, beginning with: “Abso-f***ing-lutely fan-f**ing-tastic! He plays with you until the very end, doesn’t he. Brilliantissimo - haven’t read anything quite like this in a long time.” Denoel is planning a big launch for RUBBER DUCKS in France next spring. This summer, Christopher Brookmyre’s newest hardcover thriller, A SNOWBALL IN HELL, is certain to build upon his success when Little, Brown publishes in August.  Christopher Brookmyre is also for the second year in a row shortlisted for The Theakston’s Old Peculiar Crime Novel of the Year Award, the only crime award that is voted on by the public. The winner will be announced on July 17th in Harrogate. I’m looking forward to seeing Chris talk about A SNOWBALL IN HELL at Edinburgh where he’s doing three different events - the first sold out within 3 days of the Book Festival box office opening. For more information about Christopher Brookmyre and his consistently fantastic novels visit his excellent website here. Aside from France, all translation rights are available, but there is strong interest in Italy and Germany where I recently submitted A SNOWBALL IN HELL.  I’ve written in previous postings below how much I’m loving every twist.

Last night at the Society of Authors annual awards ceremony, David Szalay’s debut novel, LONDON AND THE SOUTH-EAST, was announced as the winner of this year’s main Betty Trask Award  of £10,000!  Jonathan Cape published LONDON AND THE SOUTH-EAST as a paperback original in April and critics were so impressed by David Szalay’s powerful writing and characters that The Independent even reviewed it twice!  “Startlingly good… this is a terrific debut, written in a present tense which flashes every so often into the past – a trick which Szalay pulls off with confidence.” (Bill Greenwell in The Independent, April 4th )

and  ”«««««London and the South-East is a funny, painful, graphic demonstration that our job is a crucial part of our identity…It’s compulsively readable, with a strangely convincing sense that all the events, unpredictable though they are, are what really would have happened, rather than what suits the plot.” (Brandon Robshaw in The Independent on Sunday, April 13th)

So far the only foreign sale was to the excellent Dutch publisher, Mouria, who will publish in Holland this August 2008 (with the title “Can I Make You An Offer?”).  David Szalay is close to delivering to his overjoyed primary agent, Anna Webber, an intriguing and even more ambitious second novel that Dan Franklin/Jonathan Cape already has under contract.  More on this before Frankfurt, but now is the time to read LONDON AND THE SOUTH-EAST!  I was hooked on every word and amazed by how much depth and suspense David Szalay reveals in the inner life of an ordinary London salesman who could also be a salesman in any city. 

Meanwhile Jim Gill’s author, Thomas Leveritt won a Betty Trask Award for his debut novel, “The Exchange Rate of Love” (rights controlled by the publisher, Harvill Secker), and two of Simon Trewin’s authors also won prizes last night. Steven Hall picked up a Somerset Maugham prize from the Society of Authors for THE RAW SHARK TEXTS (one of the most breath-seizing and mind-bending debut novels I’ve ever read which I enjoyed selling into over 20 languages when I was maternity cover Rights Director at Canongate), and at a different awards ceremony, Fiona Neil won ‘Most Loveable Heroine’ for Lucy Sweeny in THE SECRET LIFE OF A SLUMMY MUMMY at the Melissa Nathan Award For Comedy Romance. UK paperback sales of SLUMMY MUMMY are close to totalling 300,000 copies, and Simon Trewin was just told by Arrow that it is the fastest selling paperback fiction debut in the UK for the past three years! Foreign rights have sold in 22 languages! 

One of the manuscripts that struck deepest chords in me last year was Sylvia Brownrigg’s new novel, MORALITY TALE, now published in the US by Counterpoint and coming soon in the UK from Picador. It’s gratifying to read such strong reviews in The New York Times:“Divinely deadpan…Brownrigg’s writing will remind readers of Carol Shields whose quirky adjectives gave texture to her writing in a way that seemed effortlessly engaging and astute.”
and San Francisco Chronicle: “Curious, teasing, idiosyncratic and strangely charming…It’s a witty parable, a slight but subtle dissection of modern marriage…Illuminated by its sympathy toward its oddly innocent cast of characters, it presents the dilemmas of daily commitment and redemption in a form even burnt-out cynics might find palatable.”
MORALITY TALE was also featured in The Bookseller as a July fiction highlight: “This is a sensitive novel of temptation, yearning and guilt portraying how unlooked-for love can devastate a life.” MORALITY TALE displays a much lighter and wittier style than Brownrigg’s acclaimed previous novel, “The Delivery Room“, and I think it will appeal to a wider readership, while still advancing Brownrigg’s reputation on both sides of the Atlantic. She has been praised by Michael Chabon as having “perfect pitch, and she sees with amazing depth and tenderness into the hearts of her real-as-real characters – and into the reader’s heart too.” Over a single weekend last September, I savoured every word of MORALITY TALE. It’s deeply romantic and passionate without being at all cloying or sentimental; instructive and illuminating with out being overly moralistic; and warm and funny without ever being frivolous or unrealistic. And the surprise ending takes place during the outbreak of a rainstorm so vividly conveyed that you can smell and taste it in the air. All translation rights to MORALITY TALE are available and I hope foreign editors will now take notice. You can read more about Sylvia Brownrigg and her novels on her excellent website. 

After putting my assistant, Lettie Ransley, in charge of submissions to Greek publishers, she has negotiated three new deals in one week!

Kedros has now bought Greek rights to John Boyne’s new novel, MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY!  Rights previously sold to Salamandra in Spain, where they’ve sold over 1 million copies of “The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas” and it was awarded the prestigious “Que Leer” Prize as the best novel to be translated into Spanish in 2007; S. Fischer Verlag in Germany, where Shatzinsel (the young adult imprint of S. Fischer) sold over 50,000 copies of “The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas” and it is shortlisted for the prestigious 2008 Deutschen Jugend Literatur Preis in Germany! The winner will be announced at this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair in October. MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY is also sold to Rizzoli/Italy, Grup 62/Catalan, Arena/The Netherlands, Alnari/Serbia, St. Martin’s Press/USA, and Doubleday/Canada.  And now also in Brazil to Companhia das Letras.  Transworld just published in the UK and the hardcover is selling strong and getting great reviews, affirming John Boyne as one of the world’s most brilliant storytellers. Meanwhile, the first press about the Miramax/Heyday film which will be released on September 12th appeared in a Daily Mail column last week, “As producer David Heyman says, the film sneaks up on you and ends with a wallop. The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas will, I strongly believe, emerge as one of the best films of 2008.” You can read the full “Watch out for” paragraph and see a photograph of young star, Asa Butterfield, at this link.  I think “The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas” is one of the most sensitive and powerful book-to-film adaptations I’ve ever seen and it is certain to draw even more readers to John Boyne’s novels. The total worldwide sales of “The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas” has now passed 2.5 million copies and rights have been sold in 36 languages!

First translation deal for WHERE UNDERPANTS COME FROM is a Greek pre-empt from Oceanida! Joe Bennett’s wonderfully witty and uniquely illuminating window into contemporary China is now published by S&S UK and is a big bestseller in New Zealand, overtaking “The Secret” and “The Last Lecture” to be #1 on the NZ International Non-fiction List!  There was a great review in The Financial Times:
“Amazed that anyone can sell a five-pack of underpants in a New Zealand supermarket for less than $10 and make a profit, Joe Bennett follows his purchase back to its source: China, in the midst of an economic boom. After posing as a buyer in Shanghai and touring the factories in Quanzhou where his pants were made, he tracks down the raw material itself in the cotton fields around Urumqi, thousands of miles away in western China. At every step, Bennett discovers large-scale industry powered by cheap labour and an insatiable thirst for commerce. He admits that he initially knew nothing about China, arguing that the west is generally ignorant of the country that now provides so many of its clothes. As much a piece of travel writing as it is an overview of the political and economic climate in China, Where Underpants Come From is a fascinating and personal account of a country undergoing rapid change.” Hopefully Oceanida’s Greek pre-empt is the first of many more!

Oceanida also pre-empted Greek rights to THE LUMINOUS LIFE OF LILLY APHRODITE! Oceanida is truly an excellent publisher whose fiction authors include Margaret Atwood, John Banville, Sebastian Faulks and Tracy Chevalier. We’re thrilled that Beatrice Colin will now join this fantastic list, and it’s great to add Greece to the Italian (Neri Pozza) and Dutch (Q/Querido) pre-empts I accepted for THE LUMINOUS LIFE OF LILLY APHODITE on an early version of the manuscript last year. Riverhead/US and John Murray/UK will publish as a lead summer hardcover in August and with great advance praise from David Ebershoff, Sheri Holman, Emma Donoghue, Jennifer Gilmore, Publisher’s Weekly (see my post-LBF posting below), I’m sure Beatrice Colin’s heartbreakingly beautiful novel will continue captivating publishers across Europe.  THE LUMINOUS LIFE OF LILLY APHRODITE is one of the most imaginative, vibrant, and daring works of historical fiction, and featuring the most intriguing heroine, I’ve read since Michel Faber’s “The Crimson Petal and the White”.

Italian and Dutch deals for Simon Mawer’s glorious new novel, THE GLASS ROOM!

Today Italian rights sold to Neri Pozza who made an impressive best offer to welcome Simon Mawer (pictured left) onto their list of sophisticated historical fiction and non-fiction by renowned authors.  Even though two other publishers previously published Simon Mawer in Italy, Neri Pozza sees THE GLASS ROOM as a strong departure from his earlier books and will publish as a lead title with bestseller potential for Summer or Christmas 2009.  Meanwhile, last week, Dutch rights were pre-empted by Ambo Anthos! They love THE GLASS ROOM so much that they want to bring Simon Mawer back onto their excellent list even though they published one of his earlier novels, “Mendel’s Dwarf”, 10 years ago. Publisher Chris Herschdorfer wrote with his offer “I’ve had a wonderful reading experience…I love the idea of using architecture as a metaphor for the future, change and hope… But also pointing the way forward, hoping for a new and unbridled future in which people will have left the ‘’dark ages’’ and live in transparent, new times… The oncoming threat of Nazism, slowly creeping closer and leaving its mark on everyone is very well done and harrowing. The way people hope it will blow over, but others are aware of the deadly threat and take measures. The richness of detail, be it describing architecture or the complicated matters of the heart and relationships is magnificent and I was very happy to see it being pulled off as storylines come full circle and there seems to be light at the ending of the story.” With Portuguese rights already swiftly pre-empted after the London Book Fair by Civilizacao/Portugal (scroll down for my previous posting below), Lettie and I expect Simon Mawer’s masterpiece will continue captivating publishers across Europe! Simon Mawer and his primary agent, Charles Walker, are delighted with the international response so far.

Dutch rights to THE TRUTH ABOUT THESE STRANGE TIMES by Adam Foulds now sold to Lidewijde Paris for her new literary fiction imprint, Ailantus! I’ve been wanting to have an author with Lidewijde ever since I first met her in the midst of editing the Dutch translation of “Cloud Atlas” when she was at Querido. I was delighted when she last year started a new literary fiction imprint at a different, family-owned company called Boom Publishers Amsterdam. Ailantus means “tree of heaven” and the first catalogue for Summer 2008 looks fantastic. Adam Foulds will be one of the first authors Lidewijde has acquired from the UK (the other notable UK author she will publish at Ailantus is David Mitchell). There is still strong interest in THE TRUTH ABOUT THESE STRANGE TIMES from other European editors I saw in London and Turin. Watch this blog for news about Adam Foulds’ intriguing second novel, JOHN’S DREAM.  His agent Anna Webber will be wrapping up a fantastic UK deal very soon.

French rights to Samantha Harvey’s debut novel, THE WILDERNESS, are now sold in a pre-empt to Editions du Panama! Du Panama is a great young independent publisher and Florence Barrau is building an impressive list of strong new voices in international fiction including Chris Killen (Canongate), Kevin Brockmeier (Knopf), and Jonny Glynn (Portobello Books). In my first posting earlier this year I wrote about the fantastic first deals for THE WILDERNESS (also represented by Anna Webber). Just to recap all the wonderful things that have happened over the past few months: Dan Franklin/Cape bought UK rights and will publish February 5, 2009, Lorna Owen of Nan A. Talese Books/Doubleday pre-empted in the US and will publish February 17, 2009 with a significant first printing of 30,000 copies (extraordinary for a debut novel and by an new English author); Marion Kohler/DVA will publish as a lead title in Germany and Chris Herschdorfer/Ambo Anthos will publish as a lead title in The Netherlands. Hebrew rights recently sold to Keter. And UK audio rights are also sold to W.H. Howes (very unusual for this to happen so quickly or even at all for a literary debut novel, and on an early manuscript). Clearly, THE WILDERNESS, is a rare novel that strikes deep and immediate chords in almost everyone who reads it. I personally consider it to be one of the most courageous, original, beautiful, and intense manuscripts I’ve ever read. Samantha Harvey (pictured above left in a recent photo taken by her boyfriend, Rick Hewes) has profoundly changed the way I think about people who suffer from Alzheimer’s disease or memory loss, and even about my own fragmented puzzle of a life. I’m sure that she has a brilliant future ahead of her. It was wonderful to have Dan Franklin and Anna Webber similarly raving about Samantha’s writing at The London Book Fair and this new French deal is great for following up on all the interest. Rights to THE WILDERNESS are still available in many countries including Italy, Spain, Portugal, Brazil, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Iceland.

French rights to PETITE ANGLAISE by Catherine Sanderson are now sold to Beatrice Duval/Calmann-Levy for her list of quality fiction/memoir for intelligent women! Elizabeth Gilbert’s bestselling travel memoir, “Eat Pray Love”, is another good example of this which Calmann-Levy is successfully publishing. With her offer, Beatrice wrote: “I loved PETITE ANGLAISE, I think it has a big potential as a book from an English point of view, but without the usual clichés on the French, + a strong female point of view that I am sure women will appreciate. We also want to commit to a long-term deal with her, I perfectly understand that PETITE ANGLAISE is not a one-shot and that she is ready to a well-deserved career in writing.” In my very first blog posting below there are links to the fantastic UK reviews and publicity (you can also find out all the news about PETITE ANGLAISE on her internationally famous blog). This debut memoir that reads like a novel will be published in the US (jacket above) in June (Spiegel & Grau/Doubleday). There is already a great pre-pub US review in Kirkus: “Her seamless, dramatically paced narration reads beautifully, and her ear for dialogue is excellent. Evocative descriptions of Paris are an added plus. Soap-operatic navel-gazing in engaging prose.” Translation rights previously sold in Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Israel, Finland, and Iceland, but of all of these having a great French publisher means the most to Catherine since the book is about her lifelong love affair with France where she has overcome many obstacles to make Paris her endlessly enticing home.  Primary agent Simon Trewin’s reaction when I told him the news of this long-awaited French deal was “Yay yay!”

The first foreign deal for THE MINUTES OF THE LAZARUS CLUB by Tony Pollard is in Russia to AST (via Synopsis Literary Agency, Moscow)! AST is one of Russia’s biggest publishers with a great list of bestselling commercial fiction including Dan Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code”, Elizabeth Kostova’s “The Historian”, and Kate Mosse’s “Labyrinth”.  There is still a lot of interest in THE MINUTES OF THE LAZARUS CLUB from the European editors I saw in London and Turin, and it was just featured in The Bookseller as a first fiction highlight for August. There’s a picture of the Michael Joseph cover (pictured left) with this summary: “Author Tony Pollard is a forensic archaeologist, and a presenter on the BBC’s “Two Men in a Trench”. His debut novel is a historical thriller set in Victorian London. The Lazarus Club is composed of some very fine minds-Darwin, Babbage and Brunel among them-but young ambitious Dr. George Philips is about to encounter a dark conspiracy.” I think you’d be hard-pressed to read a more confident, suspenseful, and authentic historical thriller. Michael Joseph is publishing THE MINUTES OF THE LAZARUS CLUB as the “British historical thriller of the year.”  Penguin just produced unusually elegant and enticing advance reading copies, and in-house enthusiasm signals that they see THE MINUTES OF THE LAZARUS CLUB as a potential bestseller. Primary agent is James Gill.

WHY US?: HOW SCIENCE REDISCOVERED THE MYSTERY OF OURSELVES is now sold in Portugal to Civilizacao! Again, my assistant, Lettie, has secured the first foreign deal for one of our most-requested new submissions (the other being Simon Mawer’s novel, THE GLASS ROOM, which Civilizacao pre-empted the week after LBF). I never knew the Portuguese to be so fast! WHY US is one of the most fascinating and controversial manuscripts I’ve ever read (it’s a provocative challenge to Richard Dawkins and the author, James Le Fanu, is represented by Caroline Dawnay who was Dawkins’ first agent for his first three books including “The Blind Watchmaker”). This major new view of the past one hundred and fifty years of evolutionary biology will be unlike every other Darwin book published in anticipation of his bicentennial. HarperCollins/UK (editor Richard Johnson) and Pantheon/US (editor Dan Frank) expect WHY US? will cause a considerable stir when they publish in February 2009. Not only is it a surprisingly eloquent and beautifully written book, with a strong narrative component telling the story of the protracted quest for the secret of who we are, culminating in the surprising discoveries of the recent past such as the Human Genome Project, but WHY US? profoundly rocked my fundamental assumptions about evolution. It’s a daring philosophical challenge that offers a way of thinking critically and independently in a world that is increasingly polarized. James Le Fanu’s previous book, “The Rise and Fall of Modern Medicine” (Little, Brown) won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in 1999.

Swift German Pre-empt for UNDER THE PAW: CONFESSIONS OF A CAT MAN by Tom Cox!
I only just submitted this hilarious memoir about the author’s relationships with six cats, and also his wife, Dee, who fortunately adores The Bear, Janet, Ralph, Shipley, Pablo, and Bootsy as much as Tom does. One German editor, Julika Jaenicke of Ullstein, immediately read it and loved it and phoned me a few days later to tell me her whole editorial team loves it. We agreed on a pre-emptive offer and UNDER THE PAW will be published in hardcover on the List imprint that has already made bestsellers in Germany out of entertaining and highly original non-fiction such as “The Game” by Neil Strauss and “The Know-it-All” by A.J. Jacobs. Simon & Schuster is just about to publish UNDER THE PAW in the UK in June (jacket pictured left). Tom Cox, who was formerly a music journalist for The Observer (his columns were published as a previous book, “The Lost Tribes of Pop”), also has a funny blog called “little cat diaries”. I haven’t submitted UNDER THE PAW in any countries besides Germany yet, but with this enthusiastic German pre-empt I’m ready to let Tom Cox and his cats out of the bag into the world! Primary agent is Simon Trewin.

Spanish rights to COUNTERKNOWLEDGE by Damian Thompson are now sold to Critica/Planeta! Wonderful to have this powerful little treatise, that the Guardian described as a “bracing assault” and that Francis Wheen praised as “an invigorating trumpet blast”, still catching on after translation rights sold last year to Einaudi/Italy, Nikkei/Japan, and in Croatia. Norton will publish in the US in September. Atlantic Books published the hardcover in January 2008 and has sold through three printings and 10,000 copies. The paperback (pictured left) will be published in July and is featured in The Bookseller Autumn Paperback Preview as “one to watch” and “an engaging and witty guide in differentiating between fact and opinion”.  You can read more about COUNTERKNOWLEDGE and how to disarm conspiracy theories, quack medicine, bogus science, and fake history on Damian Thompson’s excellent website here.  Primary agent is Simon Trewin.

Lucy Dawson’s bestselling debut, HIS OTHER LOVER, is now sold in Turkey (via Anatolialit) to Artemis, the Turkish publisher of Fiona Neill, Candace Bushnell, Sophie Kinsella, Marian Keyes, and other top women’s fiction!  HIS OTHER LOVER continues to sell strong in the UK with over 35,000 copies sold of Sphere’s trade paperback and it has been reprinted four times since publication in mid-March, a sensational success for a first novel!   So far HIS OTHER LOVER has sold to Rowohlt/Germany, House of Books/Holland, Szo/Hungary, and Avon/HarperCollins/USA.  Lucy Dawson’s primary agent, Sarah Ballard, just told me that Lucy has completed a fantastic second novel, WHAT MY BEST FRIEND DID, which will published by Sphere in early 2009. I’m looking forward to reading this tale of a female betrayal soon. Scroll down to my post-LBF posting for some more great news and links about Lucy Dawson (pictured right). 

THE SECRET LIFE OF A SLUMMY MUMMY by Fiona Neill is now sold in Norway to Gydendal, in a pre-empt! Editor, Cathrine Bakke Bolin, found it a perfect fit for her DROPS series of classy commercial women’s fiction such as Sophie Kinsella, Lauren Weisberger, Lisa Jewell, Melissa Bank, Jane Fallon. This is the 16th translation deal for Fiona Neill’s bestselling debut! I will be featuring her second novel at Frankfurt.  Arrow’s UK paperback edition continues to climb the bestseller lists with Nielsen reporting over 220,000 copies sold since publication in February.

I’m back in London after four days at the Turin Book Fair. It was fun spending time with international publishing friends in a more relaxing atmosphere than Frankfurt or London, with prosecco and wine provided by the rights center at lunchtime and at the end of each day. From my table there was also easy access to sunshine and even a garden. On Saturday I had time before my afternoon meetings to visit an amazing art collection, Pinacoteca Agnelli, on the roof of the former Fiat factory (a short walk from the book fair) and I sat in precious silence surrounded by the most soothing Matisse paintings I’ve ever seen. Also unlike Frankfurt or London fairs, I had time to wander the floor. I enjoyed visiting the Italian publishers’ stands and seeing beautiful books resulting from deals done last year.

Nick Hornby’s newest novel, SLAM, is now published by Guanda. (The paperback, just out from Penguin, is now in the top 20 on the UK bestseller list.) Rights are sold in 26 languages.

It was good seeing Alan Bennett prominently featured at the Adelphi stand. His two essays about a visit to The National Gallery, “Going to the Pictures”, are now published by Adelphi as a miniature book that was one of their top sellers at the Turin Book Fair. THE UNCOMMON READER is also a bestseller for Adelphi in Italy with over 70,000 copies sold, and rights are sold in more languages than Alan Bennett has ever been translated into before - 22 to date. I’ve heard that THE UNCOMMON READER is also selling well in Spain (Anagrama) and in Holland (Mouria).

The Newton Compton stand featured posters for their edition of THE END OF MR. Y by Scarlett Thomas who was at the book fair having even more interviews than I had meetings. I did have several productive meetings with European editors who I was not able to see at the London Book Fair, but I did not envy Scarlett having to answer questions from one Italian journalist after another.  She told me some of the questions were quite bizarre like “If you could eat your book, what would it taste like?”  Italian sales of MR. Y have taken off since a notoriously difficult critic, D’Orrico, compared Scarlett Thomas in a review to Umberto Eco. Scarlett is represented by Simon Trewin at United Agents, but her foreign rights are controlled by Canongate who has sold THE END OF MR. Y in over 25 languages. Newton Compton’s stand also had a poster for Sophia MacDougall’s second book in her Rome trilogy, ROME BURNING, and they also are now publishing Fiona Neill’s bestselling debut THE SECRET LIFE OF A SLUMMY MUMMY.

Also at the book fair, Bompiani was launching the Italian edition of BURMA BOY, the stunning novel about a 14-year-old Nigerian boy, Ali Banana, and his surreal experience of jungle warfare after he enlists with other Nigerians to fight for the British in WWII. BURMA BOY was published in hardcover by Jonathan Cape last spring and is coming out in paperback from Vintage in June. The hardcover drew extraordinary praise from Wole Soyinka, Giles Foden in the Guardian, Ronan Bennett, and in the Times, Observer, etc; and it is Biyi Bandele’s international break-out with publications coming this year and next year in France/Grasset, The Netherlands/de Bezige Bij, Sweden/Leopard, Israel/Kinneret, HarperCollins/USA, Brazil/Record, and even Poland/Rebis. Biyi Bandele is really one of the most incredibly talented authors I’ve ever met or read. He wrote his first novel, “The Man Who Came in From the Back of Beyond”, when he was only 14 and he has since written award-winning plays, three novels, and in 2006 was named by The Independent as one of Africa’s 50 most important artists. Bompiani invited Biyi Bandele to Turin and my only regret of the weekend was that I missed seeing Biyi and his event which was on Sunday evening, after I had to fly back to London.

Portuguese Pre-empt for THE GLASS ROOM by Simon Mawer!
In my first posting back in March I mentioned how engrossed I was by Simon Mawer’s new novel, THE GLASS ROOM, well my assistant, Lettie, loved it too and achieved the first foreign deal for this beautiful masterpiece. Lettie pitched THE GLASS ROOM to a Portuguese publisher she met at the London Book Fair, immediately submitted the manuscript to him after the fair, and this week convinced him to increase his opening offer to a pre-empt. I was completely swept away from the first page to the very end, and even after finishing it a month ago I’m still dreaming of the characters and the stunning house based on the Villa Tugendhat in Brno, Czech Republic that was built in 1930 by the German architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Simon Mawer makes you feel like you have been with them, witnessing everything that happens in the light-filled room, even after the Jewish family who first lives in it has to flee. The UK publisher, Little, Brown, who will publish as a lead novel in January 2009 is not exaggerating in their blurb that says “Meticulously researched and imaginatively conceived, Simon Mawer’s virtuoso novel THE GLASS ROOM is resounding evidence of an author working at the very peak of his powers.” The Portuguese publisher is Civilizacao and if you have not yet read THE GLASS ROOM yourself then I hope this will convince you to put it on top of your manuscript pile before we accept any more pre-empts!

Dutch publishers are loving THE TRUTH ABOUT THESE STRANGE TIMES by Adam Foulds!
A first Dutch offer from an editor whose taste I’ve always respected was made this week for Adam Foulds’ award-winning debut novel, and it looks like at least one other similarly selective publisher will be offering next week. I’ve set a deadline for best offers by Tuesday, May 6th. THE TRUTH ABOUT THESE STRANGE TIMES has reminded me never to give up hope for a truly special novel even if it initially gets overlooked. It was barely noticed over a year ago when first submitted as an unedited manuscript and hardly received any reviews when Weidenfeld and Nicholson first published last summer (the few reviews it did get were very positive), but now that Adam Foulds has won The Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award (see my previous posting below), publishers across Europe are keen to read this heartwarming, funny, yet completely unsentimental and unusual story. THE TRUTH ABOUT THESE STRANGE TIMES is also long-listed for The Desmond Elliott Prize and I think it’s very likely to make the shortlist announced on May 22nd. A fantastic, two-page interview with Adam Foulds was in The Sunday Times last weekend . I’m hungry to read everything Adam Foulds ever writes after loving THE TRUTH ABOUT THESE STRANGE TIMES when I read it last year and now being stunned by the intensity of Adam’s poem, “The Broken Word”, that Robin Robertson/Jonathan Cape just published to astonishing acclaim (Random House controls rights to “The Broken Word”). My previous posting below did not include this Sunday Times review : “An exhilarating tour de force. Its 33-year-old author moves around territory that is half a century and thousands of miles away from him with uncanny accomplishment. Place and period are conjured up as confidently as if he had been there…What Foulds brings to the portrayal of violence and terror is the elegance of accuracy combined with emotional power and imaginative finesse. It makes his book - concise and precise, attentive and inventive - a superlative achievement.” There was also a great recent Guardian review: “A moving and pitiless depiction of the world as it is rather than as we might like it to be, and the terrible things we do to defend our place in it.” It’s rare for a first book of poetry to have full reviews in the broadsheets and it’s even rarer for a previously unknown author to in one year have two such different books published by two major publishers. Meanwhile Adam Foulds’ primary agent, Anna Webber, just received the complete manuscript of his second novel which sounds even more ambitious and intriguing.  It is a historical novel set in the 1840s in an insane asylum where the poet John Clare was a patient.

Third Foreign Deal in Three Weeks for ONE MORNING LIKE A BIRD by Andrew Miller!
We just accepted a great offer (via Pikarski Agency) for Hebrew rights from the excellent publisher, Achuzat Bayit (who will also be publishing Adam Foulds in Israel). As posted below, I accepted offers right before the book fair from Salamandra/Spain and Hanser/Germany. ONE MORNING LIKE A BIRD is one of the most intimate and passionate, yet elegant and balanced novels I’ve ever read and it was one of the most requested manuscripts at The London Book Fair, especially of interest in Holland, France and Italy where I am opening up the submission beyond Andrew Miller’s previous houses. Sceptre will publish ONE MORNING LIKE A BIRD as a lead novel in September 2008 and it was great to have Andrew Miller’s editor, Carole Welch, sharing her passion for his writing with all the foreign editors she saw.

New deals for Fiona Neill, Toby Faber, and Paul McKenna!
The only offers I received at the London Book Fair itself were from the fantastic Brazilian publisher, Record: a pre-empt for THE SECRET LIFE OF A SLUMMY MUMMY (the sixteenth language deal for Fiona Neill’s bestselling debut); a first translation offer for FABERGE’S EGGS by Toby Faber; and a strong offer for I CAN MAKE YOU RICH by Paul McKenna. These were the first offers presented by Tassy Barham, who I started working with for Brazil right before the book fair and I have no doubt now that this was the right decision. Tassy reported strong Brazilian interest in fiction and non-fiction titles across our list. I wonder what offers she will send us next!

Since the book fair, I’ve also done new deals for Paul McKenna in Greece, Italy (I CAN MAKE YOU THIN was a bestseller last year for TEA/Mauri Spagnol), Arabic, and now for the first time ever in Sweden. Forum will publish a Swedish edition of I CAN MAKE YOU THIN next year. I CAN MAKE YOU THIN is the longest-running non-fiction bestseller in the UK (over 900,000 copies sold) and has the highest success rate of any diet book in the world (an over 70% proven success rate). Paul McKenna recently launched his I CAN MAKE YOU THIN television show as a weekly series in the US on the cable channel TLC and it has the highest ever number of viewers for any show of that kind! To date Paul McKenna’s books are being published in 23 languages. Amazingly rights are still available for all of his books in Spain/Latin America and in Portugal. You can read more about Paul McKenna’s best-selling books here.

London Book Fair interest across the list!
Besides the above titles the most requested literary fiction that we are submitting now or very soon is:
POLLARD by Laura Beatty - to be published by Chatto in July as “an astonishing first novel which is tough, rough and beautiful” and with “prize-winning quality”
THE GATE OF AIR by James Buchan - the acclaimed author’s first novel in 10 years, a love story and ghost story, to be published in September by The MacLehose Press/Quercus

THE LUMINOUS LIFE OF LILLY APHRODITE by Beatrice Colin - to be published in August as a lead summer novel by Riverhead/US as “The Glimmer Palace”, John Murray/UK, Q/Querido/Netherlands, and Neri Pozza/Italy.  Great advance quotes are now coming in:
“Written with intelligence and shimmer, The Glimmer Palace transports the reader to Berlin in the first part of the twentieth century. Colin’s heroine, Lilly Aphrodite, is as rich, alive, and dangerous as the city she inhabits; and as the novel progresses, Berlin’s history becomes her own.”
—David Ebershoff, author of The Danish Girl and The 19th Wife

“There are few characters as beguiling as the incomparable Tiny Lil. And Colin tells her riveting story—and the enthralling story of pre-war Berlin—breathlessly and triumphantly.”
—Jennifer Gilmore, author of Golden Country

“As moving as it is smart, this tough-minded extravaganza had me from page one. The Glimmer Palace is a dazzling tale of survival in the urban wilderness.”
—Emma Donoghue, author of Slammerkin and Life Mask

THE WILDERNESS by Samantha Harvey - a moving, beautiful, and courageous debut novel about Alzheimer’s to be published in Spring 2009 by Jonathan Cape/UK, Nan A. Talese Books/USA, DVA/Germany, Ambo Anthos/Netherlands, and Keter/Israel. It was great to have Dan Franklin talking this up at the book fair.
UNTITLED by Claire Kilroy - a novel set in 1980s Dublin that dispels all illusions about what it means to be a writer while surprising the reader with a exhilarating and romantic ending, by the acclaimed Irish author of “Tenderwire”, to be published by Faber
A WINDING ROAD by Jonathan Tulloch - a novel about art, lust, war, obsession, and a lost Van Gogh masterpiece, to be published by Jonathan Cape

I was also pleased that literary editors from Germany, Spain, and Scandinavia are still seriously interested in PILCROW by Adam Mars-Jones. If you have any doubt about Adam Mars-Jones’ singular brilliance after reading about the fantastic first reviews in my posting below, then read James Wood’s review that just appeared in The London Review of Books! This trumps all previous reviews: “This constantly surprising book is nothing if not a calculated strike against the old novelistic tendency to connect moral and physical impotence… it is impressive, given the odds stacked against it, how lively most of the book is, and how funny, too. Mars-Jones is challenging us, rather as Harold Brodkey did in his enormous, microscopically narcissistic novel, The Runaway Soul, to keep up with the book’s massive deceleration… Pilcrow is not only a fat gauntlet thrown down measuredly at our hurrying feet, but a subtle send-up of various genres: the family memoir, full as a biscuit tin with old brand names and sweet lost objects; the gay coming-of-age novel and memoir; and the English boarding-school novel… Mars-Jones’s scrupulous, compound eye enables him to see a whole era… It is full of scintillating phrases and original observations…. Generally, Mars-Jones’s prose is exceptionally nimble, dry, humorously restrained… He can describe more or less anything and make it interesting…. Pilcrow is a peculiar, original, utterly idiosyncratic book. It is admirably courageous, both in what it heaps on us, and in what it holds back.” I’m keeping my fingers crossed that a few more of the most courageous foreign publishers will not hold back from offering for Adam Mars-Jones’ tour-de-force. One of the most special experiences of The London Book Fair, or any previous book fair, was having lunch with Adam Mars-Jones and his Italian publisher, Stile Libero/Einaudi. It as also great seeing his French publisher, Isabel Laffont/J.C. Lattes, at the fair and sharing our joy over this rare novel that will be remembered and cherished for years to come.

Most requested commercial fiction:
A SNOWBALL IN HELL by Christopher Brookmyre - a sensational new thriller featuring a charistmatic serial killer who targets B-list celebrities and his nemesis, a tough female cop who looks like Halle Berry and is secretly in love with a mysterious bank robber, to be published in August by Little, Brown/UK.
THE MINUTES OF THE LAZARUS CLUB by Tony Pollard - a thrilling debut novel of historical murder and intrigue in Victorian London to be published by Michael Joseph/UK and there’s now a Russian offer!

HIS OTHER LOVER by Lucy Dawson (bestselling debut women’s fiction published by Little, Brown/UK, and to be published by Avon/HarperCollins/US, Rowohlt/Germany, House of Books/Netherlands and we just accepted a Hungarian offer) - According to Booktrack, HIS OTHER LOVER has sold almost 35,000 copies in the UK alone (it peaked at 6,900 copies a week here, which is a massive achievement for first fiction) and has been reprinted four times since publication mid March. Lucy is about to deliver her second novel which will follow in May next year with very much the same look and feel.
You can read some truly outstanding customer reviews on Amazon here.
And Bookzone has clips of Lucy reading from and being interviewed about HIS OTHER LOVER here.
Little, Brown has a nice interview with Lucy here.

And most requested Non-fiction:
WHERE UNDERPANTS COME FROM by Joe Bennett - just now published by Simon and Schuster/UK and there’s a great first review in The Daily Mail: “There are many moments of humour, but this is a surprisingly thoughtful book… As an introduction to this vast, fastchanging and still frequently baffling country, it’s fascinating.”
THE IRANIAN REVOLUTION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES by James Buchan - to be published in 2010 by John Murray/UK and The Free Press/US
WHY US?: HOW SCIENCE REDISCOVERED THE MYSTERY OF OURSELVES by James Le Fanu - a provocative and eloquent challenge to Dawkins and Darwin, to be published by HarperCollins/UK and Pantheon/US in February 2009.
THE USES AND ABUSES OF HISTORY by Margaret Macmillan - to be published by Profile/UK, Random House/US in 2009, and now published by Penguin/Canada
BAD SCIENCE by Ben Goldacre - to be published by Fourth Estate/UK in August 2008
FRIENDS LIKE THESE by Danny Wallace - to be published by Ebury/UK in July and in 2009 by Little, Brown/US, and Forum/Sweden

You can read more about many of these titles in postings below and all of them on the full United Agents Rights lists available on the United Agents website here. I will never tire of book fairs or travel. I’m away next week to Italy for the Turin Fiera del Libro!