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1 LEVINE | GREENBERG LITERARY AGENCY, INC. 2011 RIGHTS LIST NON-FICTION Aamodt Ph.D., Sandra and Sam Wang, Ph.D. WELCOME TO YOUR CHILD’S BRAIN: How the Mind Grows from Conception to College (Bloomsbury USA, September 2011) Foreword by Ellen Galinsky, author of Mind in the Making Hardcover (336 pages) What’s going on in your child’s head? The answers are in this definitive book from the award-winning authors of Welcome to Your Brain. How children think is one of the most enduring mysteries--and difficulties—encountered by parents. In an effort to raise our children smarter, happier, stronger, and better, parents will try almost anything, from vitamins to toys to DVDs. But we forget one thing: brains do most of the work themselves. If we know how they work, we can worry less, enjoy our children more, and fill the right roles in their lives—through infancy, childhood, and until they leave the nest. Neuroscientists Sandra Aamodt and Sam Wang (who is also a parent) explain the facets and functions of the developing brain, discussing salient subjects like sleep problems, language learning, gender differences, and autism. Dispelling myths and overturning old wisdom, they address many important subjects: the value of educational videos for babies, the meaning of ADHD in the classroom, and the best predictor of academic success (hint: it’s not IQ). This book helps you know when to worry, how to respond, and, most importantly, when to relax. WELCOME TO YOUR CHILD’S BRAIN is an authoritative work on how the mind grows. With practical advice for parents with kids aged 0-21, it will challenge myths, reveal surprising insights, and reshape the way you think about your children. Sandra Aamodt, Ph.D, is the former editor in chief of Nature Neuroscience, the leading scientific journal in the field of brain research. During her career, she has read over five thousand neuroscience papers, given lectures at many universities, and attended over forty scientific meetings in ten countries. Her science writing has been published in the New York Times, the Washington Post, El Mundo and the Times of London. She lives in Northern California with her husband. Sam Wang, Ph.D, is an associate professor of neuroscience at Princeton University. He has published over fifty articles on the brain in leading scientific journals and has received numerous awards. His research and analysis have been featured in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, and he has made numerous television and radio appearances, including on National Public Radio. He lives in Princeton, New Jersey, with his wife and daughter. Praise: "Dr. Aamodt and Dr. Wang playfully and engagingly introduce us to the hidden talents of our children's brains." –Mehmet Oz, M.D., Host of The Dr Oz Show and Professor and Vice Chair, Surgery of NY-Presbyterian/Columbia “An excellent book…one that all parents should read.”—Lorraine Kelly, Host of ITV’s Lorraine (UK) Rights sold: Chinese (C): Commonwealth Chinese (S): China CITIC Dutch: Kosmos German: Beck/DTV Indonesian: PT Gramedia Pustaka Utama Japanese: Toyo Keizai Korean: Time Books Portuguese (Brazil): Pensamento-Cultrix Russian: Exmo UK: Oneworld 307 Seventh Ave. Suite 2407 NY, NY 10001 (T) 212.337.0934 (F) 212.337.0948 www.levinegreenberg.com 2 LEVINE | GREENBERG LITERARY AGENCY, INC. Aamodt, Sandra and Sam Wang WELCOME TO YOUR BRAIN: Why You Lose Your Car Keys but Never Forget How to Drive and Other Puzzles of Everyday Life (Bloomsbury, March 2008) Trade Paperback, December 2008 (256 pages) Winner of the Young Adult 2009 AAAS/Subaru Science Books & Film (SB&F) Prize! National Bestseller! Rights sold: Albanian: Max Publishing Arabic: Arab Scientific Publishers Bulgarian: Bard Publishing Chinese (C): Commonwealth Chinese (S): CITIC Czech: Levne Knihy Dutch: Kosmos German: Beck/DTV Greek: AVGO/ Oceanida Hebrew: Miskal Publishers Indonesian: PT Gramedian Pustaka Utama Italian: Mondadori Japanese: Toyo Keizai Korean: Sallim Publishing Portuguese (Brazil): Pensamento-Cultrix Portuguese (Portugal): Pergaminho Russian: Exmo Spanish: Ediciones B Swedish: Natur & Kultur Thai: WeLearn Turkey: Dogus-Iletisim Yayinlari UK: Ebury/Random House Ariely, Dan THE UPSIDE OF IRRATIONALITY: The Unexpected Benefits of Defying Logic at Work and at Home (HarperCollins, June 2010) Trade Paperback, May 2011 (368 pages) UK Rights: HarperCollins UK A New York Times Bestseller! In his groundbreaking book Predictably Irrational, social scientist Dan Ariely revealed the multiple biases that lead us into making unwise decisions. Now, in THE UPSIDE OF IRRATIONALITY, he exposes the surprising negative and positive effects irrationality can have on our lives. Focusing on how our behaviors at work and in relationships, he offers new insights and eye-opening truths about what really motivates us on the job, how one unwise action can become a long-term bad habit, how we learn to love the ones we’re with, and more. Drawing on the sames experimental methods that made Predictably Irrational one of the most-talked about bestsellers of the past years, Ariely uses data from his own original and entertaining experiments to draw arresting conclusions about how—and why—we behave the way we do. THE UPSIDE OF IRRATIONALITY will change the way we see ourselves at work and at home—and cast our irrational behaviors in a more nuanced light. Dan Ariely is the author of the New York Times bestseller Predictably Irrational. A professor of psychology and behavioral economics at Duke University, his work has been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Business 2.0, Scientific American, and Science. Dan has appeared on CNN and CNBC and is a regular commentator on American Public Media’s Marketplace. He lives in Durham, North Carolina, with his wife and two children. Praise: “You’ll never look at money, work, romance, revenge, politics, medicine, shopping, or happiness the same way again.” –David Pogue, New York Times technology columnist “An eye-opening, insightful look at human behavior, proving that defying logic is part of what makes us human.” 307 Seventh Ave. Suite 2407 NY, NY 10001 (T) 212.337.0934 (F) 212.337.0948 www.levinegreenberg.com 3 LEVINE | GREENBERG LITERARY AGENCY, INC. –Boston Globe “Entertaining and often counterintuitive…What lies in wait is a better understanding of your own irrational mind.” –New York Times Book Review Rights sold: Chinese (C): Commonwealth Chinese (S): CITIC Croatian: Zagreb Czech: Prah Dutch: Contact German: Droemer Hebrew: Kinneret-Zmora Indonesian: Mizan Publishing Japanese: Hayakawa Korean: ChungRim Polish: Dolnoslaskie Portuguese (Brazil): Campus/Elsevier Portuguese (Portugal):Lua de Papel/Elsevier Romanian: Publica Russian: Mann, Ivanov, Ferber Spanish (World): Ariel Thai: WeLearn Turkish: BZD Vietnamese: AlphaBooks Ariely, Dan PREDICTABLY IRRATIONAL: The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions (HarperCollins, February 2008) (Revised Hardcover, May 2009) Trade Paperback, May 2010 (400 pages) UK rights with HarperCollins UK A New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Publishers Weekly Bestseller! A New York Times Notable Book of the Year! Rights sold: Bulgarian: NSM Media Catalan: Columna Chinese (C): Commonwealth Chinese (S): CITIC Croatian: Zagreb Czech: Prah Dutch: Contact French: Flammarion German: Droemer Greek: Enalios Hebrew: Matar Hungarian: Gabo Konyvkiado India (Malayalam): DC Books Indonesian: PT Bhuana Ilmu Populer Italian: Rizzoli Japanese: Hayakawa Korean: ChungRim Polish: Dolnoslaskie Portuguese (World): Campus/Elsevier Romanian: Publica Com Russian: Mann, Ivanov, Ferber Serbian: Alnari DO.O Slovenian: Mladinska Knjiga Zalozba Spanish (World): Ariel Swedish: Damm Swedish Summary: Kontentan Forlag Thai: WeLearn Turkish: BZD Vietnamese: Alpha Books Baker, Stephen FINAL JEOPARDY: Man vs. Machine and the Quest to Know Everything (Houghton Mifflin, February 2011) Hardcover (288 pages) Early E-Book Edition Available January 2011! Author Stephen Baker carries readers on a captivating journey from the IBM labs-- where developers are building a super-computer to master the quiz game of Jeopardy-- to the 2011 showdown in Hollywood of a nationally-televised match against two human masters of the realm of knowledge. The story features brilliant Ph.D.’s, Hollywood mogels, knowledge-obsessed game-show masters--and a very special collection of silicon and circuitry named 307 Seventh Ave. Suite 2407 NY, NY 10001 (T) 212.337.0934 (F) 212.337.0948 www.levinegreenberg.com LEVINE | GREENBERG LITERARY AGENCY, INC. 4 Watson. The narrative reads much like a sports season: it starts at training camp and culminates in the championship game. It skips between top researcher David Ferrucci and his 25-member IBM team and the confidential human competitors as they prepare for this most unusual challenge. At its essence, FINAL JEOPARDY is about the future of knowledge. What can Ferrucci and his team teach this machine? And what will millions of Watson's electronic offspring and heirs be capable of in 10 or 20 years? What will it mean to us, within a decade, to have the speed and fact-crunching power of Watson on our desks, or even in our phones? What's more, in a world teeming with such cognitive machinery, what skills and knowledge will humans require to remain essential (and employed)? How can we set ourselves apart? FINAL JEOPARDY will be as fun and exciting for readers as the game of Jeopardy itself—and will leave readers with an appreciation for Ferrucci and his technologists, along with a keen understanding of what’s behind smart machines and the issues surrounding them: how they’ll fit into our world and how they’ll undoubtedly disrupt it. Stephen Baker is the author of The Numerati and wrote for BusinessWeek for over twenty years, where, until recently, he was the senior technology writer. He blogs at TheNumerati.net and has also written for the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe and the Wall Street Journal. Praise: “Baker's narrative is both charming and terrifying; as Watson's intelligence relentlessly increases, we envision whole job sectors, from call center operators and marketing analysts to, well, quiz-show contestants, vanishing overnight. The result is an entertaining romp through the field of artificial intelligence-and a sobering glimpse of things to come.” –Publishers Weekly, starred review “A highly readable and fascinating account of the number-driven world we now live in.” –The Wall Street Journal “Like Tracy Kidder’s Soul of a New Machine (1981), Baker’s book finds us at the dawn of a singularity. It’s an excellent case study, and does good double duty as a Philip K. Dick scenario, too. –Kirkus Reviews Rights sold: Chinese (C): Yuan-Liou Japanese: Hayakawa Korean: Sejong Baker, Stephen THE NUMERATI (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, September 2008) Trade Paperback, September 2009 (256 pages) New York Times Editor’s Choice! A BusinessWeek Top Innovation & Design Book of 2008! An urgent look at how a global math elite is predicting and altering our behavior—at work, at the mall, and in bed. Praise: “In this captivating exploration of digital nosiness, business reporter Baker spotlights a new breed of entrepreneurial mathematicians (the “Numerati”) engaged in harnessing the avalanche of private data individuals provide when they use a credit card, donate to a cause, surf the Internet—or even make a phone call… An intriguing but disquieting look at a not too distant future when our thoughts will remain private, but computers will disclose our tastes, opinions, habits and quirks to curious parties, not all of whom have our best interests at heart.” –Publishers Weekly, starred review 307 Seventh Ave. Suite 2407 NY, NY 10001 (T) 212.337.0934 (F) 212.337.0948 www.levinegreenberg.com LEVINE | GREENBERG LITERARY AGENCY, INC. 5 “A fascinating outing of the hidden yet exploding world of digital surveillance and stealthy intrusions into our decision-making processes as we buy food, make a date, or vote for president.” –Booklist, starred review “A must-read for anyone who wants to understand life and business in the Google Age.” – Chris Anderson, editor in chief, Wired and author of The Long Tail Rights sold: Arabic: All Prints Chinese (C): Yuan-Liou Chinese (S): CITIC Croatian: Differo Czech: Computer Press Dutch: Maven Publishing German: Hanser Greek: Esoptron Hebrew: Modan Hungarian: Geopen Publishing Italian: Mondadori Japanese: RH Kodansha Korean: Sejong Portuguese (Brazil only): Siciliano Romanian: Publica Com Slovenian: Pasadena Spanish (World): Planeta Mexico UK: Jonathan Cape Vietnamese: Van Viet Ballen, Ken TERRORISTS IN LOVE: The Real Lives of Islamic Radicals (Free Press/S&S, October 2011) Foreword by Peter Bergen Manuscript (288 pages) A Publishers Weekly Top 10 Politics Books of Fall 2011! Drawing on unprecedented access, a leading terrorism expert profiles six terrorists—their families, loves, motivations, and deadly missions—to offer an astonishing new portrait of Islamic extremists as we have never seen them before. Why does someone become an Islamist radical? What are his deepest beliefs? And is there any hope he can be turned away from terrorism? In the riveting TERRORISTS IN LOVE, Ken Ballen takes readers behind the headlines and into the hidden world of Islamic jihadists. A former federal prosecutor and Congressional investigator, Ballen spent five years interviewing more than a hundred extremists throughout the Muslim world. Here, he shares the lives of six of them, including Ahmad AlShayea, an Al Qaeda suicide bomber who survives his attach only to become fiercely pro-American; Zeddy, who trains terrorists while being paid by America’s ally, the Pakistani Army; and Malik, Taliban leader Mullah Omar’s personal Seer. Ballen probes these men’s hidden world, exposing for the first time the secret war councils of the Taliban leadership, where dreams and religious visions determine the course of war against the United States, and talks his way through the closed doors of the royal family of Saudi Arabia—the country that provides most of the funding for Al Qaeda. According to CNN National Security Analyst Peter Bergen, Ballen “has gone deeper inside this closed world of Muslim extremists than any other researcher” to deliver the first vivid, in depth and personal understanding of the world of Islamic militancy. More than this, Ballen offers an informed, urgent and clear assessment of the true nature of the threat America faces. Ken Ballen is president and founder of Terror Free Tomorrow, a non-partisan, not-for-profit organization that investigates the causes of extremism. He has spent over two decades on the frontlines of law enforcement, international relations, intelligence oversight, and congressional investigations, and has regularly contributed to CNN and published articles in the Washington Post, Financial Times, Los Angeles Times, Foreign Policy, Wall Street Journal, Christian Science Monitor and The Guardian, among others. He lives near Washington, D.C. 307 Seventh Ave. Suite 2407 NY, NY 10001 (T) 212.337.0934 (F) 212.337.0948 www.levinegreenberg.com LEVINE | GREENBERG LITERARY AGENCY, INC. 6 Advance Praise: “An unprecedented and unusual look at Islamic radicalism.” –Publishers Weekly “Deploying techniques developed during his two decades as a prosecutor and investigator, Ken Ballen interviewed more than a hundred Islamist terrorists in depth, evincing from them their inner stories. Here he profiles six of these men, and the results are eye-opening and full of startling implications.” —Daniel Pipes, founder and president of the Middle East Forum, and author of Militant Islam Reaches America “TERRORISTS IN LOVE shatters the dominant dispassionate treatment of modern day Islamic purveyors of death and destruction and instead offers a profoundly intimate portal into the fragile, emotional, even sexual factors that drive their behavior. Ballen blasts past the clichés about what animates terrorists and takes readers to places that no one has gone before. The profiles and revelations in this book are at times as uncomfortable as they are vital to appreciate what lies in the mind of some terrorists. I couldn’t put the book down.” —Steve Clemons, Editor-at-Large, The Atlantic and Senior Fellow & Founder, American Strategy Program Rights sold: Portuguese (Portugal): Dom Quixote US Audio: Audible Bouton, Katherine SHOUTING WON’T HELP: Notes from the Land of the Hard of Hearing (Farrar Straus & Giroux, 2013) Proposal; Manuscript due October 2012 A parlor game: Would you rather be deaf or blind? Most people opt for deaf. Helen Keller, who experienced both, wrote that she regarded deafness as “a much worse misfortune,” cutting the sufferer off from “the intellectual company of men.” But Katherine Bouton didn’t have that choice. A former editor at The New Yorker and The New York Times, Katherine—like 17% of the industrialized world’s population—is hard of hearing, and she has been that way for nearly 30 years. Her sudden and unexpected hearing loss came at a time when she was fully engaged in her competitive professional life in New York, where everyone talks fast and oral communication is essential. And she, like so many others, young and old—worked very hard to cover up her condition. In fact, most hearing loss goes uncorrected. Many people who could benefit from a hearing aid don’t actually use one—either due to vanity, cost, or due to the simple but frustrating reason that they just don’t work that well. Cities around the world have always been noisy and people who live in them have always experienced noiseinduced hearing loss. But these days, the decibel level on a typical city street averages about 90—enough to cause hearing damage in just eight hours. If it’s a midtown Manhattan street complete with a jackhammer (100 decibels), a construction site (100), and a panhandler playing amplified drums (110), it’s loud enough to cause serious hearing damage in those eight hours. And although Manhattan is the noisiest city in the world according to the W.H.O., Tokyo, Nagasaki, and Buenos Aires are not far behind. Mumbai, Delhi and Calcutta vie for the top five, with Madrid following at their heels. Audiologists agree that we are experiencing a worldwide epidemic of hearing impairment. The numbers are large, and growing. In the West in particular, the affected are younger and younger. Much of it is preventable. In SHOUTING WON’T HELP, Bouton uses her own experience—the physical and psychological journey into the land of the hearing impaired—as the narrative line for examining this phenomenon. In addition, she will interview experts on hearing and hearing loss, researchers looking into the causes and prevention of hearing loss, neurobiologists studying the brain’s role in hearing, specialists in hearing aid and cochlear implant technology, as well as other professionals in the field. 307 Seventh Ave. Suite 2407 NY, NY 10001 (T) 212.337.0934 (F) 212.337.0948 www.levinegreenberg.com LEVINE | GREENBERG LITERARY AGENCY, INC. 7 Katherine Bouton was a senior editor at The New York Times for 22 years, most recently as the Deputy Editor of The New York Times Magazine. Her writing has been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine and many other publications. Currently, she is a regular reviewer and contributor to Science Times and lives in New York City. Brosh, Allie PICTURE STORIES: An Illustrated Wonderland of Guides and Stories and Other Things Too (Touchstone/S&S, Fall 2012) Four color illustrations throughout Proposal; Manuscript due March 2012 Based on the award-winning blog, Hyperbole and a Half (hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com) and in the tradition of The Oatmeal’s 5 Very Good Reasons To Punch A Dolphin In The Mouth, PICTURE STORIES is a quirky, illustrated guide to life based on the author’s beloved story style. Brosh is a decidedly unhipster, unsnarky blogger whose unique mix of humor, self-deprecation and crudely on-point illustrations set her apart from scores of other bloggers. The blog continues to grow with each post and currently has an impressive 6-10 million visitors a month, including fans from all over the world. The book will feature over 50% brand new material and illustrations, several redesigned/expanded previous blog entries, and of course, many of the blog’s greatest hits in their original form. Allie Brosh likes dogs and wolves and some styles of music. She originally wanted to become a medical researcher and save the world from cancer, but somewhere along the line she realized that she’s really not cut out to be a productive member of society. She now spends a great deal of time sitting on her couch wrapped up in a blanket like a burrito, trying to stay occupied by writing and drawing. She also writes the award-winning blog, Hyperbole and a Half. Praise for Hyperbole and a Half: "If you haven’t seen ‘Hyperbole and a Half,’ here’s a rough analogy: David Sedaris sets out to write a graphic memoir, but decides to use the MS Paint application on his computer rather than hire an artist…[Brosh’s] writing is twisted and sharp but also earthy and accessible." --Michael Humphrey, True/Slant "Two years ago, Michael Williamson and I produced a book about old dogs. It was the best we could do to explain the odd, nitwitty, wonderful, primitive complexity of the dog brain. It took us 140 pages and 65 photographs, and it is with enormous shame that I admit here that we failed. I say that because I recently encountered this item in this blog by Allie Brosh, titled Hyperbole and a Half. She does it better than we did, in half the space, and funnier. Also, she is very young. I hate her.” --Gene Weingarten, Pulitzer-Prize Winning journalist and humorist "I'm not a dog person. It's not that I don't like dogs, but they're not my thing, and usually I skip over any news-item, blog-post or conversation that contains the word ‘dog.’ Not my bag. But once I started reading Hyperbole and a Half's ‘Dogs Don't Understand Basic Concepts Like Moving,’ I found myself unable to stop -- except to laugh uproariously." --Cory Doctorow, Boing Boing Rights sold: Portuguese (Brazil): Editora Planeta UK: Square Peg/Random House 307 Seventh Ave. Suite 2407 NY, NY 10001 (T) 212.337.0934 (F) 212.337.0948 www.levinegreenberg.com LEVINE | GREENBERG LITERARY AGENCY, INC. 8 Brown, Laura HOW TO WRITE ANYTHING: A Practical Guide to Everything You’ll Ever Have to Write—at Work, at School, and in Your Personal Life (W.W. Norton, 2012) Proposal; Manuscript due June 2012 Writing is more important now than it’s ever been. At work, at school, in our personal lives—business and personal e-mails, thank-you’s, and reports, not to mention blogs and text messages—we’re all writing more than ever before. In spite of the increasing demand for writing, most people find writing a chore. As a corporate writing trainer and writing teacher, Laura Brown has seen difficulty with writing—and sometimes even dread—in literally every group she’s worked with, regardless of age, social background or education. Employees procrastinate about writing at work, students pull all-nighters when a term paper deadline looms, and people neglect thank-you notes and sympathy cards, all because they lack confidence in their writing. And when they finally do sit down to write, they often have tremendous difficulty communicating clearly. Surveys of corporate employees and hiring managers consistently list writing skills as some of the hardest to find, while college teachers decry the decline in the quality of student writing. For many, writing is an onerous task that produces poor results. Now there’s a resource for all these intimidated, reluctant, and ineffective writers. HOW TO WRITE ANYTHING will offer readers concise guidance and good models they can use to get all their writing tasks done quickly and painlessly. What’s more, it will be the first book of its kind to embrace the profound changes that the Internet has brought about in people’s writing habits. While many writing books treat e-mail as an afterthought, HOW TO WRITE ANYTHING takes a comprehensive and integrated approach to the use of e-mail and other electronic communication, offering guidance on how to communicate most effectively in our wired world. A comprehensive reference for all occasions, Laura Brown’s HOW TO WRITE ANYTHING will be the only book the average person will ever need to get through all the writing tasks that life presents them. Laura Brown, Ph.D, is a New York-based writer and writing coach who has taught writing to just about everyone—from corporate executives to high school students, in such places as Iona College, Columbia University, AOL Time Warner and at some of New York’s top independent schools. She has a thriving practice coaching corporate executives one-on-one in a wide variety of writing projects, including clients at Citigroup, DHL, TMP Worldwide, WarburgPincus, and Deloitte, among others. Dr. Brown is co-author of Build Your Own Garage: Blueprints and Tools to Unleash Your Company’s Hidden Creativity (The Free Press, 2001) with Professor Bernd H. Schmitt of Columbia Business School. Her articles have appeared in Harvard Business Review, The Financial Times, and many other professional journals. Butler, David and Linda Tischler THINKING BIG ABOUT DESIGN: Why it Works for Coca-Cola – and How It Can Work for You (Free Press, 2013) Proposal; Manuscript due June 2012 In October 2009, Linda Tischler’s cover story for Fast Company’s best-selling “Masters of Design” issue described how David Butler, Coca-Cola’s vice president of global design, was using design for competitive advantage and social benefit, transforming everything from fountain machinery in thousands of fast food restaurants in America, to point of purchase displays in Kazakhstan, to sustainable water usage in Kenya. David quickly became the hottest thing on the design/business lecture circuit, addressing audiences all over the world -- executives at Wal-Mart and Disney, the advertising industry’s annual festival in Cannes, the Economist’s Big Rethink conference in London -and realized that he was responding to an insatiable need for his message. Fast Company started getting so many questions about design that it launched a new site devoted to design, the first spin-off of the company’s hugely popular website, where Linda is a popular blogger and Tweeter, and Coca-Cola, realizing how effective David’s message was – and how effective he was at delivering it – gave approval, for the first time in its history, to a book based on insider access to one of its most critical and strategic functions. Coca-Cola is well known for the design of a glass bottle that has become one of the most enduring cultural icons of all time. What’s never been revealed, until now, is how Coca-Cola uses design thinking to increase productivity, 307 Seventh Ave. Suite 2407 NY, NY 10001 (T) 212.337.0934 (F) 212.337.0948 www.levinegreenberg.com LEVINE | GREENBERG LITERARY AGENCY, INC. 9 reduce costs, drive consumer engagement, and enhance sustainability. (Among other things, the company plans to double its juice business in ten years by thinking about everything from the health of American honey bees to how to transport juice from Brazil to the rapidly expanding markets in China.)With 450 brands in 200 countries, and 20,000 retailers selling 1.6 billion servings of Coke products per day, not to mention a market value of $128B, it would be hard to find a bigger canvas on which to explore design as an enterprise function. THINKING BIG ABOUT DESIGN is a handbook for anyone who wants to understand the business and social value of design, and learn how to use design to make their own business or organization more effective, competitive, and profitable. While design practitioners will learn a lot from this book, it is targeted to readers who have no background in design. Based on an unprecedented look at how one of the world’s greatest companies uses design to compete in a global economy, the goal of the authors – and of the Coca-Cola company – is to show how THINKING BIG ABOUT DESIGN can help make the world a better place. David Butler is the Vice President of Global Design for The Coca-Cola Company. Since 2004, he has led the design thinking for some of the world’s most loved and valuable brands. Coca-Cola has been recognized with numerous design awards including the prestigious Grand Prix from the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival. David’s career experience includes leading brand, product and experience design with numerous Fortune 100 companies. He is a frequent lecturer and strong advocate for design education. Linda Tischler is a Senior Editor at Fast Company, where she writes about the intersection of business and design. For the past several years, she has been responsible for the magazine’s annual “Masters of Design” issue, which celebrates the people in the forefront of design thinking. Tischler has twice been nominated for National Design Awards in the “Design Mind” category, and this year Fast Company was nominated for the “Corporate Achievement” category in recognition of its design coverage. Rights sold: Chinese (Complex): Linking Publishing Italian: Hoepli Editore Portuguese (Brazil): Campus/Elsevier Russian: Alpina Chabris, Christopher and Daniel Simons THE INVISIBLE GORILLA: How Our Intuitions Deceive Us (Crown, May 2010) Trade Paperback, June 2011 (320 pages) A New York Times Bestseller! We think we see the world as it is, but we are really missing a lot… Why would a company spend billions on a product it knows will fail? How can a police officer run right past a brutal assault without seeing it? What do criminals have in common with chess masters? What can money managers learn from weather forecasters? Do CEOs get hired and fired for the wrong reasons? Is it true that more knowledge can cause you to make worse decisions? The answers to these questions and more often lie concealed under a veil of everyday illusions, and these illusions can lead us to make shocking, costly—even life-threatening—mistakes. In THE INVISIBLE GORILLA, the creators of one of psychology’s most famous experiments explain just how and why our intuitions lead us astray— and show us how to think clearly, for perhaps the first time. 307 Seventh Ave. Suite 2407 NY, NY 10001 (T) 212.337.0934 (F) 212.337.0948 www.levinegreenberg.com LEVINE | GREENBERG LITERARY AGENCY, INC. 10 Christopher Chabris is a psychology professor at Union College. Daniel Simons is a psychology professor at the University of Illinois. They have done influential research on a wide variety of topics, but they are best known for their “Gorillas in Our Midst” study, which reveals the dark side of our ability to pay attention. Praise: “Succeeds wonderfully…readers who heed [these] admonitions may be rewarded with a clearer view of the world.” –Wall Street Journal “The book is written so well it would make Gladwell envious (and maybe a wee bit angry), and yet we must remember that these are the scientists themselves discussing their own discoveries and experiments. They have somehow mastered both the science and its communication. –Psychology Today “Chabris and Simon’s experiments have become classics, and their influence extends well beyond psychology, with implications for our understanding of consciousness and rationality.” –Steven Pinker, author of How the Mind Works and The Stuff of Thought Rights sold: Chinese (C): Commonwealth Chinese (S): China Renmin Czech: Prah Dutch: Arbeiderspers German: Piper Greek: Armos Publications Hebrew: Kinneret-Zmora Hungarian: Agave Indonesian: Linikita Publishing Italian: Sole 24 Ore Japanese: Bungei Shunju Korean: Gimm-Young Polish: MT Biznes Portuguese (Brazil): Rocco Russian: Hippo Publishers Spanish (World): Siglo XXI Thai: WeLearn Turkish: Dogus Iletisim UK: HarperCollins Cizmar, Martin CHUBSTER: A Hipster’s Guide to Losing Weight While Staying Cool (Mariner Books/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, January 2012) Galley, 240 pages UK Rights with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt A Publishers Weekly Top 10 Lifestyle Book of Fall 2011! An irreverent and informative weight-loss guide for readers whose skinny jeans are beginning to feel a little snug… You’ve heard it all before: calorie counting is the most effective way to lose weight. You’ve heard it because it’s true, and you’re still fat because you ignored it. Lucky for you, Martin Cizmar has come up with the least awful diet plan of all time. If you’re going to make a change, you might as well do it his way. The cool way. The Chubster way. The Chubster plan revolves around calorie counting and enjoyable "undercover" exercise (urban hiking and gum chewing: solid calorie burning potential on their own; even better together). Martin gives readers the tools to become self-sufficient weight-loss machines capable of functioning in any environment. From frozen dinners and drive-thru menus to ethnic eating and microbrews, he offers suggestions for the responsible choice, steers readers clear of the real diet-killers and dispels some long-held untruths. That Stella you’re holding? It’s more caloric than Guinness. Dieting is never fun, but with Chubster, losing weight can be. You’re welcome. 307 Seventh Ave. Suite 2407 NY, NY 10001 (T) 212.337.0934 (F) 212.337.0948 www.levinegreenberg.com LEVINE | GREENBERG LITERARY AGENCY, INC. 11 Martin Cizmar lost 100 pounds in eight months on the Chubster diet. This is his first book. Cook, Kevin TITANIC THOMPSON: The Man Who Bet on Everything (W.W. Norton & Company, November 2010) Hardcover, 248 pages Kirkus Reviews Best of 2010! Capturing the spirit of a freewheeling era, this rollicking biography brings to life the gambler-hero who inspired Guys and Dolls. Born in a log cabin in the Ozarks, Alvin “Titanic” Thompson (1892-1974) traveled with his golf clubs, a .45 revolver, and a suitcase full of cash. He won and lost millions playing cards, dice, golf, pool, and dangerous games of his own invention. He killed five men and married five women, each one a teenager on her wedding day. When poker players in the Roaring Twenties asked, “Ti, what’s the limit?” he’d say, “Sky’s the limit.” Damon Runyon based Guys and Dolls hero Sky Masterson on Titanic. But Ti rejected Runyon’s offer to write his life story: “Mine ain’t the kind of business publicity helps.” He went on to double-cross Arnold Rothstein, the notorious crime boss who fixed the 1919 “Black Sox” World Series, in the poker game that got Rothstein killed. Thompson also traded cards with Houdini, conned Al Capone, teed it up with Ben Hogan and Sam Snead, lost a million to Minnesota Fats and then teamed up with Fats and won it all back. With spirited prose and a propulsive narrative style, award-winning writer Kevin Cook resurrects a remarkable figure who journeyed from backwoods Arkansas to New York, Chicago, and Hollywood. Distilling truth from legend, Cook delves into the colorful lore of golf, poker, craps, and other games, revealing how Titanic succeeded— and cheated. Functionally illiterate, he knew the odds with computer-like precision and often won more in side bets—high-or-low card wagers, bets on boxcars or snake eyes—than in the game itself. As suspenseful and dramatic as a blockbuster movie, TITANIC THOMPSON is the story of an underdog who made it big and a must-read for anyone who has ever laid a bet. Kevin Cook’s Tommy’s Honor (2007) won the USGA’s Herbert Warren Wind Award, was a Sports Illustrated’s Book Of the Year, and was short-listed for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year (U.K). A former editor at Sports Illustrated, Cook often appears on ESPN and CNN. He lives in New York City. Praise: “Highly enjoyable” –Wall Street Journal “Readers will revel in every rambunctious page about an outlaw spirit who lurked on the frontiers of society, sports, and fair play.” –Booklist “A delightful, breezy account of the most outrageous grafter who ever worked the dark side streets of the American dream. If this was fiction, you wouldn’t believe a word of it. But it’s all true, and it’s all here.” –Mark Frost, bestselling author of The Greatest Game Ever Played and The Match Rights sold: US Audio: Audible UK: Picador/Macmillan 307 Seventh Ave. Suite 2407 NY, NY 10001 (T) 212.337.0934 (F) 212.337.0948 www.levinegreenberg.com LEVINE | GREENBERG LITERARY AGENCY, INC. 12 Davidow, William H. OVERCONNECTED: The Promise and Threat of the Internet (Delphinium, January 2011) Hardcover, 240 pages Bill Davidow, a former Silicon Valley executive, explains how the almost miraculous success of the Internet in connecting the world has also created a unique set of hazards, in effect overconnecting us, with the direst of consequences. The practical applications of this new medium—not least among them the ability to borrow money, invest in the stock market, or buy a new home—have made it a force unequaled in scope or impact in our daily lives. But the luxuries of the connected age have taken on a momentum all of their own, ultimately becoming the root cause of the recent financial meltdown from which the world is now struggling to recover. By meticulously and counter-intuitively anatomizing how being overconnected tends to create systems of positive feedback that have largely negative consequences, Davidow explains everything from the recent subprime mortgage crisis to the meltdown of Iceland, from the loss of people’s privacy to the spectacular fall of the stock market that forced the Federal Government to rescue institutions supposedly “too big to fail.” All because we were so miraculously wired together. Explaining how such symptoms of Internet connection as unforeseeable accidents and how thought contagions acted to accelerate the downfall and make us permanently vulnerable to catastrophe, Davidow places our recent experience in historical perspective and offers a set of practical steps to minimize similar disasters in the future. Original, commonsensical and historically informed, OVERCONNECTED identifies problems we live with that are now so large, omnipresent and part of our daily lives that few people have even noticed them. William H. Davidow has been a high-technology industry executive and a venture investor for more than 30 years, having worked at managerial positions at Intel Corp., Hewlett Packard and General Electric. He is now an active advisor to Mohr Davidow Ventures, a venture capital firm. An electrical engineer by training, he has earned degrees at Dartmouth College, the California Institute of Technology, and Stanford University and is the author of Marketing High Technology (Free Press) and Total Customer Service (HarperCollins), both with Bro Uttal, and The Virtual Corporation (HarperCollins), with Michael Malone—as well as columns for Forbes and numerous op-ed pieces. Praise: “A serious, thought-provoking study that looks at everything from Three Mile Island to the Iceland banking crisis, and explains how they are related.” –Booklist “One of the pioneers of modern technology shows how the unanticipated effects of the Internet are distorting economics, politics, international relations, and individual lives.” –James Fallows, author and National Correspondent for The Atlantic “Davidow argues compellingly that connectivity without coordination is a formula for chronic instability, and that hyperconnection without coordination is a formula for mega-catastrophe." --David M. Kennedy, Pulitzer-Prize winning author of Freedom from Fear Rights sold: Chinese (S): China CITIC Japanese: Diamond Korean: Suibooks UK: Headline US Audio: Audible 307 Seventh Ave. Suite 2407 NY, NY 10001 (T) 212.337.0934 (F) 212.337.0948 www.levinegreenberg.com LEVINE | GREENBERG LITERARY AGENCY, INC. 13 Dean, Josh SHOW DOG (It Books/HarperCollins, February 2012) Manuscript due September 2011 UK Rights with HarperCollins Veteran magazine journalist Josh Dean will capture the idiosyncratic world of professional dog training, from the local competitions held in florescent-lit school gymnasiums to the granddaddy of them all, The Westminster Dog Show, as he follows a loveable novice dog through the inaugural year in competition. By spending a year alongside rising star Jack, a champion Australian Shepard, and his friends, Josh Dean rips back the curtain on the dog show world, providing not just a hilarious and often touching portrait of a colorful subculture only slightly exaggerated by the film Best In Show, but also a revealing look at our love affair with the world’s most doted upon and tinkered with animal species, examining the colossal array of dog types and the humans who love them. By and large, the book follows Jack as he grows, over the course of a year (through Westminster, in February of 2011), from still-improving adolescent to seasoned adult show dog. We get to know him and the people around him, to experience what it’s like to own a show dog, and to train one. And at the end of every day we come to appreciate him for what he is, a loveable and intelligent house pet—albeit one with a highly unusual acumen. Supplementing Jack’s story is the history and sociology of this eccentric and fascinating subculture of breeders and dog show fanciers. Dean explores the history of breeding and of dog shows, and all the many related peculiarities: judging, training, naming, promoting, hairstyling, kennel owning, RV driving, treat selecting, and more. Josh Dean is a former deputy editor of Men’s Journal and was one of the founding editors of PLAY, The New York Times Sports Magazine. His work has appeared on CNN, CNBC, Fox News as well as numerous public radio programs. He lives in Brooklyn. DeSteno, David and Piercarlo Valdesolo OUT OF CHARACTER: Surprising Truths about the Liar, Cheat, Sinner (and Saint) Lurking in All of Us (Crown Archetype, May 2011) Hardcover (272 pages) A Wall St. Journal Bestselling Psychology Book! Drawing on their own original research, acclaimed psychologists David DeSteno and Piercarlo Valdesolo shine a new scientific light on the hidden psychological forces behind the saint and the sinner lurking in all of us. Have you ever wondered why a trumpeter of family values would suddenly turn around and cheat on his wife? Why jealousy would send an otherwise levelheaded person into a violent rage? What could drive a person to blow a family fortune at the blackjack tables? Or have you ever pondered what might make Mr. Right leave his beloved at the altar, why hypocrisy seems to be rampant, or even why, every once in a while, even you are secretly tempted, to lie, cheat, or steal (or, conversely, to help someone you’ve never even met)? This book answers these questions and more, and, in doing so, turns the prevailing wisdom about who we are upside down. Our character, argue psychologists DeSteno and Valdesolo, isn’t a stable set of traits, but rather a shifting 307 Seventh Ave. Suite 2407 NY, NY 10001 (T) 212.337.0934 (F) 212.337.0948 www.levinegreenberg.com LEVINE | GREENBERG LITERARY AGENCY, INC. 14 state that is subject to the constant push and pull of hidden mechanisms in our mind. And it's the battle between these dueling psychological forces that determines how we act at any given point in time. Drawing on the surprising results of clever experiments concocted in their own laboratory. DeSteno and Valdesolo shed new scientific light on so many of the puzzling behaviors that regularly grace the headlines. An astonishing look at the hidden forces driving the saint and sinner lurking in all of us, OUT OF CHARACTER reveals why human behavior is so much more unpredictable than we ever realized. David Desteno is an associate professor of psychology at Northeastern University, where he is also director of the Social Emotions Lab. He is editor of the American Psychological Association’s journal Emotion and has served as a visiting associate professor of psychology at Harvard University. His work has been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Scientific American, and on ABC News and NPR. He has also guest-blogged for Freakonomics, a blog of the New York Times. Piercarlo Valdesolo is an assistant professor of psychology at Claremont McKenna College. His work has appeared in top journals and major news outlets, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, and Newsweek, and he has been awarded fellowships at Harvard University and Amherst College. He is a contributor to Mind Matters, a blog of Scientific American. Praise: “My bad—and your bad, too. This smart and lively book uses cutting-edge research in psychological science to reveal the hero and the villain that live inside each of us.” —Daniel Gilbert, professor of psychology, Harvard University, and bestselling author of Stumbling on Happiness “Clearly and succinctly, and marshaling varied and colorful evidence, the authors demonstrate that most of us can be either "saints" or "sinners," but usually operate on a continuum between these extremes.” –Publishers Weekly “Who would have ever thought that a pair of social psychologists would have so much to say about good and evil? David DeSteno and Piercarlo Valdesolo are brilliant experimentalists and deep thinkers, and Out of Character hits the sweet spot—it’s scientifically rigorous, smoothly written, and achingly relevant to everyday life. It shows how laboratory research is undermining the very notion of a fixed moral character, and it explores a new approach to hypocrisy, pride, prejudice, jealousy, and love.” —Paul Bloom, professor of psychology, Yale University, and author of How Pleasure Works Rights sold: Chinese (S): CITIC Korean: Gimm Young Portuguese (Brazil): Campus Russian: Hippo Publishers Diller, Vivian with Jill Muir-Sukenick and Michele Willens FACE IT: What Women Really Feel as Their Looks Change and What to Do about It (Hay House, February 2010) Trade Paperback, May 2011 (224 pages) Intellectually, we understand aging. So why does the first wrinkle or gray hair send us into an emotional tailspin? As smart women who were raised to believe that success and happiness are based on intelligence and accomplishments, many of us never expected to feel this deeply about a seemingly superficial issue. But let’s face it, we do! While individually we were taught that beauty is only skin deep, our youth-obsessed culture reinforces the myth that beauty is our currency, our power, and what makes us female. These conflicting messages leave many women feeling trapped in a web of confusion. Do we grow old naturally, since our looks don’t define us, or do we fight the signs of aging, since beauty and youth are prized so dearly? 307 Seventh Ave. Suite 2407 NY, NY 10001 (T) 212.337.0934 (F) 212.337.0948 www.levinegreenberg.com LEVINE | GREENBERG LITERARY AGENCY, INC. 15 As models turned psychotherapists, Vivian Diller, Ph.D., and Jill Muir-Sukenick, Ph.D., have had the opportunity to examine the world of beauty from two very different vantage points—one where looks are all-important, and the other where they are often viewed as irrelevant. This unique perspective helped them develop a six-step program that starts with recognizing “uh-oh” moments, examines the emotional impact of aging on self-image, and ends by suggesting innovative ways to approach beauty throughout life, so you can enjoy your appearance—at any age! Vivian Diller, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist in private practice in New York City with a Ph.D. from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Yeshiva University, and a postdoctoral degree in psychoanalysis from NYU. She has served as a consultant to a major cosmetics company and has been featured in The New York Times, Forbes, The Huffington Post, Daily Mail, and Oprah.com. She has also appeared on national television discussing issues surrounding beauty and aging. Jill Muir-Sukenick, Ph.D., is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist in New York City who received her Ph.D. from NYU. She has been a consultant to modeling agencies and the beauty industry, and she has been interviewed in print and on television about issues relating to aging and self-image. Praise: “A smart book for smart women.” –Hoda Kotb, co-host of the Today show and author of Hoda “Finally, not just another beauty book. FACE IT offers a refreshing perspective and long-lasting solutions. It’s a book you can give to your mother, your daughter, or any woman who wants to feel and look great at any age.” –Sela Ward, actress “FACE IT is the thinking woman’s guide to looking and being one’s best at any age.” --Andrea Robinson, former beauty editor of Vogue Rights sold: Chinese (S): Cheers/China Remnin Indonesian: PT Elexmedia Komputindo Portuguese (Brazil): Pensamento Draper, William H. III THE STARTUP GAME: Inside the Partnership between Venture Capitalists and Entrepreneurs (Palgrave Macmillan, January 2011) Foreword by Eric Schmidt, Chairman and CEO of Google Hardcover, 272 pages UK rights with Palgrave Featured on J.P. Morgan’s 2011 Summer Reading List! Venture capitalist Bill Draper delivers the first up-close look at how the relationship between venture capitalists and entrepreneurs is critical to the future of business. For more than 40 years, Bill Draper has worked with top entrepreneurs in fabled Silicon Valley and throughout the world. From the VC who saw the value in Skype, Zappos, and many other companies, comes firsthand stories of success. In these pages, Draper explores: How to evaluate innovative ideas and the entrepreneurs behind those ideas (lessons from Yahoo, Baidu, Tesla Motors, Activision, Measurex, and more) The value of political leadership in creating opportunity, including on-the-ground accounts of how Deng Xiaoping brought China roaring into the modern world 307 Seventh Ave. Suite 2407 NY, NY 10001 (T) 212.337.0934 (F) 212.337.0948 www.levinegreenberg.com LEVINE | GREENBERG LITERARY AGENCY, INC. 16 Written in an engaging narrative, and incorporating the author’s own personal experience as well as other successful entrepreneurs, this book provides a much-needed look at how the world of venture capital and entrepreneurship work. William H. Draper III (Bill Draper) is one of the United States’s most successful venture capitalists and is the founder of Sutter Hill Ventures in Palo Alto, California. Currently, he is general partner of Draper Richards L.P., Draper Investment Company, and Draper International, and he is chairman of the board of The Draper Richards Foundation. He previously served as the president and chairman of the Export-Import Bank of the United States and as the head of the United Nations Development Programme. In 2005 he received the Vision Award from SD Forum and was inducted into the Dow Jones Venture Capital Hall of Fame. In 2006, he received the Silicon Valley Fast 50 Lifetime Achievement Award, and in 2009 he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Business Forum. Praise: "You can't do better than this first-hand account from the storied father-son team of Bill and Tim Draper. They have done all of us who are passionate about technology and innovation a huge favor by chronicling their experience." --Eric Schmidt, Chairman and CEO of Google (from the Foreword) "Bill Draper tells the story behind some of the most pivotal companies of the last half-century and offers a fascinating look at the inner workings of the venture capital industry." --Elon Musk, cofounder of Paypal, cofounder and CEO of Tesla Motors, chairman of Solar City "No single venture capitalist more embodies the best in venture capital; Bill Draper sets the bar high. It is not just his demonstrable success in business, but it is also his high ethical standards that earn him the respect and the following that he has in the world of business." --President George H.W. Bush Rights sold: Chinese (C): Yuan-Liou Chinese (S): China CITIC Portuguese (Brazil): Editora Campus/Elsevier Russian: Exmo Florida, Richard THE GREAT RESET: How New Ways of Living and Working Drive Post-Crash Prosperity (HarperCollins, May 2010) Trade Paperback, July 2011 (240 pages) CNN’s Fareed Zakaria’s Book of the Week! Bloomberg Top 50 Business Book! National Business Book Award Finalist! (Canada) Like the Great Depression and the Long Depression before it, experts have often focused on the downsides of economic crises. In THE GREAT RESET, bestselling author Richard Florida argues that the current economic crisis provides an opportunity to create entirely new ways of working and living—and new economic practices that are more sustainable than current systems. Surveying the experience of past crises, Florida provides substantial evidence that for a reset to work it must move far beyond business models, technological innovations, and even public policy. Restoring economic prosperity today requires a deep rethinking and remaking of our very way of life and the onset of a new and more sustainable geography of capitalism. Combining academic research, real-life vignettes, and historical examples, Florida identifies four major pillars of the current reset: more flexible and affordable housing; reduced reliance on the car and new forms of transportation, from walkability to high-speed rail; new, more sustainable forms of consumption; and new sources of jobs including the massive upgrading of low-paid service work. 307 Seventh Ave. Suite 2407 NY, NY 10001 (T) 212.337.0934 (F) 212.337.0948 www.levinegreenberg.com LEVINE | GREENBERG LITERARY AGENCY, INC. 17 THE GREAT RESET provides a powerful new framework for understanding the real roots of economic prosperity and shows the critical importance of economic geography and place. Richard Florida is author of the international bestselling The Rise of the Creative Class, as well as The Flight of the Creative Class, Cities and the Creative Class and Who's Your City?, an Amazon Book of the Month. He is director of the Martin Prosperity Institute and professor of business and creativity at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management. He is a correspondent for the Atlantic and writes frequently for the New York Times, the Financial Times, and the Globe and Mail, and is founder of the Creative Class Group. He is one of the world's most sought-after speakers on global trends, economics, prosperity, competitiveness and growth and has been featured as an expert on MSNBC, CNN, BBC, NPR and CBS, among others. Praise: “With a historian’s grand sweep and a geographer’s keen eye for place, Richard Florida shows us how the cycles of capitalism have built and rebuilt the farms, cities, and suburbs that define America. This timely and thoughtprovoking book gives us important insights into the reshaping of America’s economic and physical landscape.” --Jeffrey D. Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute, Columbia University “THE GREAT RESET shows how new technology and the new geographies of living and working come together to drive recovery… Must reading for anyone who wants to understand where we are now and where we are headed. --Chris Anderson, Editor, Wired Magazine “In his usual lucid and compelling way, Florida argues that elected officials ‘need to get over their love affair with big renewal projects’ and steer money toward neighborhood ventures that improve people’s lives.” --Harvard Business Review Rights Sold: Canada: RH Canada Chinese (S): Cheers Publishing German: Campus Verlag Hebrew: Kinneret-Zmora Japanese: Hayakawa Korean: KPI Business Map Portuguese (Brazil): Editora Campus Russian: Klassika XXI Spanish: Paidos Swedish: Daidalos Gneezy, Uri and John List LIFE IS A LAB: Two Economists Rethink Competition, Charity, and Everything In Between (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013) Foreword by Steven Levitt, author of Freakonomics Proposal; Manuscript due December 2011 Two economists (one a liberal originally from Israel, the other a conservative from the University of Chicago, and both on Forbes’ 2010 list of the Seven Most Powerful Economists in the World) shake up the “dismal science” of economics and tackle BIG, VEXING and FUNDAMENTAL questions with their pioneering methods of taking their work out of the lab and into the world. Gneezy and List test the notion that realistic insights into human behavior can be found with the approaches of either traditional or behavioral economics. Their preferred method is to look at economic phenomenon as they naturally occur. With the world as their sandbox, Gneezy and List run unprecedented and often large-scale field experiments in places where people live and work -- from the foothills of Kilimanjaro to the bustling Chicago Board of Trade, from sultry northern India to chilly Illinois; from the playgrounds of schools in Israel to the boardrooms of the largest corporations in the world. Gneezy and List observe people as they make daily decisions in every possible context. The result of their work is a new understanding of what really drives people to behave the way they do. With their groundbreaking approach, Gneezy and List are reaching for one of the holy grails of economics and all the social sciences: to tease out the relation between cause and effect. The issues Gneezy and List focus on in this book have touched their lives -- or those in their family – while yielding surprising insights into the biggest 307 Seventh Ave. Suite 2407 NY, NY 10001 (T) 212.337.0934 (F) 212.337.0948 www.levinegreenberg.com LEVINE | GREENBERG LITERARY AGENCY, INC. 18 questions that have vexed philosophers, ethicists, psychologists, economists, politicians, marketers, educators and average human beings for millennia. Their work will challenge readers everywhere to rethink some of their basic assumptions about how the world works. This is a book that will change the way we think- not just about the issues discussed in the book, but about the seemingly intractable social problems we all face: from policy makers to teachers to directors of nonprofits to business executives to parents—just a few of the book’s many audiences, along with the thousands of intellectually curious, civic-minded readers who simply want to make the world a better place. Uri Gneezy is the Arthur Brody Endowed Chair in Behavioral Economics and Professor of Economics and Strategy at the Rady School of Management at UC San Diego. Formerly, he was a faculty member at the University of Chicago, and the Israeli universities Technion and Haifa. Gneezy received his Ph.D. from Tilburg University’s CentER for Economic Research. John List received his PhD from the University of Wyoming and is currently a Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago after positions at the University of Central Florida, the University of Arizona and the University of Maryland. John has been at the forefront of environmental economics and has served as senior economist on the President's Council of Economic Advisors for Environmental and Resource Economics. John is also a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, a Research Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), and a University Fellow at Tilburg University in the Netherlands. However, John is best known as one of the world's leading experts on experimental economics. Advance Praise: “It is hard to imagine any story of innovation in our thinking about economics that does not involve Uri and John.” –Dan Ariely, NYT bestselling author of Predictably Irrational and The Upside of Irrationality “Their work is simultaneously scientifically path breaking and accessible to the general public…[and] has revolutionized all of social science.” –David Laibson, Harvard economist Rights Sold: Canadian: HarperCollins Chinese (C): Commonwealth Chinese (S): China CITIC Hebrew: Kinneret-Zmora Japanese: Toyo Keizai Korean: Gimm-Young Portuguese (Brazil): Editora Paz eTerra Thai: WeLearn UK: Random House Goldenberg, Jacob and Drew Boyd INSIDE THE BOX: Systematic Creativity for Breakthrough Results (Simon & Schuster, 2013) Proposal; Manuscript due January 2012 UK rights sold to Profile Books (via S&S) The traditional view of creativity is that you need to think “outside the box” to be truly original and innovative. Renowned innovators Goldenberg and Boyd’s comprehensive study of the most successful innovations, and their hands-on practice with some of the most successful companies in the world, proves just the opposite. More innovation -- and better and quicker innovation -- happens when you: (1) work inside your familiar world, (2) generate solutions independent of any specific problem, and (3) use just five simple techniques to generate those solutions – subtraction, unification, multiplication, dependency, and division. This may sound counterintuitive -- it is. It also happens to be effective, repeatable, and accessible to anyone. Jacob Goldenberg is a professor of Marketing at the School of Business Administration at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the head of the Marketing department. He is a visiting professor at the Columbia Business School. 307 Seventh Ave. Suite 2407 NY, NY 10001 (T) 212.337.0934 (F) 212.337.0948 www.levinegreenberg.com LEVINE | GREENBERG LITERARY AGENCY, INC. 19 Drew Boyd is a recognized authority, thought leader, educator, and practitioner in the fields of innovation, persuasion, and social media. He is the Executive Director of the Master of Science in Marketing Program and Assistant Professor of Marketing and Innovation at the University of Cincinnati and one of the Washington Speakers Bureau’s most sought after speakers on innovation. Rights sold: Chinese (s): China CITIC Hebrew: Kinneret-Zmora Japanese: Bungei Shunju Korean: Korea Price Information (KPI) Portuguese (Brazil): Bestseller/Editora Record Thai: WeLearn Goldwag, Arthur THE NEW HATE: Fear and Loathing on the Populist Right (Pantheon/Random House, February 2012) Manuscript (304 pages) From the author of –Isms and –Ologies and Cults, Conspiracies, and Secret Societies: a deeply researched, fascinating history of the role that organized hatred has played in American politics, from Colonial times to our own. From the 9/11 “Truthers” who think our government allowed the 2001 al-Qaeda attacks, to the “Birthers” who claim Barack Obama was not born in the United States, extremism in this country is becoming more and more a part of the norm. Now, Arthur Goldwag delineates the origins of these “new” theories; the economic and social factors that have contributed to their popularity; and the ways in which today’s fringe groups relate to similar movements in the past. Ultimately, he makes clear that the rhetoric and theories embraced by contemporary hate groups are deeply rooted in the past, and that, in fact, the only thing new about them is how mainstream they’ve become. Arthur Goldwag is the author of Cults, Conspiracies & Secret Societies (2009), 'Isms and 'Ologies (2007). A freelance writer and editor for more than twenty years, he was worked at the Book-of-the-Month Club, as well as Random House and The New York Review of Books. Rights sold: Australia/New Zealand: Scribe Hafner, Katie MOTHER, DAUGHTER, ME: Three Generations Under One Roof (Random House, 2012) Manuscript due November 2011 Journalist and author Katie Hafner chronicles one intense year of three generations living together—her formerly alcoholic mother, her blossoming teenage daughter Zoe, and Katie herself—a woman struggling to deal with the effects of her unstable childhood, the death of her husband, and providing for her own daughter as a single parent. As the year unfolds, Katie’s hard and troubled childhood is reexamined and brought to the surface and some surprising new troubles arise to test the mettle of this new family unit. While hers is a very personal story, Katie’s dilemma is emblematic of what is happening today with an entire generation, caught between their responsibility for their children and their obligation to their aging parents. They are facing some very hard decisions, wanting to do the right thing by their parents, and hoping their children will want to do the same by them. Katie Hafner is a former New York Times reporter who has also worked at Newsweek and BusinessWeek. During her decade at the Times, she wrote mainly about technology and society. She also wrote for the New York Times 307 Seventh Ave. Suite 2407 NY, NY 10001 (T) 212.337.0934 (F) 212.337.0948 www.levinegreenberg.com LEVINE | GREENBERG LITERARY AGENCY, INC. 20 Magazine from Germany, soon after the fall of the Berlin Wall. She has written for Esquire, Wired, The New Republic, and O Magazine. Rights sold: Dutch: Arena Hofmeister, John WHY WE HATE THE OIL COMPANIES: Straight Talk from an Energy Insider (Palgrave Macmillan, May 2010) Trade Paperback, August 2011 (272 pages) UK rights with Palgrave International Bestseller! (Canada) Nominated for the 2010 Financial Times/Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award! At Shell Oil, John Hofmeister was known for being a straight shooter, willing to challenge his peers throughout the industry. Now, he’s a man on a mission, the founder of Citizens for Affordable Energy, crisscrossing the U.S. in a grassroots campaign to change the way we look at energy. While pundits proffer false new promises of green energy dependence or flatly deny the existence of a problem, Hofmeister offers an insider’s view of what’s behind the energy companies’ posturing and how politicians use energy misinformation and lack of information to get and stay elected. Here, with frank commentary and insider anecdotes, Hofmeister tackles the energy crisis, establishing a new framework to get politics out of the energy debate and establish an orderly transition from fossil fuels to an affordable, sustainable energy future. John Hofmeister joined Royal Dutch Shell in 1997 and served as the president of Shell Oil Company from 20052008, following 25 years at major energy consuming companies, including GE, Nortel, and AlliedSignal. He is now the chairman of the board of the National Urban League and founder of the nonprofit Citizens for Affordable Energy. He lives in Houston, Texas. Praise: “A remarkably balanced reflection from a past industry player.” –Globe & Mail (Canada) “A powerful, new book.” –Tavis Smiley, host of Tavis Smiley on PBS “WHY WE HATE THE OIL COMPANIES is riveting. I keep quoting it to people. Reading it is like having a wise uncle in the energy industry (and an environmental advocate to boot) who takes you aside and tells you, in straight language, exactly what’s wrong and right with the current system. Candor, insight, and urgency at John Hofmeister’s level are so rare that, before this book arrived, I’d forgotten they existed. ” –Art Kleiner, Editor-in-Chief, strategy+business Rights sold: Audio (World English): Audible Chinese (s): Oriental Press Indonesian: PT Gramedia Pustaka Utama Jones, Dhani with Jonathan Grotenstein THE SPORTSMAN: Unexpected Lessons from an Around-the-World Sports Odyssey (Rodale Books, June 2011) Hardcover (280 pages) Color photo insert (8 pgs) 307 Seventh Ave. Suite 2407 NY, NY 10001 (T) 212.337.0934 (F) 212.337.0948 www.levinegreenberg.com LEVINE | GREENBERG LITERARY AGENCY, INC. 21 Football players sometimes joke that “NFL” stands for “not for long”—the average career lasts less than four years. Having just completed his eleventh season in the league, Dhani Jones has already beaten those odds. But a few years ago, Dhani thought his playing days were over. Cut by two teams before the season even began, he was at a professional crossroads. When a series of injuries created an opportunity with the Cincinnati Bengals, however, he was more than ready and in the best shape of his life. And for that, he credits his work off the field. THE SPORTSMAN follows Dhani’s discovery that the parts of his life that, to many, seemed to be distractions— including an off-season TV show that sent him around the world to learn and compete in other sports—actually served to cross-train him in ways he’d never imagined, enabling him to become more grounded, globally aware, and, surprisingly, a much better football player. Part travelogue, part memoir, part workout guide, THE SPORTSMAN is an invigorating account of Dhani’s global sporting adventures and the lessons he has learned along the way. From Dragon Boat Racing in Singapore to carrying 300-pound rocks in Iceland to biking racing in the Italian Alps, engaging in new sports—and with the athletes who play them—made him tougher, smarter, and stronger than ever. THE SPORTSMAN is a reminder that by connecting with the world through its people, its customs, and the spirit of competition, we can empower ourselves in ways that surpass our craziest expectations. Dhani Jones is the defensive captain for the Cincinnati Bengals. He has been the host of two shows—the Travel Channel’s Dhani Tackles the Globe and ESPN’s In the Zone with Dhani Jones, a regular segment for WKRC, Cincinnati’s local CBS affiliate. Dhani has appeared as a guest on dozens of TV shows, including The Today Show, The Colbert Report, Late Night with Jimmy Kimmel, and Talk Soup, and has been the subject of profiles in, among many others, GQ, Elle, People, Men’s Journal, and Essence. Praise: “A cathartic, inspiring tale that promises much more to come.” –Kirkus Reviews “Well-meaning and reflective, this hybrid memoir-travelogue can appeal to those wanting self-evaluation and mental and physical challenges. –Publishers Weekly Kash, Rick and David Calhoun HOW COMPANIES WIN: Profiting from Demand-Driven Business Models No Matter What Business You’re In (HarperBusiness, October 2010) Hardcover, 272 pages UK rights with HarperBusiness HOW COMPANIES WIN is a compelling call to action across every level within a company and across global corporations. For the past twenty years, the growth formula for business has been to increase revenues by expanding product offerings and streamlining supply. But with the recent global recession, the world economy has changed forever. Now, the old tools—most notably supply chain management—are no longer enough. In a new digital age characterized by oversupply and too many product types in almost every market, the new challenge is to locate and capture the elusive pools of high-profit demand. Rick Kash and David Calhoun have the answer: a revolutionary, demand-driven model that has already proven successful for some of the world’s most admired companies, including Best Buy, Anheuser-Busch, Hershey. and Allstate. At the heart of this powerful new business model is an achievable vision for a new kind of winning company, one that uses sophisticated new tools and techniques to discover, characterize, and then serve these pools of high-profit demand—and in the process gain pricing power in that market. Kash and Calhoun show how to use everything from social networks to more revealing and effective customer research techniques and introduce the Demand Chain, the logical new partner to your Supply Chain. Their principles, case histories and insights will help your business run faster, at lower cost, and become better able to deliver high-quality products and services even in the tightest economic climate. 307 Seventh Ave. Suite 2407 NY, NY 10001 (T) 212.337.0934 (F) 212.337.0948 www.levinegreenberg.com LEVINE | GREENBERG LITERARY AGENCY, INC. 22 Rick Kash is the founder and CEO of The Cambridge Group, a growth strategy consulting firm. He is also the author of The New Law of Demand and Supply (2002) and has worked with companies all over the world in order to help them grow with demand-based business models. David Calhoun has been chairman of the executive board and CEO of The Nielsen Company since 2006. Prior to that, Calhoun served as vice chairman of General Electric Company and president and CEO, GE Infrastructure, as well as chief executive of a number of GE divisions and subsidiaries. Praise: “A persuasive case that winning in today’s market requires an understanding that supply-driven business models of the past will not keep pace with fundamental changes in our global economy and its digitally enabled consumer.” –Jack Welch “The rise of social networks has amplified the individual’s voice and this has sparked a revolution in demand. HOW COMPANIES WIN offers real-world solutions that you can implement right now to take advantage of these changes.” –Sheryl Sandberg, COO, Facebook “The lessons of yesterday will not pave a path to the future. Those who adapt to and understand the new rules and new models will ultimately win. The authors underscore the need to look at the world and its changing dynamics in a whole new way.” –Ajay Banga, president and CEO, MasterCard Rights sold: Chinese (s): China CITIC La Leche League International THE WOMANLY ART OF BREASTFEEDING, Completely Revised & Updated 8th Edition (Ballantine, July 2010) Trade Paperback, 576 pages UK rights with Pinter & Martin (via Ballantine) National Bestseller! Over 2 million copies sold! From the internationally-revered woman’s support organization, La Leche League, this is a long-awaited revision of the best-selling new mother’s classic: a comprehensive and reassuring guide to confident breastfeeding, now updated for the first time in six years. La Leche League has been the most trusted information and training provider for nursing mothers for more than fifty years, and their classic guide, The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding, was both the first book of its kind—for mothers, by mothers—and is one of the all-time best-selling guides on the topic. Completely overhauled to acknowledge the wide range of nursing styles among modern mothers (from formula supplementation to offering only breastmilk), this new edition will include more advice for working moms and those with multiples, new tips and stories from real moms, helpful sidebars (i.e. storage times for pumped milk), and new photos and illustrations to help mothers zero in on just what they need to know. It is sure to continue as the "Bible" in the category. The new edition will include: An expanded section to address a working mother's many concerns: help choosing a pump, planning their day, storing their milk, reconnecting with their babies; creative options for arranging their workday, and strategies for getting those options approved. Essential information about breastfeeding positions, latching advice, making sure baby is getting enough to eat, and avoiding sore nipples. Specific advice for mothers nursing twins and multiples: positions, helpful pillows and supports, scheduling, making enough milk for more than one. 307 Seventh Ave. Suite 2407 NY, NY 10001 (T) 212.337.0934 (F) 212.337.0948 www.levinegreenberg.com LEVINE | GREENBERG LITERARY AGENCY, INC. 23 Comprehensive medical information on the lifetime benefits of human milk and the proven bonding benefits of nursing. Internet references for more and detailed information and source material throughout. A new and easy-to-read page design, contemporary photos, sidebars, boxes, and charts to help new moms digest information. La Leche League International strives to help mothers worldwide to breastfeed through mother-to-mother support, encouragement, information, and education, and to promote a better understanding of breastfeeding as an important element in the healthy development of the baby and mother. Founded in 1956 as "La Leche League," LLLI now has a presence in sixty-eight countries. Rights sold: Chinese (S): ThinKingdom Media Group Russian: Exmo Spanish (Spain): Ediciones Medici Turkish: Gun Yayincilik Lee, Ji WORD AS IMAGE (Perigee Trade Paperback, October 2011) Manuscript (208 pages) UK rights with Perigee An imaginative collection of visual word puzzles from the Creative Director of Facebook. As a graphic designer for more than 20 years, Ji Lee is obsessed with word images—and now he’s sharing his own fascination with the world. WORD AS IMAGE is something anyone can do regardless of drawing or design skills. The book outlines the simple rules of the technique and showcases dozens of Ji’s most innovative word images that will have readers looking at words and letters in a completely new way. Ji Lee is the Creative Director of Facebook and was formerly the Creative Director of Google Creative Labs as well as an independent artist and graphic designer. His work has also been featured in the New YorkTimes, Wired, ABC World News, Newsweek, The Guardian, and GQ, and on The Huffington Post, Boing Boing, Gizmodo, and others. You can see more of his work on his website, pleaseenjoy.com. Lesser, Frank (Illustrated by Willie Real) SAD MONSTERS: Growling on the Outside, Crying on the Inside (Plume, October 2011) Trade Paperback (208 pages) B&W illustrations throughout An Emmy Award-winning writer for The Colbert Report follows in the (big) footsteps of Bigfoot: I Not Dead Monsters have it tough. Besides being deeply misunderstood, they suffer from very real problems: Mummies have body image issues, Godzilla is going through an existential crisis, and creatures from the black lagoon face discrimination from creatures from the white lagoon. At heart, these monsters are human; after all, you are what you eat. Quirkily illustrated, SAD MONSTERS hilariously documents the trials and tribulations of all the undead creatures monster-mad readers have grown to love, from vampires and werewolves to chupacabras and sphinxes, and even claw-footed bathtubs. Frank Lesser is a writer for The Colbert Report and was a cowriter of the New York Times bestseller I Am America (And So Can You!). He was a film major and editor of the humor magazine at Brown University. Growing up in 307 Seventh Ave. Suite 2407 NY, NY 10001 (T) 212.337.0934 (F) 212.337.0948 www.levinegreenberg.com LEVINE | GREENBERG LITERARY AGENCY, INC. 24 Columbus, Ohio, he was tormented by a monster under his bed, a situation that only got worse in high school when the monster stole his girlfriend. He now lives in New York. Praise: “Thanks to this hilarious book, I’m no longer scared of monsters. However, I am still terrified of books.” –Stephen Colbert Rights sold: German: Oliver/Riva Levine, Amir M.D. and Rachel Heller, M.A. ATTACHED: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love (Tarcher/Penguin, January 2011) Hardcover, 304 pages Is there a science to love? In this groundbreaking book, psychiatrist and neuroscientist Amir Levine and psychologist Rachel S. F. Heller reveal how an understanding of attachment theory—the most advanced relationship science in existence today—can help us find and sustain love. Attachment theory forms the basis for many bestselling books on the parent/child relationship, but there has yet to be an accessible guide to what this fascinating science has to tell us about adult romantic relationships—until now. Attachment theory owes its inception to British psychologist and psychoanalyst John Bowlby, who in the 1950s examined the tremendous impact that our early relationships with our parents or caregivers has on the people we become. Also central to attachment theory is the discovery that our need to be in a close relationship with one or more individuals is embedded in our genes. In ATTACHED, Levine and Heller trace how these evolutionary influences continue to shape who we are in our relationships today. According to attachment theory, every person behaves in relationships in one of three distinct ways: • ANXIOUS people are often preoccupied with their relationships and tend to worry about their partner’s ability to love them back. • AVOIDANT people equate intimacy with a loss of independence and constantly try to minimize closeness. • SECURE people feel comfortable with intimacy and are usually warm and loving. ATTACHED guides readers in determining what attachment style they and their mate (or potential mates) follow. It also offers readers a wealth of advice on how to navigate their relationships more wisely given their attachment style and that of their partner. An insightful look at the science behind love, ATTACHED offers readers a road map for building stronger, more fulfilling connections with the people they love. Amir Levine, M.D. is an adult, child, and adolescent psychiatrist and neuroscientist. For the past few years he has been conducting neuroscience research at Columbia University under the mentorship of Nobel Prize laureate Eric Kandel. Amir also has a passion for working with patients and it is in this context, while working with mothers and children in a therapeutic nursery, that he first discovered the power of attachment theory. Levine lives in New York City. Rachel S. F. Heller, M.A. works as an educational psychologist and focuses on helping families and couples improve their relationships and lives. Heller lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. Praise: “A groundbreaking book that redefines what it means to be in a relationship.” –John Gray, bestselling author of Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus 307 Seventh Ave. Suite 2407 NY, NY 10001 (T) 212.337.0934 (F) 212.337.0948 www.levinegreenberg.com LEVINE | GREENBERG LITERARY AGENCY, INC. 25 “Chock-full of tips, questionnaires, and case studies, this is a solidly researched and intriguing approach to the perennial trials of looking for love in all the right places and improving existing relationships.” –Publishers Weekly “Amir Levine and Rachel Heller have written a very smart book: it is clear, easy to read, and insightful. It’s a valuable tool, whether you are just entering a relationship with a new partner or—as in my case—even after you’ve been married twenty-one years, and thought you knew everything about your spouse.” –Mariette DiChristina, editor-in-chief, Scientific American Mind Rights sold: Chinese (s): Grand China Publishing German: Kailash/RH Germany Italian: TEA Korean: Random House Korea Polish 1st Serial: Charaktery Magazine Portuguese (Brazil): Novo Conceito Spanish: Ediciones Urano UK: Rodale/Macmillan Lindstrom, Martin BRANDWASHED: Tricks Companies Use to Manipulate Our Minds and Persuade Us to Buy (Crown Business/Random House, September 2011) Foreword by Morgan Spurlock Hardcover (288 pages) From the bestselling author of Buyology comes a shocking insider’s look at how today’s global giants conspire to obscure the truth and manipulate our minds, all in service of persuading us to buy. Marketing visionary Martin Lindstrom has been on the front lines of the branding wars for over twenty years. Here, he turns the spotlight on his own industry, drawing on all he has witnessed behind closed doors, exposing for the first time the full extent of the psychological tricks and traps that companies devise to win our hard-earned dollars. Picking up from where Vance Packard's bestselling classic, The Hidden Persuaders, left off more than half-acentury ago, Lindstrom reveals: New findings that reveal how advertisers and marketers intentionally target children at an alarmingly young age – starting when they are still in the womb! Shocking results of an fMRI study which uncovered what heterosexual men really think about when they see sexually provocative advertising (hint: it isn’t their girlfriends). How marketers and retailers stoke the flames of public panic and capitalize on paranoia over global contagions, extreme weather events, and food contamination scares. The first ever neuroscientific evidence proving how addicted we all are to our iPhones and our Blackberry’s (and the shocking reality of cell phone addiction - it can be harder to shake than addictions to drugs and alcohol). How companies of all stripes are secretly mining our digital footprints to uncover some of the most intimate details of our private lives, then using that information to target us with ads and offers ‘perfectly tailored’ to our psychological profiles. How certain companies, like the maker of one popular lip balm, purposely adjust their formulas in order to make their products chemically addictive. What a 3-month long guerilla marketing experiment, conducted specifically for this book, tells us about the most powerful hidden persuader of them all. And much, much more. This searing expose introduces a new class of tricks, techniques, and seductions – the Hidden Persuaders of the 21st century- and shows why they are more insidious and pervasive than ever. MARTIN LINDSTROM, chairman and founder of Buyology Inc., was voted one of the World's 100 Most Influential people of 2009 by Time magazine. Among the globe's foremost marketers, Lindstrom advises top 307 Seventh Ave. Suite 2407 NY, NY 10001 (T) 212.337.0934 (F) 212.337.0948 www.levinegreenberg.com LEVINE | GREENBERG LITERARY AGENCY, INC. 26 executives at companies such as McDonald's Corporation, Procter & Gamble, and Microsoft. His most recent book, Buyology, was a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller and voted "Pick of the Year" by USA Today. Praise: “Lindstrom aims to explore all that goes on in the subterranean world of marketing and advertising. Only he has one distinct advantage. He’s a true insider.” –Morgan Spurlock, writer & director of Super Size Me “I can’t think of a better tour guide to take us into the black box that is brand marketing. I’ll never look at my favorite brands the same way again!” -- Bill Tancer, bestselling author of Click: What Millions do Online and Why it Matters. “Martin Lindstrom makes the point that marketing today is about connecting with the consumers emotionally in order for them to participate in the brand. I found his book insightful and informative.” -- William Shatner Rights sold: Australia/New Zealand: Random House Chinese (C): Yuan-Liou Danish: L&R Business Dutch: Bruna German: Campus Verlag Italian: Hoepli Editore Korean: Woongjin Think Big Polish: Znak Russian: Exmo Slovenian: Medijski Partner Spanish (Latin America): Grupo Norma Spanish (Spain): Planeta de Agostini Thai: WeLearn Turkish: BZD/Optimist UK: Kogan Page US Audio: Random House Audio Macknik, Stephen and Susana Martinez-Conde with Sandra Blakeslee SLEIGHTS OF MIND: What the Neuroscience of Magic Reveals About Our Everyday Deceptions (Holt, November 2010) Hardcover, 304 pages Have you ever wondered how a magician saws a woman in half? Or makes coins materialize out of thin air? Or reads your mind? Magic tricks work because humans have a hardwired process of attention and awareness that is hackable. A good magician uses your mind’s intrinsic properties against you in a form of mental jujitsu, to fool you every time, even when you know full well that you are being tricked. Now Stephen L. Macknik and Susana Martinez-Conde, the founders of the exciting new discipline of neuromagic, have convinced some of the world's greatest magicians to reveal their techniques for tricking the brain. This fascinating book is the result of the authors' multiyear worldwide exploration of magic and how its ancient principles can now be explained using the latest discoveries of cognitive neuroscience. The secrets behind magic tricks reveal how your brain works not just when watching a magic show but in everyday situations. For instance, if you've found yourself paying for an expensive item you'd sworn you'd never buy, the salesperson was probably a master at creating the "illusion of choice," a core technique of magic. By popping the hood on your brain as you are suckered in by sleights of hand, Macknik and Martinez-Conde unveil the key connections between magic and the mind and along the way make neuroscience more exciting and accessible than ever before. Leading neuroscientists, Stephen Macknik and Susana Martinez-Conde, are a husband and wife team who direct separate laboratories at the Barrow Neurological Institute (BNI) in Phoenix, Arizona, and are the founders of the new discipline of NeuroMagic, which has brought some of the world’s greatest magicians to share their secrets for tricking the brain while scientists study their techniques. The authors write a monthly online column for ScientificAmerican. 307 Seventh Ave. Suite 2407 NY, NY 10001 (T) 212.337.0934 (F) 212.337.0948 www.levinegreenberg.com LEVINE | GREENBERG LITERARY AGENCY, INC. 27 Sandra Blakeslee, who specializes in the brain sciences, is a regular contributor to the Science Times section of The New York Times and the author of several books. Praise: “Magic is the place where our senses and beliefs fail us in magnificent ways. In this exciting book Stephen, Susana, and Sandra explore what magic and illusions can teach us about our fallible human nature—coming up with novel and fascinating observations. –Dan Ariely, author of Predictably Irrational “Steve and Susana are two of the most innovative scientists I know. This book doesn't just promise to change the way you think about sleight of hand and David Copperfield—it will also change the way you think about the mind.” —Jonah Lehrer, author of How We Decide and Proust Was a Neuroscientist “I've long wished that there was a book that explained the art of magic from the point of view of cognitive neuroscience. Magic is a goldmine of information about the brain, as well as a source of fascination to laypeople. This looks like the book we've all been waiting for.” —Steven Pinker, Ph.D., author of The Stuff of Thought Rights sold: Catalan: Grup 62/Planeta Chinese (c): China Times Chinese (s): Beijing Turing Book German: Herder/Kreuz Hungarian First Serial: InterpressMagazin Italian: Edizione Codice Japanese: Kadokawa Korean: Book21 Polish: Helion Portuguese (Brazil): Zahar Russian: Hippo Spanish (World): Destino/Planeta UK: Profile Books US Audio: Tantor Media Madison, Jillian DAMN YOU, AUTOCORRECT! Awesomely Embarrassing Text Messages You Didn't Mean to Send (Hyperion, March 2011) Trade Paperback, 288 pages For texting addicts everywhere comes a collection that is sure to leave you in tears of laughter – DAMN YOU, AUTOCORRECT! based on the wildly popular blog, damnyouautocorrect.com. If you own an iPhone, BlackBerry, Droid, or any smartphone, there’s a good chance you’ve screamed this phrase out at least once. In DAMN YOU, AUTOCORRECT! pop-culture blogger Jillian Madison shows you are not alone. Filled with submissions from readers of her popular website, this laugh-out-loud funny book features cringe-worthy exchanges with parents, friends, significant others, and coworkers that contain some of the most unintentionally hilarious—and mortifying—mistakes ever caused by Autocorrect. Inside, you’ll find a husband who tells his wife that he just “laid” (paid) the babysitter, a dad who tells his daughter that he and her mom are going to “divorce” (Disney), and many more epic texting fails too raunchy to list here. Whether you love technology, texting humor, or taking just a little bit of pleasure in the misfortunes of others, DAMN YOU, AUTOCORRECT! will leave you laughing until you cry, and thankful that nothing this embarrassing has happened to you. Yet. Jillian Madison is the founder of the Pophangover network, a collection of twelve snarky pop-culture blogs. The sites are visited by tens of millions of people every month, and her content is frequently retweeted by celebrities and referenced by media giants like The Huffington Post, Gawker, and Funny or Die. She lives in coastal Connecticut. Praise: “Where victims of autocorrect are invited to submit screen grabs of their most inglorious gaffes.” 307 Seventh Ave. Suite 2407 NY, NY 10001 (T) 212.337.0934 (F) 212.337.0948 www.levinegreenberg.com LEVINE | GREENBERG LITERARY AGENCY, INC. 28 –New York Times Magazine “Some people shouldn't be allowed to send text messages.” –Fort Worth Star Telegram Rights sold: UK: Virgin/Ebury Martin, Demetri THIS IS A BOOK (Grand Central/Hachette, April 2011) Hardcover (320 pages) Line drawings throughout A New York Times Extended List Bestseller! An IndieBound Bestseller! First serial excerpts in The New Yorker and Playboy! From the renowned comedian, executive producer, chief strategist, lead costume wearer and main person in Comedy Central’s Important Things with Demetri Martin comes a bold, original and rectangular kind of humor book. Demetri Martin’s first literary foray picks up where his critically-acclaimed Comedy Central show left off, and leaves off where his critically literary foray picks up. Featuring longer-form essays, short stories and conceptual pieces (such as Protagonist’s Hospital, a melodrama about the clinic doctors who treat only the flesh wounds and minor head scratches of Hollywood action heroes), as well as his trademark drawings, charts, and random bits (i.e., the world views of optimists, pessimists and contortionists), along with his one liners, two liners and unrivaled punctuation…}, Martin’s book is as interesting and varied as this sentence is long. His unique voice and brilliant mind will keep readers in stitches from beginning to end. Plus, aside from being flammable, this book is a great object to have in any home. Demetri Martin is an award-winning comedian, who is best known for his Comedy Central show, Important Things with Demetri Martin, as well as his stand-up comedy routines and contributions to The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Also, he is a person. He has brown hair and is allergic to peanuts. He lives in an apartment somewhere. Praise for Demetri Martin: “He is a palindromist, and anagrammatist, an amateur inventor, and, most visibly these days, an ascendant comedian.” –The New Yorker “The reader who fancies this brand of wry absurdism and playful labeling will be absolutely entertained from The Front to The Back.” –Washington Post “[Martin] achieves a satirical brilliance that moves easily among surprising topics, like philosophy, to easy targets, like healthy lifestyles.” –Publishers Weekly Rights sold: UK: Particular Books/Penguin UK 307 Seventh Ave. Suite 2407 NY, NY 10001 (T) 212.337.0934 (F) 212.337.0948 www.levinegreenberg.com LEVINE | GREENBERG LITERARY AGENCY, INC. 29 Morrison, Suzanne YOGA BITCH: One Woman’s Quest to Conquer Skepticism, Cynicism, and Cigarettes on the Path to Enlightenment (Three Rivers Press/Random House, August 2011) Trade Paperback (352 pages) Suzanne Morrison was a coffee drinking, cigarette smoking, steak-eating twenty-five year-old student about to move to New York City when she decided it was time to get in touch with her spiritual side and travel to Bali for a 2 month yoga teacher training program. She envisioned herself in flowing all-white yoga clothes and meditating to enlightenment on the mud floor a thatched hut. And of course, she would move to New York, more beautiful, serene, and spiritually in-tact than ever. But things don’t go quite as she expected them to. Once in Bali, Suzanne is faced with ant infestations, teachers who believe their kitchen appliances are possessed by spirits, and fellow yogis who, every morning, drink a large, steaming mug of their own…urine. YOGA BITCH chronicles Suzanne’s hilarious adventures and misadventures of her trip as an aspiring yogi who might be just a bit too cynical and skeptical to drink the Kool-Aid. Along the way she transforms from a young girl with an irrational fear of death to a more mature woman who, while she may not have it all figured out, has found some peace and even some insight into this chaotic world. Suzanne Morrison is a certified yoga teacher who has yet to teach a class. A writer and performer currently based in Seattle, her (on-going) one-woman show, Yoga Bitch, has taken the stage in New York City at the Theater Under St. Marks and Ars Nova, and internationally at London’s Theatre 503 and Oxford’s Burton-Taylor Studio. The Seattle Weekly dubbed Suzanne’s show “ambitious, ballsy and hilarious” and Time Out London called it a “New Age nirvana.” Advance Praise: “This winning memoir…translates nicely to written form: the author’s voice is thoughtful, honest and hilarious.” –Publishers Weekly “Brings the higher path down to Earth with refreshing honesty.” –Kirkus Reviews “YOGA BITCH is an unabashedly romantic book, in the very best way—like watching your funniest, most sardonic friend realize that she’s head-over-heels in love.” –Claire Dederer, author of Poser: My Life in Twenty-Three Poses Rights sold: Dutch: Kosmos German: Kruger/Fischer Hebrew: Miskal Russian: Ripol Nicolelis, Miguel BEYOND BOUNDARIES: The New Neuroscience of Connecting Brains with Machines—and How It Will Change Our Lives (Times Books/ Henry Holt & Co., March 2011) Hardcover, 368 pages 49 black & white photographs throughout An International Bestseller! (Brazil) A Wall St. Journal Bestselling Psychology Book! A pioneering neuroscientist shows how the long-sought merger of brains with machines is about to become a paradigm-shifting reality. 307 Seventh Ave. Suite 2407 NY, NY 10001 (T) 212.337.0934 (F) 212.337.0948 www.levinegreenberg.com LEVINE | GREENBERG LITERARY AGENCY, INC. 30 Imagine living in a world where people use their computers, drive their cars, and communicate with one another simply by thinking. In this stunning and inspiring work, the award-winning neuroscientist Miguel Nicolelis shares his revolutionary insights into how the brain creates thought and the human sense of self—and how they might be augmented by machines. It sounds like something out of science fiction, but it is real. It is the next frontier in understanding the power of the brain. BEYOND BOUNDARIES is the first book to chronicle the science behind the creation of these brain-machine interfaces, a revolutionary technology that has the capacity to transform human society and shape a new “industry of the brain,” a potential trillion-dollar global enterprise. This is one of the great adventures of contemporary science, and Nicolelis offers a unique front-row seat. As we observe Nicolelis in the lab, he describes with cinematic precision his experiments training rats to sense the world magnetically, rather than with their whiskers and sensory organs, and his work successfully teaching monkeys to use their brains alone to control the movements of a robotic arm located thousands of miles away. Such brain-machine interfaces, or BMIs, may one day restore mobility to severely paralyzed patients—through use of membrane-like “exoskeletons” that patients will wear like suits—and they offer a path to a cure for neurological disorders such as Parkinson’s disease. There are also fascinating implications for deep-sea and deep-space exploration, emergency response, and long-distance communication. BEYOND BOUNDARIES promises to reshape our concept of the technological future to a world filled with promise and hope. Miguel Nicolelis, M.D., Ph.D., is the Anne W. Deane Professor of Neuroscience at Duke University and founder of Duke’s Center for Neuroengineering. His award-winning research has been published in Nature, Science, and other leading scientific journals, and Scientific American has named him one of the twenty most influential scientists in the world. A member of the French, Brazilian and Pontifical Academies of Sciences, he lives in North Carolina. Praise: “Miguel Nicolelis has produced a delightful and scientifically important work by combining stories of his life with reflections on the big questions in neuroscience. The progress he and his coworkers have made toward a future where humans can use brain activity to directly control computers and mechanical devices to restore lost motor and communication functions is both awe-inspiring and filled with hope.” –Jon Kaas, Distinguished Centennial Professor, Vanderbilt University, and member of the U.S. Academy of Sciences “As readers mull over the debate and absorb Nicolelis’ relativity idea, his conclusion outlines optimistic visionary predictions for neuroscience that will alert them to what’s coming down the pike in technology-driven human evolution.” –Booklist “In this wonderfully vivid and fascinating book, Miguel Nicolelis describes a new view of the human brain, and how interfacing it to machines will have important implications for rehabilitation medicine and beyond.” –Peter Agre, M.D., 2003 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, University Professor and Director, Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute Rights sold: Chinese (C): Commonwealth Chinese (S): Cheers/China Renmin French: Flammarion Italian: Bollati Boringheri Japanese: Hayakawa Korean: Gimm-Young Portuguese (Brazil): Companhia das Letras Spanish: RBA Turkish: Alfa Yayinlari U.S. Audio: Random House Audio 307 Seventh Ave. Suite 2407 NY, NY 10001 (T) 212.337.0934 (F) 212.337.0948 www.levinegreenberg.com LEVINE | GREENBERG LITERARY AGENCY, INC. 31 Riley, Naomi Schaefer THE FACULTY LOUNGES and Other Reasons Why You Won’t Get the College Education You Paid For (Ivan R. Dee, June 2011) Hardcover, 216 pages College tuition has risen four times faster than the rate of inflation for the past two decades. While faculties like to blame the rising costs on fancy athletic buildings and bloated administrations, professors are hardly getting the short end of the stick. Spending on instruction has increased 22 percent over the past decade at private research universities. Parents and taxpayers shouldn’t get overheated about faculty salaries: tenure is where they should concentrate their anger. The job-for-life entitlement that comes with an ivory tower position is at the heart of so many problems with higher education today. Veteran journalist Naomi Schaefer Riley explores how tenure has promoted a class system in higher education, leaving contingent faculty (who are barely making minimum wage and have no time for students) to teach large swaths of the undergraduate population. She shows how the instruction of tenure forces junior professors to keep their mouths shut for a decade or more if they disagree with senior faculty about anything from politics to research methods. And she examines how the institution of tenure—with the job security, mediocre salaries, and low levels of accountability it entails—may be attracting the least innovative and interesting members of our society into teaching. Naomi Schaefer Riley, a former editor at the Wall Street Journal, is the author of God on the Quad: How Religious Colleges and the Missionary Generation Are Changing America. Her writings on higher education have appeared in the New York Times, the Boston Globe, and the Chronicle of Higher Education. She is the winner of the 2006 American Academy of Religion’s Newswriting Contest for Opinion Writing. Naomi graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University and lives in the suburbs of New York with her husband Jason and two children. Praise: “A provocative and even profound book, one that recommends itself to anyone who cares about higher education, especially anyone who is about to make a personal investment in it by signing a tuition check.” –The Wall Street Journal “A lively, no-holds-barred critique of tenure that even skeptical readers should take seriously. Riley makes a comprehensive case that a reexamination of faculty work roles in U.S. universities is inevitable - and desirable.” --Ben Wildavsky, senior fellow, Kauffman Foundation; former editor, US News & World Report College Guides “The issue of tenure lays at the heart of the many critical challenges facing higher education. Significant change cannot occur without the abolition of tenure. Riley’s timely book addresses this contentious problem directly and insightfully and will provoke much-needed debate.” –Mark C. Taylor, author of Crisis on Campus Sack, Celia THE OMNIVORE'S RECIPE KEEPER: A Treasury for Favorite Meals and Kitchen Resources (Ten Speed Press/Random House, October 2011) Spiral Paper Over Board, 8x10, 144 pages w/tabbed pocket inserts, four-color illus. throughout Sample Layout Pages (144 pages) UK rights with Ten Speed Press A recipe organizer for home cooks from San Francisco’s beloved bookshop, Omnivore Books on Food, featuring ample storage and writing space, handy charts, charming vintage art, and culinary wisdom and stories. Less than two years after opening Omnivore Books on Food, Celia Sack has become an integral part of the foodand-wine culture of the Bay Area—and Omnivore is arguably the most influential cookbook store in the country. 307 Seventh Ave. Suite 2407 NY, NY 10001 (T) 212.337.0934 (F) 212.337.0948 www.levinegreenberg.com LEVINE | GREENBERG LITERARY AGENCY, INC. 32 With THE OMNIVORE’S RECIPE KEEPER, Celia has created a practical, charming and highly collectible recipe collector, assembled with the same thoughtfulness and insight as her famed cookbook collection. It contains strong, well-made folders and plentiful space for pasting or writing recipes, as well as wonderfully vintage images culled from 19th-and 20th-century cookbooks. Also featuring helpful charts, diagrams, and kitchen resources, the recipe keeper serves as a go-to reference and kitchen companion, and a must-have for the legions of Celia’s fans. Celia Sack is the owner of Omnivore Books on Food, which offers over 2,000 new, antiquarian, and collectible books on food and drink. Since its opening in 2006, Omnivore Books on Food has become the epicenter of the Bay Area food community: Alice Waters, Eric Ripert, Thomas Keller, and Madhur Jaffrey, among others, have all passed through to talk to Celia, browse the shop, and buy books to add to their collections. Celia has been profiled in The New York Times, was named a San Francisco “Tastemaker” by 7x7 Magazine and, most recently, was named a book consultant at Williams-Sonoma. Seung, Sebastian CONNECTOME: A Neuroscientist’s Search for the Self (Houghton Mifflin, February 2012) Manuscript due September 2011 In 1953, Watson and Crick proposed that DNA is a molecule in the shape of a double helix. This compact jewel of a discovery began the story of the structure of DNA. Fifty years later, the story drew to a dazzling climax with the revelation of the billions of letters in the human genome, specifying the exact sequence of nucleotides along the double helix. In 1906, Ramon y Cajal shared the Nobel Prize for establishing that the brain is a network of cells called neurons. Although it began auspiciously, the story of the brain's structure has dangled unfinished for over a century. Neuroscientists have waited in vain to know how the neurons of the brain are connected by synapses. Recently, a new hope has arisen. A small community of researchers has rallied under the banner of the "connectome." As the genome is the entire sequence of letters in DNA, a connectome is the entirety of connections between the neurons in a brain. Connectomics – the quest to deconstruct biological brains – may sound like science fiction, but scientists already possess rudimentary versions of these technologies. At present, they have mapped the connections in only tiny fractions of brain, but the steady march of technological progress will eventually enable scientists to map the entire brains of small animals, and eventually our own. This is a vision for the future of neuroscience and Connectomics is about to become a reality. The hope is to better understand who we are, where we came from, and where we are going – both as individuals and as a species. In the book, Seung will tackle expansive themes such as AI technology and transhumanism while also making efforts to ground the reader in the hard facts and intellectual rigor of science and technology. Ultimately, CONNECTOME will strive to do for neuroscience what Brian Greene's The Elegant Universe did for physics. Sebastian Seung is a Professor of Computational Neuroscience at MIT as well as the Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, an elite group of biomedical researchers in the United States. In addition, he is an External Member of the Max Planck Society, the foremost basic research organization in Germany. Sebastian received his Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics from Harvard University, completed postdoctoral training at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and worked in the Theoretical Physics Department at Bell Laboratories before joining the MIT faculty in 1998. He has been a Sloan Research Fellow, a Packard Fellow in Science and Engineering, and a McKnight Endowment Fund for Neuroscience Scholar and his research has been published in the leading technical journals, as well as featured in the popular press, including The New York Times, Worth, Technology Review, and The Economist. Advance Praise: “Sebastian Seung is one of the deepest thinking neuroscientists that I know. He combines the intellectual rigor of theoretical physics, the skills of computer science, a profound understanding of biology and brain science, with general erudition in philosophy and other fields.”--Winfried Denk, Director, Max Planck Institute for Medical Research; 2000 Rank Prize for Optoelectronics; 2003 Leibniz Prize 307 Seventh Ave. Suite 2407 NY, NY 10001 (T) 212.337.0934 (F) 212.337.0948 www.levinegreenberg.com LEVINE | GREENBERG LITERARY AGENCY, INC. 33 “Sebastian Seung is widely recognized as a rising star in neuroscience. His enthusiasm and communication skills will be put to good use in explaining a fascinating and tremendously exciting new frontier of brain science.”--Steven Pinker, Professor of Psychology, Harvard University; author of The Language Instinct and How the Mind Works “As a broadcast journalist, I can testify that Sebastian Seung is a mesmerizing story-teller. And what a story he has to tell! He is a leader in the new field of "connectomics," which promises to revolutionize our understanding of mental disorders. One can't help but be impressed by the audacity of his vision.”--Jane Pauley, former anchor of NBC's Today Show; former co-host of Dateline NBC; author of Skywriting: A Life Out of the Blue Rights sold: Dutch: Paradigma Japanese: Soshisha Korean: Gimm-Young Spanish: RBA UK: Allen Lane/Penguin Shapiro, Dana Adam YOU CAN BE RIGHT OR YOU CAN BE MARRIED (Scribner, 2013) Proposal; Manuscript due March 2012 UK rights with Scribner Academy-award nominated filmmaker Dana Adam Shapiro delivers a cohesive, constructive, entertaining—but ultimately hopeful—collection of in-depth interviews exploring what makes marriages durable and what makes them fall apart. This will become the must-read book for people contemplating marriage or a companion for those already separated and seeking to survive their next relationship. Think of this as the most dangerous and controversial marriage/relationship book you’ve ever read. It’s no secret to social scientists that you learn most by failure, not success. This book puts that principle into effect and offers essential advice from those whose marriages have already fallen apart. It’s meant to be read and discussed with your fiancé or spouse to stimulate serious and meaningful conversation about marriage. Each chapter will begin with the “take-away” from each story, which will make clear how you can learn from others and not make the same mistakes they did. Dana Adam Shapiro was nominated for the 2006 Academy Award for his first film, Murderball, a documentary about the United States Paralympic Quad Rugby Team. His latest film, Monogamy (currently in limited release) won the Best NY Narrative Award at the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival and is nominated for a 2011 Independent Spirit Award. Shapiro’s debut novel, The Every Boy (Houghton Mifflin), was a New York Times Editors’ Choice, a 2005 Book Sense Pick and is currently in development with Brad Pitt's Plan B Entertainment. Sheffield, Rob TALKING TO GIRLS ABOUT DURAN DURAN: One Young Man's Quest for True Love and a Cooler Haircut (Dutton/Penguin, July 2010) Trade Paperback, April 2011 (288 pages) A New York Times Bestseller! Amazon.com Best Book of the Month! (July 2010) The ‘80s meant MTV and John Hughes movies, big dreams and bigger shoulder pads. Rob Sheffield, who turned thirteen in 1980, spent the decade stumbling towards adulthood. As a solitary teenager stranded in the suburbs, Rob had a lot to learn about women, love, music, and himself back then. And he was sure his radio had all the answers. The newest bestseller from the author of Love Is a Mix Tape is a pitch-perfect trip through the decade’s music— from Bowie to Bobbie Brown, from hair metal to hip-hop. But TALKING TO GIRLS ABOUT DURAN DURAN 307 Seventh Ave. Suite 2407 NY, NY 10001 (T) 212.337.0934 (F) 212.337.0948 www.levinegreenberg.com LEVINE | GREENBERG LITERARY AGENCY, INC. 34 is so much more than a book about music. It’s about growing up, all the pieces that make an American adolescence, and the particular moments in time that we obsess about years after the fact. Every song is a snapshot, and together they form the soundtrack of your life. Whenever you grew up, and whatever your teenage obsessions, TALKING TO GIRLS ABOUT DURAN DURAN brings those moments to life. Rob Sheffield is a columnist for Rolling Stone, where he writes about music, TV, and pop culture. He regularly appears on VH1, and is the author of the national bestseller, Love Is a Mix Tape. He lives with his wife in Brooklyn. Praise: “Sheffield is endlessly engaging. You’ll tumble 4 him.” --People “A funny, insightful look at the sublime torture of adolescence in any decade.” –Entertainment Weekly “Sheffield’s love letter to the songs that saw him through will resonate with anyone who ever took solace in the radio when no one else seemed to understand.” –The New York Times Book Review Rights sold: French: Rue Fromentin German: Heyne Sheffield, Rob LOVE IS A MIX TAPE (Crown, January 2007) Trade Paperback, December 2007 (240 pages) A New York Times Bestseller! Barnes & Noble Discover Pick, Spring 2007! Rights Sold: Bulgarian: Mahaloto Chinese (C): Music River/Business Weekly Chinese (S): Nanjing University Press French: Sonatine/Le Cherche Midi German: Kiepenheuer & Witsch Italian: Bompiani Japanese: Village Books Korean: Woongjin Think Big Russian: Gayatri Swedish: Damm Forlag UK: Piatkus (ANZ: RH Australia) Sheldrake, Rupert THE SCIENCE DELUSION: Dispelling the Ten Dogmas of Materialism and Freeing the Spirit of Enquiry (Coronet/Hodder & Stoughton (UK), January 2012) Manuscript (320 pages) The science delusion is the belief that science already understands the nature of reality. The fundamental questions are answered, leaving only the details to be filled in. In this book, Dr. Rupert Sheldrake, one of the world’s most innovative scientists, shows that science is currently constricted by assumptions that have hardened into dogmas. The sciences would be better off without them: freer, more interesting, and more fun. According to the dogmas of science, all reality is material or physical. The world is a machine, made up of dead matter. Nature is purposeless. Consciousness is nothing but the physical activity of the brain. Free will is an illusion. God exists only as an idea in human minds, imprisoned within our skulls. But should science be a belief-system, or a method of enquiry? Sheldrake shows that the materialist ideology is moribund; under its sway, increasingly expensive research is reaping diminishing returns. In the skeptical spirit of true science, Sheldrake turns the ten fundamental dogmas of materialism into exciting questions, and shows how all of them open up startling new possibilities. THE SCIENCE DELUSION will radically change your view of what is possible and give you a new hope for the world. 307 Seventh Ave. Suite 2407 NY, NY 10001 (T) 212.337.0934 (F) 212.337.0948 www.levinegreenberg.com LEVINE | GREENBERG LITERARY AGENCY, INC. 35 Rupert Sheldrake, Ph.D. is a biologist and author of more than 80 papers in scientific journals, including Nature, and ten books, including A New Science of Life, originally published in 1981 and re-issued in an updated edition in 2009. He has appeared in many TV programs all over the world and was one of the participants (along with Stephen Jay Gould, Daniel Dennett, Oliver Sacks, Freeman Dyson and Stephen Toulmin) in a TV series called A Glorious Accident, shown on PBS channels throughout the US. He has often taken part in BBC, CBC, NPR and other radio programs and receives numerous media enquiries each year. He has written for newspapers such as the New York Times, Guardian, The Times, Sunday Telegraph, the Globe and Mail, Daily Mirror, Daily Mail, Sunday Times, and The Times Literary Supplement, and has contributed to a variety of magazines, including New Scientist, the Ecologist and the Spectator. He lives in London with his wife and two sons. Rights sold: German: Droemer Portuguese (Brazil): Editora Pensamento Sherman, Scott BAD FOR THE JEWS: Jews in the News Who Embarrass the Tribe (St. Martin’s Griffin Trade Paperback, September 2011) Manuscript (256 pages) 50 b&w illustrations throughout A hilarious account of Jews in the news who embarrass the tribe—by a (Jewish) staff writer of The Colbert Report. Scott Sherman has taken it upon himself to complete a list of 50 Oy-vey inducing members of the tribe—from politics, entertainment and white collar crime—who make it tougher than it already is to be a Jew these days. Notables include: Barbara Streisand: Mere presence convinces every untalented Jew they can become a star… and too much with the politicking! Who elected you? Judge Judy: Who thought it was a good idea to give a Jewish grandmother a television show in which her opinions are legally binding? Releasing the wrath of bubbie onto the world is a cruel, cruel thing to do. Eliot Spitzer: Will Mr. Spitzer’s dalliances and indiscretions prevent Jews from pursuing law degrees? Of course not. We are, if anything, a litigious people. Leonard Nimoy: A Jew playing a pointy-eared half-alien? Everybody thinks we’re strange and foreign enough as it is! Bernie Madoff: Where to begin?? Life is hard enough without having to be concerned that your esteemed brethren are really sleeper-schmucks lying in wait, biding their time for the perfect moment to completely ruin your life. Laura Shlessinger: Referred to herself in a Los Angeles Times Magazine profile as “a prophet.” Let’s be nice and call that a stretch. Scott Sherman is a writer for The Colbert Report on Comedy Central. He has co-written The Dangerous Book for Dogs, The Devious Book for Cats, and The New Vampire's Handbook: A Guide for the Recently Turned Creature of the Night, among other books. He lives in Brooklyn and can be reached at www.greenerpenny.com. Advance Praise: "As a Catholic, I'm not sure I was allowed to laugh while reading Bad For The Jews, but I did anyway. Please don't send letters." –Stephen Colbert 307 Seventh Ave. Suite 2407 NY, NY 10001 (T) 212.337.0934 (F) 212.337.0948 www.levinegreenberg.com LEVINE | GREENBERG LITERARY AGENCY, INC. 36 “As funny as it is insightful. And so bad for the Jews, it’s actually good for the Jews.” –Lewis Black, comedian and author of Me of Little Faith Strenger, Carlo THE FEAR OF INSIGNIFICANCE: Searching for Meaning in the Twenty-first Century (Palgrave, February 2011) Trade Paperback (228 pages) UK Rights with Palgrave Hebrew rights with Kinneret-Zmora In THE FEAR OF INSIGNIFICANCE, Carlo Strenger diagnoses the wide-spread fear of the global educated class of leading insignificant lives. Making use of cutting-edge psychological, philosophical, sociological, and economic theory, he shows how these fears are generated by infotainment’s craze for rating human beings. The book is a unique blend of an interpretation of the historical present and a poignant description of contemporary individual experience, anxiety, and hopes, in which Strenger makes use of his decades of clinical experience in existential psychotherapy. Without falling into the trap of simplistic self-help advice, Strenger shows how a process he calls active self-acceptance, together with serious intellectual investment in our worldviews, can provide us with stable identity and meaning. Strenger’s thesis is that in order to address this malaise, individuality and meaning need to be grounded on values that have been central to the Western tradition: individual development based on accepting the inevitable tension between the human desire to live forever and mortality; and on the demand of Western philosophy to ground our worldviews on critical thought. By facing existential questions squarely, the self once again reclaims a depth beyond its commodity value. According to Strenger the current crisis of Western Culture constitutes a unique, historic opportunity. It may well be that we are at the beginning of a cultural transformation that will lead to a reassessment of what it means to live a valuable life. A rapprochement is to be expected between European cultural sensibilities, characterized by a love of cultural and intellectual depth, and the tremendous intellectual energies of the U.S. that have been relegated to the sidelines of mainstream culture during the last decades. Carlo Strenger is Chair of the Clinical Graduate Program of the Department of Psychology at Tel Aviv University. He is a prominent Israeli psychologist and philosopher whose work and person has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and Time Magazine, as well as hundreds of newspapers and websites in more than twenty languages. Strenger is the author of five books, two of which were long-term bestsellers in Israel, and writes for Haaretz (Israel’s leading liberal newspaper), The Guardian, Die Welt, and The New York Times. Praise: “THE FEAR OF INSIGNIFICANCE is the type of book that can change your life…Strenger encourages the reader to create meaning autonomously and not shy away from the painful work involved in becoming a genuine individual.” –Rana Verbin, Haaretz, Best Books of the Year, June 6, 2010 “A hugely ambitious book that explores what it means to live a valuable life in the contemporary world. Fortunately the author has the erudition, thoughtfulness, clarity and the ability to draw both from his clinical practive and from the conclusions of many significant thinkers to offer a rich reward to the reader.” --Irvin Yalom, Emeritus of Psychiatry, Stanford University Carlo Strenger’s THE FEAR OF INSIGNIFICANCE gives a riveting description of the irrational belief that everything is possible, and that life must be spectacular—a factor that has contributed to the recent financial crisis. His diagnosis is compelling: no matter how much people achieve, they live in persistent doubt that their lives are of significance. His call for a deep, intellectual engagement with basic existential questions will provide many with a road towards a more stable sense of meaning. --Nouriel Roubini, Professor of Economics, Stern School of Business, New York University Rights sold: French: Belfond Italian: Etas Korean: Hanulnun Publishing Portuguese (Portugal): Lua de Papel/Grupo Leya 307 Seventh Ave. Suite 2407 NY, NY 10001 (T) 212.337.0934 (F) 212.337.0948 www.levinegreenberg.com LEVINE | GREENBERG LITERARY AGENCY, INC. 37 Surovec, Yasmine CAT VERSUS HUMAN (Andrews McMeel, October 2011) 6 ½” X 8 ½” four-color paperback Trade Paperback (152 pages) The first collection of Cat vs Human cartoons for the millions of cat lovers that adore their furry felines! Yasmine Surovec began sketching her clever and sarcastic Cat Versus Human cartoons as a way to relax and unwind. Soon, her popular blogsite at catversushuman.blogspot.com began receiving as many as 12,000 hits per day, with a number of posts going viral and appearing on popular websites such as Huffington Post and I Can Has Cheezburger. Now, a selection of 100 Cat Versus Human strips—many never previously published—can be found inside this inaugural collection of CAT VERSUS HUMAN. Proud cat owners everywhere will instantly recognize Surovec’s keen insights into cat behavior and all of the characteristic intricacies of the cat-human relationship. Such as the allure of an empty cardboard box trumping an expensive battery-operated toy—even if the toy comes complete with fuzzy plushy lures and a $24.99 price tag. Or, how a cat’s favorite nap spot might as easily be inside a litter box, on top of clean laundry, or nestled directly on top of a human face. CAT VERSUS HUMAN encourages an affectionate look at your once-was-mint-condition midcentury modern sofa that is now being unstuffed one cat claw at a time. Yasmine Surovec is the creative talent behind catversushuman.blogspot.com, as well as an illustrator and designer of a number of popular online ventures. Her work has been featured on popular sites such as Apartment Therapy, Craft Magazine, Decor8, I Can Has Cheezburger, and more. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband, three cats and a puppy. Thomas, Douglas and John Seely Brown A NEW CULTURE OF LEARNING: Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change (Amazon CreateSpace , January 2011) Trade Paperback, 140 pages An Atlantic’s 10 Essential Books for a Thought-Provoking Summer! (2011) When people think about learning, they usually think about schools. And when people think about schools, they usually think about teachers. In this book, legendary technologist John Seely Brown and his colleague Douglas Thomas take a very different approach. In their view, the kind of learning that will define the twenty-first century is not taking place in a classroom – at least not in today’s classroom. Rather, it is happening all around us, everywhere, and it is powerful. Thomas and Brown call this phenomenon the new culture of learning, and it is grounded in a very simple question: What happens to learning when we move from the stable infrastructure of the twentieth century to the fluid infrastructure of the twenty-first century, where technology is constantly crating and responding to change? The new culture of learning that is going on as a result looks so different from the kinds of learning described by most educational theorists that it is essentially invisible. It takes place without books, without teachers, and without classrooms. As former MacArthur Foundation president Jonathan Fanton says, “This is not a book about school reform, but rather, an exploration of how people of all ages are learning by doing, asking fresh questions, and working together to solve problems and seize opportunities. It is a call to action to re-conceive how we learn at all ages. This is a profoundly optimistic book that gives us confidence to embrace change - indeed compels us to celebrate change, as it provides a guide to the future.” 307 Seventh Ave. Suite 2407 NY, NY 10001 (T) 212.337.0934 (F) 212.337.0948 www.levinegreenberg.com LEVINE | GREENBERG LITERARY AGENCY, INC. 38 Douglas Thomas is an associate professor at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism and the author and coauthor of several books. John Seely Brown was the chief scientist of Xerox and, for nearly two decades, the director of the company’s Palo Alto Research Center. Currently, he is an advisor to the provost at the University of Southern California and an independent cochairman of the Deloitte Center for the Edge. He is an author or a coauthor of several books, including The Power of Pull and The Social Life of Information, which has been translated into nine languages. Praise: “Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown portray the new world of learning gracefully, vividly and convincingly.” –Howard Gardner, Professor, Harvard Graduate School of Education “A NEW CULTURE OF LEARNING may provide for the digital media and learning movement what Thomas Paine’s Common Sense did for the colonists during the American Revolution—a straightforward, direct explanation of what we are fighting for and what we are fighting against.” –Henry Jenkins, author of Convergence Culture “Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown make it clear that education is too often a mechanistic, solo activity delivered to the young. It doesn’t have to be that way—learning can be a messy, social, playful, embedded, constant activity.” --Clay Shirky, author of Cognitive Surplus Rights sold: Chinese (Complex): iG Publishing Ubel, Peter A. THE OTHER END OF THE STETHOSCOPE: Decision Making in the New World of Doctor/Patient Negotiation (HarperOne, Fall 2012) Proposal; Manuscript due January 2012 Jerome Groopman’s How Doctors Think, Atul Gawande’s Complications, and Siddartha Mukherajee’s The Emperor of All Maladies have all become bestsellers by looking at the world from the doctor’s point of view. THE OTHER END OF THE STETHOSCOPE will appeal to the same audience by offering something new: the first look at doctors and patients working together (however fitfully and awkwardly) to make medical decisions. It will also appeal to the large audience that has devoured Jonah Lehrer’s How We Decide and Dan Ariely’s Predictably Irrational. THE OTHER END OF THE STETHOSCOPE will show how the fascinating science of decision making applies to the most important decisions they’ll make in their lives – life-altering decisions about serious illness. Peter Ubel will show people why such understanding is crucial not only to improve these important decisions, but also to resolve age-old moral dilemmas about who – doctors, patients, both? – should be making these vital choices. Peter Ubel is both a practicing physician and a Duke University-based behavioral scientist. Weaving medical stories together with up-to-date explorations of the science of medical decision making, he illuminates the forces that cause doctors and patients to make terrible choices just when patients face the most important decision of their lives. And he points the way toward overcoming these forces, and improving the way doctors and patients interact with each other. Advance Praise: “This book asks some of the most profound questions of our time. Are we equipped, as humans, to make the choice of whether to live or die? What is more important, quality or quantity of life? Is anyone—be it an individual deciding for him- or herself or deciding on behalf of another—equipped to make such decisions? A must-read for serious readers!” --Sheena Iyengar, author of The Art of Choosing 307 Seventh Ave. Suite 2407 NY, NY 10001 (T) 212.337.0934 (F) 212.337.0948 www.levinegreenberg.com LEVINE | GREENBERG LITERARY AGENCY, INC. 39 “Peter Ubel is a top notch scientist and writer. His ideas are important, his style is accessible (with the right balance of humor and compassion) and his topic is timely. We need someone like Peter, no—we need Peter—to help us sort out how patients and their doctors can better work together to make these important decisions.” --Dan Gilbert, author of Stumbling on Happiness “The doctor’s office is the worst place to make a mistake. As a physician and a social scientist, Peter Ubel is unparalleled in his understanding of some of the most important decisions we are all facing, or will face.” --Dan Ariely, author of Predictably Irrational Rights sold: Australia/New Zealand: Text Publishing Walker, Michael ALL ACCESS, ’73: Three Tours That Changed Rock and Roll (And the World) (Spiegel & Grau, 2012) Proposal; Manuscript due Spring 2012 1973 was the year when authentic rock and roll excess hit its high point. It was the point at which the rock Gods officially ditched their connection to the Hippy pastoral of Woodstock, and the brief period before music was ruled by the big business stadium rock of Peter Frampton and Fleetwood Mac. Walker presents three major 1973 tours that epitomize the new rock ascendency before it became prepackaged: Alice Cooper, The Who, and Led Zeppelin. In the spirit of books like Fred Goodman’s The Mansion on the Hill and Motley Crue’s The Dirt, Walker not only reveals the behind the scenes debauchery – like the small hotels outside of Buffalo where Alice Cooper descended into an alcoholic stupor – and the big center stage moments (when Zeppelin closed out their tour at Madison Square Garden with their very last Stairway to Heaven), but also discusses how music history got us to such an intense high point, only to quickly make it all disappear. Michael Walker has written for The New York Times, LA Times, Rolling Stone, among many other publications, and is the author of the national bestseller Laurel Canyon: The Inside Story of Rock and Roll’s Legendary Neighborhood (Faber & Faber, 2006). Weber, Suzanne TO WHAT MISERABLE WRETCHES HAVE I BEEN BORN? Revenge Poetry for Babies and Toddlers (Atria Books, April 2012) Manuscript due December 2011 UK Rights with Atria In a society over-saturated with books, magazines, blogs, reality shows, and YouTube videos aggressively conveying everyone’s (and anyone’s) latest advice on parenting, there still remains one important and unrepresented opinion…that of the BABY!!! Fortunately, TO WHAT MISERABLE WRETCHES HAVE I BEEN BORN? has arrived to give voice to the pre-verbal. Through the relentless and unfiltered lens of a baby no longer willing to stay silent in the face of neurotic parenting, the most vital perspective on parenting is finally delivered. Although there has been some recent backlash to the over-anxious, “helicopter,” Tiger Mom, batshit-crazy style of parenting, the offspring of these über-parents have been wanting to lash back for a long time. TO WHAT MISERABLE WRETCHES HAVE I BEEN BORN? gives frustrated babies and toddlers a soapbox on which to 307 Seventh Ave. Suite 2407 NY, NY 10001 (T) 212.337.0934 (F) 212.337.0948 www.levinegreenberg.com LEVINE | GREENBERG LITERARY AGENCY, INC. 40 stand (or sit or have tummy-time). From a poem about swaddling titled Where are my hands??? to the poem, Cease and Desist, which decries the exploitation of a baby’s intellectual property when parents post humiliating home videos online to You Cry It Out, Bitches (“You’re reading that a-hole Ferber again, aren’t you?”), modern parents will be forced to examine their approach to parenting from the perspective of their judgmental, ruthless, and bitter (albeit adorable) progeny, who turns out not to be as innocent as he/she seems. Sassy, tongue-in-cheek, and LMAO funny, TO WHAT MISERABLE WRETCHES HAVE I BEEN BORN? is an ideal gift for parents who strive for perfection (and have a sense-of-humor) from the people who love them (and by “love” we mean “need to make fun of”). Suzanne Weber is best-known for creating, performing and writing as the character Anita Liberty, a performance poet who achieves notoriety by devoting her entire career to humiliating her jerk of an ex-boyfriend in public. A native New Yorker, Weber currently resides in Los Angeles where she writes books, television pilots, Facebook status updates, tweets, and her daughter’s second-grade homework. Praise for Suzanne Weber: “An undeniably authentic and original tale of adolescence.” –Kirkus Reviews, on The Center of the Universe (Yep, That Would Be Me) “Anita Liberty[Suzanne Weber] vents her rage against a detestable ex-boyfriend in humorously vengeful poetry, diary excerpts and one-line zingers.” –Entertainment Weekly, on How to Heal the Hurt by Hating Weiner, Carl M.D. with Kate Rope THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO MEDICATIONS DURING PREGNANCY AND BREASTFEEDING: Everything You Need to Know to Make the Best Choices for You and Your Baby (St. Martin’s Press Trade Paperback, 2012) Proposal; Manuscript due October 2011 Each year 134 million women in the world give birth and every one of them will have to decide at some point what medications to take for a headache, for a cold, or for a yeast infection. Nearly two-thirds of them will face even more serious decisions about prescription medication. Almost all women take at least one medication during pregnancy, and on average, women take between 5 and 15 medications. Experts agree those numbers are rising as women have children later in life when they are more likely to be living with chronic medical conditions or to develop pregnancy complications that require treatment. And yet there is no single, easy-to-understand resource to help women make informed decisions. In fact, there is no book that comes close. This book, a lay adaptation of a best-selling go-to resource for doctors from a renowned maternal-fetal medicine expert and a veteran health reporter, combines authority and empathy to provide a comprehensive, easy-tounderstand guide to what we know about medications during pregnancy and breastfeeding, whether they will harm a growing fetus or breastfeeding baby, and when and how they should be taken or avoided. In an alphabetical, encyclopedic format, it will be a go-to resource for the pregnant woman who wakes in the middle of the night with a splitting headache, the woman who develops diabetes during pregnancy, the woman who takes medication for asthma and wonders whether she will be able to breastfeed her child, or the woman with allergies who discovers she’s pregnant after taking allergy medication for two weeks. In seconds, they can pull this book off their nightstand or bookshelf, read an expert’s summary and opinion and feel good about a decision that, before now, was a source of incredible anxiety and fear. THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO MEDICATIONS DURING PREGNANCY AND BREASTFEEDING will provide women access to the best available information doctors have, but in easy-to-understand language, giving them the information they need at home as well as a guide they can bring to the doctor’s office to help them make an informed choice with their physician. 307 Seventh Ave. Suite 2407 NY, NY 10001 (T) 212.337.0934 (F) 212.337.0948 www.levinegreenberg.com LEVINE | GREENBERG LITERARY AGENCY, INC. 41 Dr. Carl Weiner is Chair of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Professor of Integrative and Molecular Physiology at the University of Kansas School of Medicine, and the author of five textbooks including High Risk Pregnancy: Management Options, now entering its 4th edition, and the highest-selling text in high risk pregnancy in the world. Kate Rope is a veteran health reporter and currently the web writer for DoctorOZ.com (the website for the popular Dr. Oz Show).Formerly, she was the health reporter for Life magazine and a founding editor of Health.com. Her writing has appeared in Life, Self, Shape, National Geographic Adventure, Glamour UK and Real Simple, among many other publications. Whitfield, John PEOPLE WILL TALK: The Surprising Science of Reputation (John Wiley & Sons, November 2011) Manuscript, 319 pages British scientist and science journalist John Whitfield synthesizes the latest cutting edge research from several disciplines to shed new light on how reputation influences the world – including our individual lives and the lives of all those around us. Perhaps nothing contributes more to your success in life than your reputation, yet most people don’t understand how it works. Whitfield synthesizes decades of work in biology, psychology, economics, and anthropology to explain the reasons behind the importance of reputation and the role it plays in everything from our fascination with gossip to why states go to war and gang members indulge in senseless violence. Uses the science of reputation to answer a range of social and behavioral questions, from “What’s the ideal number of Facebook friends?” (300) to “Why do young people post pictures of themselves drunk or wild when it might scare off potential employers or potential mates?” (Because it might scare off potential employers or potential mates.) Explains the secret to getting a good reputation and explains why we work so hard to protect something that does not really belong to us, but to those who know us or of us Examines why reputation is so important in human lives, including its role in determining trustworthiness and exercising control Read PEOPLE WILL TALK and the next time you think your reputation is on the line, you’ll understand why it matters—and what you can do about it. John Whitfield holds a Ph.D. in insect evolution from Cambridge University and was an editor at Nature for six years prior to turning to freelance journalism. He writes news, features and reviews for US magazines including Scientific American, Discover, Seed, and Science, UK magazines including New Scientist, Nature, the London Review of Books, and BBC Wildlife, and newspapers including the Guardian, Financial Times, Sunday Times and Independent on Sunday. He is also the author of In the Beat of a Heart (Joseph Henry Press, 2006). Rights sold: Japanese: Chukei Korean: KPI Portuguese (Brazil): Editora Record UK: Duckworth US Audio: Audible 307 Seventh Ave. Suite 2407 NY, NY 10001 (T) 212.337.0934 (F) 212.337.0948 www.levinegreenberg.com LEVINE | GREENBERG LITERARY AGENCY, INC. 42 ADULT FICTION Bergreen, Karen PERFECT IS OVERRATED (St. Martin’s Press, Spring 2012) Manuscript (351 pages) Kate Hagen has been in bed for way too long. She adores her four-year-old daughter, Molly, but post-partum depression has left her sad, jobless, and without her formerly beloved homicide-cop husband. Then, one of the mothers from Molly’s preschool is murdered. Instead of feeling frightened, Kate perks right up. She wonders at her own callousness, yet comes alive searching for the murderer, reminding her happily of her years in the U.S. Attorney’s office before she left to raise Molly. It becomes even more exciting – and, of course, more tragic – when two more mommies are killed. Kate finds herself not just cleaning (for the first time in quite a while) and making friends (an even longer while), but she’s romantically pursued by a drop-dead gorgeous male ten years her junior. And, for better or worse, her ex-husband is back on the scene. Whether he’s pursuing a murderer or once again pursuing Kate is not entirely certain. Like Bergreen’s first novel, Following Polly, PERFECT IS OVERRATED is deliciously human and romantic, with an overlay of suspense that keeps the reader glued to the page. Karen Bergreen is a comedian who performs live at Caroline’s, Stand-Up New York, Gotham, and The Comic Strip and has appeared on Comedy Central, the Oxygen Network and Law & Order. She is the author of Following Polly and lives with her family in New York City. Bergreen, Karen FOLLOWING POLLY (St. Martin’s Press, June 2010) Trade Paperback, August 2011 (320 pages) Praise: “FOLLOWING POLLY sparkles. It's got wit and energy, along with fabulous characters to love (and loathe).” –Susan Isaacs, author of Close Relations “It’s like Comedy Central picked up Law & Order for an episode…combines edgy thrills with a wicked sense of humor and an endearing heart of gold.” –Publishers Weekly “FOLLOWING POLLY is a delicious debut novel. Murder most foul is most fun, and Alice Teakle is so clever and quirky as a protagonist—or is she a perp?—that you won’t be able to stop reading. Bergreen is a wonderful new voice in the mystery world.” –Linda Fairstein, author of Hell Gate 307 Seventh Ave. Suite 2407 NY, NY 10001 (T) 212.337.0934 (F) 212.337.0948 www.levinegreenberg.com LEVINE | GREENBERG LITERARY AGENCY, INC. 43 Fitzgerald, Laura DREAMING IN ENGLISH (NAL Trade Paperback, February 2011) Trade Paperback (432 pages) A captivating sequel to the international bestselling novel Veil of Roses Knowing she could never be happy in Iran, Tamila Soroush took her mother’s advice to “go and wake up your luck” and joined her sister in the United States, where amazing freedoms awaited her. Now, after a spur-of-the-moment exchange of “I do’s” with her true love, Ike Hanson, Tami is eager to start her new life.But not everyone is pleased with their marriage, and Tami’s happily-ever-after is no sure thing. As tensions escalate, Tami’s sense of self-worth takes a beating, especially when her earlier attempts to find a husband on a visitor’s visa return to haunt her. And there are her parents, stuck behind in a country that betrayed them. How can she be happy when they are not? Tami is beginning to understand that freedom is not for the faint of heart. With so much stacked against her, and her immigration interview looming, she wonders whether she’s got the right stuff when it comes to love, Americanstyle. Maybe her luck is running out…or maybe she’ll step up to the plate and claim her American dream. Laura Fitzgerald, a native of Wisconsin, lives in Arizona with her husband, who is of Iranian descent, and their two children. Praise: “What a delight to dive back into the world of Tami Soroush, an artistic and charming young Persian woman intoxicated with America and the possibilities for a new life. Laura Fitzgerald has given us another beautiful, heartfelt tale about love, family, and freedom.” –Carol Snow, author of Just Like Me, Only Better “If you want to stand up and cheer, read Dreaming in English. I loved the compelling, sweet love story. And I loved the way Laura Fitzgerald, through the eyes of an Iranian immigrant, made me fall in love with America all over again.” –Cathy Lamb, author of Such a Pretty Face and Julia’s Chocolates Rights sold: Hebrew: Sifriat Ma'ariv Polish: Remi U.S. Audio: Brilliance Fitzgerald, Laura VEIL OF ROSES (Bantam Trade Paperback, January 2007) Target Book Club Pick, May 2007! Over 200,000 copies in print! International Bestseller in Israel! Film Rights: RHI Entertainment Rights Sold: Dutch: Bruna German: Bastei Hebrew: Sifriat Ma’ariv Indonesian: PT Gramedia Pustaka Utama Italian: Piemme Polish: Remi Portuguese (Brazil): Novo Seculo Turkish: Koridor US Audio: Brilliance 307 Seventh Ave. Suite 2407 NY, NY 10001 (T) 212.337.0934 (F) 212.337.0948 www.levinegreenberg.com LEVINE | GREENBERG LITERARY AGENCY, INC. 44 Friedman, Daniel DON’T EVER GET OLD (Thomas Dunne, Spring 2012) Manuscript (330 pages) Eighty-seven year-old Baruch "Buck" Schatz remembers a time when the only "portable handheld device" anybody needed was a .357, "Google" was the sound a guy made when you punched him in the throat, and "social networking functionality" came out of a bottle. These days, though, this retired detective is extremely frail and frequently confused. But when he learns the SS officer who tortured him in a POW camp may have escaped Germany with a fortune in stolen gold, Buck decides to hunt down the fugitive and claim the loot. He's got nothing better to do, and keeping his mind occupied is supposed to ward off dementia. Assisted by his grandson, a law student who knows how to find information using a computer and is allowed to drive at night, Buck finds a lead down the Nazi's long-cold trail. But lots of people want a piece of that treasure, and Buck's investigation quickly attracts unfriendly attention from a Mississippi loan shark, a seven-foot tall Hasidic Jew, a preacher on the take, a cop with a grudge and a bloodthirsty maniac hell-bent on rubbing out everybody who knows anything about Nazi gold. DON'T EVER GET OLD is a mystery about a hard-boiled man in a world gone soft, confronting the existential reality of his inevitable decline and death while trying to get rich quick. Daniel Friedman is 28 years old and originally from Memphis, TN, but now lives in Manhattan, near a Loew's movie theater. His humor essays have been published online but this is his first novel. He graduated from University of Maryland with a BA in Journalism and holds a JD from NYU Law School. Advance Praise: “Once you start reading this wonderfully original and totally engrossing story, you’ll do what I did: keep reading, mostly to see what comes out of Buck’s mouth next. When I’m 87, I want to be Buck Schatz.” –Nelson DeMille, NYT bestselling author Rights sold: Portuguese (Brazil): Novo Seculo Gold, August and Joel Fotinos THE PRAYER CHEST: A Novel (Doubleday, October 2007) Trade Paperback from New World Library in October 2011 (208 pages) UK Rights with New World Library A Target Breakout Book! Since the beginning of time, every man and woman has prayed — with millions of prayers sent out from all corners of the earth every day. Why, then, are only a handful of them answered? What role does luck, chance, and fate play in our lives? How can we discover and live our destiny? These are the questions explored in this delightful, hearttugging fable. Joseph Hutchinson is a man who knows the reality of tragedy all too well; his life has been filled with misfortune and adversity. A widowed father of two, living on a farm that is about to be taken from him, Joseph embarks on an unexpected journey that will bring him face-to-face with his greatest fears, and ultimately with his greatest discovery — a mysterious wooden box hidden in his attic more than one hundred years earlier. This box, the Prayer Chest, contains the Three Secrets of Prayer that will change his life and the lives of everyone around him. 307 Seventh Ave. Suite 2407 NY, NY 10001 (T) 212.337.0934 (F) 212.337.0948 www.levinegreenberg.com LEVINE | GREENBERG LITERARY AGENCY, INC. 45 What starts out as a journey to save his children and himself turns into a quest through which he — and every reader who has ever struggled — discovers the power to make every prayer come true. Rich in romance, mystery, and spiritual insight, THE PRAYER CHEST is a wise and warm tale that will revolutionize everything we've ever thought about prayer — and the meaning of our lives here on earth. A parable for people of all faiths — or none — it is to be read, enjoyed, and above all, lived. August Gold is the Founder and Spiritual Director of Sacred Center New York for over eight years. She is also an award-winning author and has served as an inspirational teacher and counselor in New York City for twenty years. Joel Fotinos, a vice president at Penguin Group (USA) Inc., is the publisher of the Tarcher imprint and founder of the Putnam Praise publishing program. A cofounder of Sacred Center New York, he is an ordained New Though minister and lives in New Jersey. Rights Sold: German: Droemer Greek: Enalios Korean: Myung Jin Portuguese (Brazil only): Ediouro Spanish: Ediciones B Hornschemeier, Paul LIFE WITH MR. DANGEROUS (Graphic Novel) (Villard/Random House, May 2011) 160 pages, $20.00 Hardcover, 160 pages New York Times Bestselling Graphic Novel! Amazon.com’s Best of 2011! Somewhere in the Midwest, Amy Breis is going nowhere. Amy has a job she hates, a creep boyfriend she’s just dumped, and a best friend she can’t reach on the phone, but at least her (often painfully passive-aggressive) mother bought her a pink unicorn sweatshirt for her birthday. Pink. Unicorn. For her twenty-sixth birthday. Gliding through the daydreams and realities of a young woman searching for definition, LIFE WITH MR. DANGEROUS showcases acclaimed cartoonist Paul Hornschemeier’s gift for deadpan humor and dead-on insight with a droll aftertaste—an unlikely but welcome marriage of the bleak and the hopeful. Paul Hornschemeier’s previous book, Mother Come Home was called “a masterpiece” by Entertainment Weekly. He was picked for Rolling Stone’s 2005 Next List and has been featured in Time magazine and the Los Angeles Times. Praise: “It’s a surprisingly rare thing to find the great comic artist who can not only draw with poetry and beauty, but write like a demon as well…Hornschemeier’s skills are nearly as verbal as they are visual.” –Publishers Weekly, starred review “If other comics are easy chairs, his work offers the pleasure, and the pain, of reclining on a psychiatrist’s couch.” --Time Magazine “Cringe and laugh and cringe some more—LIFE WITH MR. DANGEROUS has it all. Also, you will cringe.” –Patton Oswalt, comedian and author of Zombie Spaceship Wasteland Rights sold: French: Actes Sud German: Carlsen 307 Seventh Ave. Suite 2407 NY, NY 10001 (T) 212.337.0934 (F) 212.337.0948 www.levinegreenberg.com LEVINE | GREENBERG LITERARY AGENCY, INC. Italian: Comma22 46 Spanish: Astiberri Keller, Cynthia A PLAIN AND FANCY CHRISTMAS (Ballantine, October 2011) Manuscript (240 pages) Raised in a Pennsylvania Amish community, young mother Rachel Yoder has led a simple life within her close-knit family. Widowed three years ago, she has moved back in with her parents, attempting to raise her daughter, Katie, without further emotional upheaval. Meanwhile, four hours and a whole world away in New York City, Ellie Lawrence is laser-focused on a high-powered public relations career, with too little time for her family, her friends, or even her boyfriend. Then one fateful day, these two very different women receive shocking news of a mistake made three decades earlier and long kept hidden: Shortly after their births, the two were accidentally switched in the hospital. Shaken to the core by this momentous news, Rachel and Ellie are plunged into an exploration of who they are and where they really belong. While Ellie is eager to learn more about her Amish family and their life in the countryside, Rachel cannot help but feel jealous as she watches the only mother she has ever known bonding so easily with her natural daughter. But Rachel also knows that her own biological family is out there, and with Katie at her side she heads for Manhattan, where she establishes a connection with the raucous, spirited Lawrences. As Ellie and Rachel make their way through unfamiliar landscapes, they face life-altering challenges and grapple with a crucial question: Will their old conventions and desires give way to new customs and yearnings? With the Christmas holidays fast approaching, it takes the love of two families for Rachel and Ellie to discover their own paths to fulfillment and happiness. Cynthia Keller lives in Connecticut with her husband and two children. Keller, Cynthia AN AMISH CHRISTMAS (Ballantine Books/Random House, November 2010) Hardcover, 256 pages A Selection of the Doubleday Book Club! Praise: “Warm and lively and cheer-inducing.” –The Huffington Post “This little book is a holiday charmer young and old will find appealing.”—Fredericksburg Free Lance–Star “This simple, compelling tale feels fresh like a brisk winter morning.”—Lincoln Journal Star Rights sold: German: Weltbild 307 Seventh Ave. Suite 2407 NY, NY 10001 (T) 212.337.0934 (F) 212.337.0948 www.levinegreenberg.com LEVINE | GREENBERG LITERARY AGENCY, INC. 47 Klosterman, Chuck THE VISIBLE MAN: A Novel (Scribner, October 2011) Galley (256 pages) From the provocative cultural commentator and author who “makes good, smart company” (The New York Times) comes an imaginative page-turner about a therapist and her unusual patient—a man who can render himself invisible. Austin, Texas therapist Victoria Vick is contacted by an unlikeable man who insists his situation is unique. As he reveals himself to her slowly and cryptically, she becomes convinced that he suffers from a complex set of delusions: Y_, as she refers to him, claims to be a scientist who stole cloaking technology from an aborted government project in order to render himself nearly invisible. He says he uses this ability to observe random individuals within their daily lives, usually when they are alone and vulnerable. Unsure of his motives or truthfulness, Vick becomes obsessed with this patient and the disclosure of his increasingly bizarre and disturbing tales. Over time, it threatens her career, her marriage, and her own self-identity. Interspersed with notes, correspondence, and transcriptions that catalog a relationship based on curiosity and fear, THE VISIBLE MAN touches on all of Klosterman’s favorite themes—from the consequences of pop culture and the influence of media, to issues of voyeurism, normalcy, and reality. The novel is sure to delight and/or alienate his ever-growing legion of fans, except for those who immediately become ambivalent. Anything is possible. Chuck Klosterman is the New York Times bestselling author of Eating the Dinosaur; Downtown Owl; Chuck Klosterman IV; Killing Yourself to Live; Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs; and Fargo Rock City, winner of the ASCAPDeems Taylor Award. He has written for GQ, Esquire, The New York Times, Spin, The Washington Post, The Guardian, The Believer, A.V. Club, and ESPN. Advance Praise: “Klosterman's deadpan humor is on full display in this tour de force exploration of intimacy and voyeurism.” –Publishers Weekly “Daring and ambitious… immersed as always in popular culture, but rises to the challenge of creative fiction.” –Kirkus Review Rights sold: Bulgarian: Riva Klosterman, Chuck DOWNTOWN OWL: A Novel (Scribner/S&S, September 2008) Trade Paperback, June 2009 (304 pages) 65,000 copies sold Film rights: Kassie Evashevski, UTA Rights sold: German: S. Fischer Verlag 307 Seventh Ave. Suite 2407 NY, NY 10001 (T) 212.337.0934 (F) 212.337.0948 www.levinegreenberg.com LEVINE | GREENBERG LITERARY AGENCY, INC. 48 Lourey, Jess OCTOBER FEST: A Murder-By-Month Mystery (Book #6) (Midnight Ink, May 2011) Trade Paperback (240 pages) Welcome to Battle Lake, Minnesota: home to trophy fish, 23-foot fiberglass statues, and a murder a month. Beer and polka music reign supreme at Octoberfest, Battle Lake’s premier fall festival. To kick off the celebrations, the town hosts a public debate between the two congressional candidates: straight-laced Arnold Swydecker, and slippery incumbent, Sarah Glokkmann. As a reporter for the Battle Lake Recall, Mira James is roped into writing up the world war. But the festive mood sours when a well-known Glokkmann-bashing blogger is found dead…and the congresswoman herself meets a gruesome fate. To keep the heat off her best friend’s fiancé—an ex-con reporter—Mira wades through the candidates’ dirty laundry, their unsavory secrets, and some murderous mudslinging to expose the killer. Jess Lourey spent her formative years in Paynesville, Minnesota, a small town not unlike the Murder-by-Month series' Battle Lake. She currently lives in St. Cloud, Minnesota, where she teaches Creative Writing and Sociology at the local university. Praise: “With snappy jokes and edgy dialog, Lourey brings a Gen-X tone to a traditional mystery…get started on this Leftynominated series if you’ve previously missed it.” –Library Journal, starred review “Funny, ribald, and brimming with small-town eccentrics.” –Kirkus Reviews “The very funny Lourey serves up a delicious dish of murder, mayhem, and merriment.”—Booklist Entire Murder-by-Month Series Now Available! May Day (March 2006) June Bug (March 2007) Knee High by the Fourth of July (Sept. 2007) August Moon (June 2008) September Fair (Sept. 2009) Octoberfest (upcoming in May 2011) November Hunt (upcoming in May 2012) December Doldrums (upcoming in May 2013) 307 Seventh Ave. Suite 2407 NY, NY 10001 (T) 212.337.0934 (F) 212.337.0948 www.levinegreenberg.com LEVINE | GREENBERG LITERARY AGENCY, INC. 49 Lutz, Lisa TRAIL OF THE SPELLMANS: Document #5 (Simon & Schuster, March 2012) Manuscript (400 pages) The long awaited fifth installment in the New York Times bestselling, Edgar- and Macavity-nominated series about an eccentric sleuthing family. For the first time in Spellman history, Isabel Spellman, PI, might be the most normal member of her family. As always, the Spellman clan has yet to settle into any kind of status quo. Mom, Olivia, has taken on an outrageous assortment of extracurricular activities, seemingly without motive. Dad, Albert, has a secret. Her brother and sister, David and Rae, are at war, but neither will reveal the source of the conflict. And Izzy's niece, Sydney, keeps saying banana even though she hates bananas. That's not to say that Izzy isn't without her own troubles. Henry Stone keeps wanting "to talk," a prospect Isabel evades by going out with her new drinking buddy, none other than Gertrude Stone, Henry's mother. While domestic disturbances abound, there is one source of sanity in the Spellman household: Demetrius Merriweather, now employee of the month for 18 months straight (the entire tenure of his employment). Things aren't any simpler on the business side of Spellman Investigations. First, parents hire the firm to follow their daughter. Rae is assigned the case, only to fake the surveillance reports. Then a math professor hires Izzy to watch his immaculate apartment while he unravels like a bad formula. A socialite has Isabel follow her husband, despite a conspicuous lack of suspicion. A man in a sweater vest hires the firm to follow his sister, who turns out to be the socialite. Isabel wants to get to the bottom of all this, but her father erects a Chinese wall to protect the clients' wishes. As the questions pile up, Izzy won't stop hunting for the answers-even when they threaten to shatter both the business and the family. Once again, it's up to her to pull the Spellmans back from the brink. Lisa Lutz is the author of The New York Times bestselling, Edgar- and Macavity-nominated, and Alice Awardwinning Spellman Series. She is most recently the author of Heads You Lose, written with David Hayward, and lives and works in California. Lutz, Lisa and David Hayward HEADS, YOU LOSE (Putnam, April 2011) Hardcover (320 pages) UK rights with Putnam National Bestseller! April 2011 Indie Next List! From New York Times bestselling author Lisa Lutz and David Hayward, a hilarious and original tag-team novel that reads like Weeds crossed with Adaptation. Meet Paul and Lacey Hansen: orphaned, pot-growing, twenty-something siblings eking out a living in rural Northern California. When a headless corpse appears on their property, they can't exactly call the police, so they move the body and wait for the cops to find it. Instead, the corpse reappears, a few days riper…and an amateur sleuth is born. Make that two. But that’s only half the story. When collaborators Lutz and Hayward—former romantic partners—s tart to disagree 307 Seventh Ave. Suite 2407 NY, NY 10001 (T) 212.337.0934 (F) 212.337.0948 www.levinegreenberg.com LEVINE | GREENBERG LITERARY AGENCY, INC. 50 about how the story should unfold, the body count rises, victims and suspects alike develop surprising characteristics (meet Brandy Chester, the stripper with the Mensa IQ), and sibling rivalry reaches homicidal intensity. Will the authors solve the mystery without killing each other first? Lisa Lutz is the New York Times bestselling author of the Spellman series of comedic crime novels. Since its debut in 2007, the Spellman series has received Edgar, Anthony, and Macavity nominations, and each title has been a selection of the Indie Next List. Lutz lives in San Francisco. David Hayward is a writer and editor in Northern California. His poetry has won a Puschcart Prize and has appeared in Harper’s and other magazines. He has an MFA in poetry from the University of California, Irvine. This is his first novel. Praise: “An intriguing comic invention. Full of narrative game play and rapid fire dialogue—with a headless corpse to boot. Lutz and her erstwhile collaborator [David Hayward] are crime fiction’s wiliest match-up since Hammett’s Nick and Nora.” --Domenic Stansberry, Edgar Award-winning author of The Confession and The Last Days of Il Duce “A complete delight! Sure, Heads You Lose is a snappy, stylish crime novel but it's much more: a clever, often hilarious and insightful look at how these wonderful things we call books actually get created. It's a toss-up (sorry, I couldn't resist) to say which of the main characters are my favorite: fictional protagonists Lacey and Paul, or authors Lisa and David.” -- Jeffery Deaver, bestselling author of The Bone Collector and The Burning Wire “Heads You Lose is a rare beast: a clever, funny, engrossing read that manages to be dark yet marvelously witty, a book that is both a thriller itself and a book about the writing of a thriller. Ex-partners Lutz and Hayward have come up with a mystery that’s genuinely different. You’ll be happy that you read it, and happier still that you’ve never had to date either one of them. It’s a blast.” –John Connolly, New York Times bestselling author of The Whisperers and Every Dead Thing Film Rights: Sarah Self, Gersh Agency March, Lucy A LITTLE NIGHT MAGIC (St. Martin’s Press Trade Paperback, February 2012) Galley(315 pages) 100,000 copy first printing! The world is full of magic, although Olivia Kiskey's never seen any evidence of it. She lives an ordinary life waiting tables in a waffle house in Nodaway Falls, NY; mooning over the night cook, Tobias; and spending her Saturdays drinking margaritas with her three best friends. It's time for a change, she decides; as much as she loves her life and this town, she needs something to shake her out of her rut. She gets what she wishes for when a mysterious southern woman shows up from out of town and tosses a gym sock full of strange herbs that make Liv sneeze uncontrollably. Suddenly, she's magically changing household objects into living creatures, and uncovering secrets about her family, and herself. As it turns out, she's an heir to magical powers beyond her understanding and the strange woman, Davina, is all too happy to help her understand them. All this while being stalked by a scruffy man who sticks to the shadows, and discovering that there's more to Tobias and almost everyone else in town - than she originally thought. As threats creep in closer, putting her sleepy little town in danger, Liv has to figure out who to trust, how to love, and how to use her nascent powers to save Nodaway Falls... if she can. 307 Seventh Ave. Suite 2407 NY, NY 10001 (T) 212.337.0934 (F) 212.337.0948 www.levinegreenberg.com LEVINE | GREENBERG LITERARY AGENCY, INC. 51 Lucy March is the split personality of New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Lani Diane Rich. Both personalities write fabulous books, and live in Ohio with two kids, two cats, five dogs, countless mice (although the cats are seeing to that population) and one best friend. Advance Praise: “Fresh and funny, warm and sexy. I can't wait for more.” –Susan Elizabeth Phillips, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author “Sexy, funny, heartfelt and warm, full of characters you want to eat waffles with…Lucy March is sublime!” –Jennifer Cruisie, author of Maybe This Time “Delightful and delicious…Every word I devoured had me craving more. Touching, magical, and utterly romantic. Lucy March is destined to become a superstar.” –Darynda Jones, author of First Grave on the Right Rights sold: German: Piper Verlag McIntosh, D.J. THE WITCH OF BABYLON (Penguin Canada, June 2011) (Tor Books, 2012) Hardcover, 416 pages An Amazon.ca Suspense Bestseller! Winner of the 2008 Arthur Ellis Award for Best Unpublished Crime Novel! Shortlisted for the 2007 Crime Writers' Association (U.K.) Debut Dagger Award! Out of the searing heat and sandstorms of the infamous summer of 2003 in Baghdad comes The Witch of Babylon, a gripping story rooted in ancient Assyrian lore and its little-known but profound significance for the world. John Madison is a Turkish-American art dealer raised by his much older brother, Samuel, a mover and shaker in New York's art world. Caught between his brother's obsession with saving a priceless relic looted from Iraq's National Museum and a deadly game of revenge staged by his childhood friend, John must solve a puzzle to find the link between a modern-day witch and an ancient one. Aided by Tomas, an archaeologist, and Ari, an Iraqi photojournalist—two men with their own secrets to hide—John races against time to unearth the dark history behind the old science of alchemy: Is the notion of turning lead into gold possible after all? Against his will John is taken back to Iraq. Awaiting him is a fabulous underground treasure trove and the truth behind a famous story the world believes is only a myth. D.J. (Dorothy) McIntosh is the former co-editor of the Crime Writers of Canada's newsletter, Fingerprints, and is a Toronto-based writer of novels and short mystery fiction. Her short story "The Hounds of Winter", published in Blood on the Holly by Baskerville Books (Toronto, 2007), was nominated for the 2008 Arthur Ellis Award for Best Short Story. "A View to Die For" appeared in Bloody Words: The Anthology, also published by Baskerville Books (Toronto, 2003). McIntosh graduated with a B.A. in English from the University of Toronto. Praise: “With a plot that moves like a racetrack pickpocket and a hero who has more lives than a cat and uses them all, D.J. McIntosh's The Witch of Babylon is one terrifying ride. Connecting the recent looting of antiquities in war-torn Iraq with a Mesopotamian conspiracy contrived almost three thousand years ago, the plot ingeniously weaves between the two, keeping the reader on edge and guessing to the very last page. Full of an equal amount of mayhem and 307 Seventh Ave. Suite 2407 NY, NY 10001 (T) 212.337.0934 (F) 212.337.0948 www.levinegreenberg.com LEVINE | GREENBERG LITERARY AGENCY, INC. 52 erudition, this novel marks a remarkably inventive and lively debut.” – James. W. Nichol, award winning author of Midnight Cab and Transgression “From Iraq, ancient history and alchemy combine to terrorize us in this stunning historical thriller. A terrific read.” – Louise Penny, New York Times bestselling author of Bury Your Dead “Soaked in the blood of centuries, yet as fresh as tomorrow’s headlines. D.J. McIntosh is articulate, literate, and scary.” – Alan Bradley, New York Times bestselling author of The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie Rights Sold: (formerly represented by Denise Bukowski Agency) Albanian: TBD Japanese: Engine Room Co. Audio (World English): Recorded Books Polish: Bellona SA Bulgarian: TBD Portuguese (Brazil): Editora Saraiva Chinese (Simplified): Shanghai Xiron Media Romanian: Editura RAO Croatian: Znanje d.o.o. Russian: AST Czech: Michael Ribka Serbian: Alnari German: Bastei Lubbe Spanish: Atico dos Libros* Hungarian: TBD Slovakian: Slovart Italian: Rizzoli Turkish: Dogan Kitap Pollack, Neal JEWBALL: A Novel (Amazon KDP, September 2011) Manuscript due September 2011 A funny, gritty noir about a barnstorming Philadelphia Jewish basketball team in the late 1930s who battle for supremacy on and off the court under the growing shadow of anti-Semitism 1937. As the world prepares for war and the Jews of Europe feel the tightening noose of Nazi oppression, tensions simmer in America. While thousands of homegrown fascists gather in groups like the German-American Bund, American Jews organize against this scourge, resisting any way they can. Meanwhile, the game of basketball grows in popularity, and Jews rule the court. In Philadelphia, the greatest Jewish basketball team of all prepares to confront the Bund, fists cocked. Here, the Jews write the rules. This is war. This is sports. This is…JEWBALL. From bestselling satirist and memoirist Neal Pollack comes an unflinching portrait of a people on the brink and of a great American game coming into its own. Full of memorable characters, exciting action set pieces, and, of course, lots and lots of basketball, JEWBALL shines a light on a lesser-known corner of Jewish history and makes it come alive, unfolding a riveting story along the way. Neal Pollack is an L.A.-based writer and the author of several books, including Stretch: The Unlikely Making of a Yoga Dude (2010) and the bestselling memoir, Alternadad (2007). His work has appeared in many publications, including Men's Journal, Maxim, and Slate.com and Yoga Journal among others. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, their son, and two Boston Terriers, Hercules and Shaq. 307 Seventh Ave. Suite 2407 NY, NY 10001 (T) 212.337.0934 (F) 212.337.0948 www.levinegreenberg.com LEVINE | GREENBERG LITERARY AGENCY, INC. 53 Rich, Simon WHAT IN GOD'S NAME? (Reagan Arthur Books/Hachette, August 2012) Manuscript UK rights with Hachette God, CEO of Heaven, Inc., is a pretty typical boss. He's proud of the company he built and does his best to keep his Angels motivated. But after thousands of years in the business, the strain of running earth is beginning to take its toll. Lately, he's been spending more and more time on the golf course. And when the Angels burst into his office to tell him about the latest flood or earthquake, they often find him wasting time online, idly googling his name to see if any humans have been blogging about him. The truth is, God's grown tired of the earth, with its ungrateful humans and their endless, unanswerable prayers. He wants to do something fun with his life. So he sends out an office-wide memo: in 30 days, he's retiring from Heaven Inc. so that he can open up a restaurant. As for earth, he's decided to "cut his losses" and have the planet destroyed. Everyone accepts God's decision, except for two lowly Angels in the tiny Department of Miracles. They plead with their boss, insisting that the earth's worth saving. Eventually, God agrees to a deal: he'll save mankind if they can answer even a single human prayer. The Angels rifle through God's inbox and find an easy one: two lonely young humans on the Lower East Side of Manhattan have both prayed to be with one another. The Angels quickly go to work, easing the couple's path to romance. But to their immense frustration, the humans keep blowing opportunities. With doomsday fast approaching, the Angels grow frantic. How can you help mankind when they won't even help themselves? WHAT IN GOD'S NAME is about our foolish species: one that prays every day for salvation, while ignoring all the miracles that surround us. Simon Rich is an accomplished writer at the young age of 27: he was president of The Harvard Lampoon, published comic short pieces in The New Yorker, wrote two books of comic essays and a novel, Elliot Allagash (Random House, 2010), and spent four years as a staff writer for Saturday Night Live, where he earned four Emmy nominations. Rich currently writes for Pixar. Rights sold: Hebrew: Matar Portuguese (Brazil): Editora Planeta Rotenberg, Robert GUILTY PLEA (Sarah Crichton Books/FSG, July 2011) Hardcover (336 pages) National Bestseller (Canada)! Book-of-the Month Club and Mystery Guild Selection! In this gripping sequel to the international bestseller Old City Hall, defense counsel Robert Rotenberg has delivered another sharp, suspenseful legal thriller with an explosive conclusion. On the morning his high-profile divorce trial is set to begin, Terrence Wyler, the youngest son of Toronto’s Wyler Food dynasty, is found stabbed to death in the kitchen of his luxurious home. Detective Ari Greene arrives minutes before the press to find Wyler's four-year-old son asleep upstairs. Hours later, when Wyler's wife Samantha shows up at her lawyer's office with a bloody knife wrapped in a towel, the case looks like it will be a straightforward guilty plea. Instead, an open-and-shut case becomes a complex murder trial, full of spite and uncertainty. There's April Goodling, the Hollywood starlet with whom Terrance had a well-publicized dalliance; and Brandon Legacy, the 307 Seventh Ave. Suite 2407 NY, NY 10001 (T) 212.337.0934 (F) 212.337.0948 www.levinegreenberg.com LEVINE | GREENBERG LITERARY AGENCY, INC. 54 teenage neighbor who was with Samantha the night of the murder. After a series of devastating cross-examinations, there's no telling where the jury's sympathies will lie. As in Old City Hall, Rotenberg's gift for twists and turns is always astonishing, but his true star remains the courtroom: the tension, disclosures, and machinations that drive this trial straight to its unpredictable verdict. Robert Rotenberg is one of Toronto’s top lawyers, defending, as he likes to say, “everything from murder to shoplifting.” He is the author of the international bestseller, Old City Hall and lives in Toronto with his wife and three children. Praise: “Smart and spellbinding. Puts you right in the shoes, and the lives, of lawyers caught up in a high-stakes murder trial. Best courtroom drama I've read, bar none, since Anatomy of a Murder.” --Douglas Preston, co-author of The Monster of Florence and Gideon's Sword. “Loved it! Rotenberg’s police procedural/courtroom drama is terrific.” –Ian Rankin, author of The Complaints “Clever, complex and filled with an engaging cast of characters…captures the soul of Toronto.” –Kathy Reichs, author of the Bones series Rights sold: French: Presses de la Cite Italian: Giano/Neri Pozza Polish: Proszynski Media Spanish: Belacqva/Grupo Norma UK: John Murray UK Audio: W.F. Howes U.S. Audio: Recorded Books Rotenberg, Robert OLD CITY HALL (Sarah Crichton Books/FSG, March 2009) Trade Paperback, March 2010 (Picador, 384 pages) International Bestseller! CWA “New Blood” Dagger Award Nominee! (UK) Best Crime Novel of the Month in Elle Magazine! (France) Praise: “Breathtaking…A tightly woven spiderweb of plot and a rich cast of characters make this a truly gripping read.” –Jeffery Deaver, author of The Bodies Left Behind “An amazing debut novel. Robert Rotenberg’s Old City Hall has everything a legal thriller should have, and more: absolutely engaging characters, a tight, taut, and believable plot, a heart-quickening pace, and, best of all, some of the finest writing I’ve read in years. This one has winner written all over it.” –Nelson DeMille, international bestselling author “There is nothing in Old City Hall to suggest that it's Robert Rotenberg's debut. The middle-aged Canadian criminal lawyer has got it all—pace, good characters, tension, and an intriguing plot.” –Marcel Berlins, The Times (London) Film Rights: Shaftesbury Films (Canada) Rights sold: French: Presses de la Cite German: Rowohlt Hebrew: Matar Italian: Giano/Neri Pozza Japanese: Hayakawa Marathi (India): Mehta Publishing House Polish: Proszynski Media Russian: AST 307 Seventh Ave. Suite 2407 NY, NY 10001 (T) 212.337.0934 (F) 212.337.0948 www.levinegreenberg.com LEVINE | GREENBERG LITERARY AGENCY, INC. Spanish: Belacqva/Grupo Norma U.S. Audio: Recorded Books 55 UK: John Murray UK Unabridged Audio: W.F. Howes Smith, Brad RED MEANS RUN: A Virgil Cain Mystery (Book #1) (Scribner, January 2012) Galley (320 pages) Brad Smith debuts a new series set in upstate New York featuring jack-of-all trades, Virgin Cain, who must clear his name of two murders while on the run from the law in this spirited country noir. Mickey Dupree is one of the most successful criminal attorneys in upstate New York, having never lost a capital murder case. That is the upside of being Mickey. The downside: Mickey has a lot of enemies and one of them drives the shaft of a golf club through his heart, leaving him dead in a sand trap at his exclusive country club. The cops, led by a dim-witted detective named Joe Brady, focus their attentions on Virgil Cain. Just two weeks earlier Virgil told a crowded bar that “somebody ought to blow Mickey’s head off,” after the slippery lawyer earned an acquittal for Alan Comstock, the man accused of murdering Virgil’s wife. Comstock, a legendary record producer, gun nut, and certifiable lunatic, has returned to his estate, where he lives with his wife, the long suffering Jane. It appears to Virgil that the fix is in when Brady immediately throws him into jail with no questions asked. In order to set things right, Virgil escapes from jail, determined to find Mickey’s killer himself. Aside from a smart and sexy detective named Claire Marchand, everyone is convinced that Virgil is the culprit. When Alan Comstock is discovered with six slugs in his body the day after Virgil’s escape, his guilt is almost assured. Now it is up to Virgil to convince everyone of his innocence—by finding the killer before he winds up the next victim. Brad Smith was born and raised in southern Ontario. He lives in a seventy-year-old farmhouse near the north shore of Lake Eire. His novel, Busted Flush (2005), was nominated for the Dashiell Hammett Prize. Praise for Brad Smith “Brad Smith has got the goods—he’s funny, poignant, evocative, and he tells a blistering tale.” –Dennis Lehane “Brad Smith is a writer with lots of skill, lots of heart, and lots of brains.” –Richard Russo “Smith has marvelous control of his material, effortlessly mixing laugh-out-loud comedy with streaks of country noir that calls to mind Daniel Woodrell.” –Booklist Rights sold: Canadian: S&S Canada 307 Seventh Ave. Suite 2407 NY, NY 10001 (T) 212.337.0934 (F) 212.337.0948 www.levinegreenberg.com LEVINE | GREENBERG LITERARY AGENCY, INC. 56 Stepakoff, Jeffrey THE ORCHARD (Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press, July 2011) Hardcover (304 pages) SIBA (Southern Independent Bookseller’s Association) Okra Pick for 2011! Grace Lyndon is a rising ingenue in the world of perfumes and flavors; a stiletto-wearing, work-a-holic in Atlanta, she develops aromas and tastes to enthrall the senses. Dylan Jackson is a widowed single father whose heart and hands have been calloused in the fields of his North Georgia apple farm. When Grace happens to taste an apple picked from Dylan’s trees, it changes both of their lives forever. Determined to track down the apple’s origin, Grace sets off in the middle of the night on a journey to find not only a beautiful mountain orchard in the clouds, but the mysterious man who owns it. In Stepakoff’s heartbreaking eloquence, their sudden yet undeniable attraction is threatened—leaving readers with a momentous finale that proves Jeffrey Stepakoff is a master craftsman of the heart. Jeffrey Stepakoff has written for more than a dozen internationally-acclaimed television series, including the Emmy-winning The Wonder Years, Sisters, and Dawson’s Creek, for which he was also co-executive producer. He has also developed and written major motion pictures and is the author of Fireworks Over Toccoa (St. Martin’s Press, 2010) which was recognized by the Southern Independent Bookseller’s Association (SIBA), the American Bookseller’s Association, and was featured as a Premier Pick in the France Loisirs Book Club. Jeffrey lives in Atlanta, Georgia, with his wife and three children. Praise: “THE ORCHARD is a delicious page-turner. Anyone who enjoys a good love story will have a wonderful couple of days settling down with this Southern tale of unexpected romance.” –Katie Crouch, NYT bestselling author "THE ORCHARD is a reminder of why I love to read. A man who's emotionally chained to the past. A woman with a determined eye on the future. Happiness can be theirs today. . .if only they have the courage to harvest it." –Sandra Brown, NYT bestselling author “A luminous love story that readers won’t soon forget. It is at once heartbreaking and triumphant—an affirmation of love in all its forms.” –Emily Giffin, NYT bestselling author Film Rights: Jerry Kalajian, IPG Rights sold: Portuguese (Brazil): Novo Conceito Portuguese Condensation (Portugal): Reader’s Digest Romanian Condensation: Reader’s Digest Russian Condensation: Reader’s Digest Slovenian Condensation: Reader’s Digest Spanish Condensation (World): Reader’s Digest Stepakoff, Jeffrey FIREWORKS OVER TOCCOA (Thomas Dunne/St. Martin’s Press, April 2010) Hardcover, 272 pages Premier Pick for France Loisirs Book Club! (France) SIBA (Southern Independent Bookseller’s Association) Okra Pick for 2010! ABA April 2010 Indie Next List Notable! Film Rights: Jerry Kalajian, IPG 307 Seventh Ave. Suite 2407 NY, NY 10001 (T) 212.337.0934 (F) 212.337.0948 www.levinegreenberg.com LEVINE | GREENBERG LITERARY AGENCY, INC. Rights sold: French: Presses de la Cite German: Krueger/Scherz 57 Italian: Sperling & Kupfer Portuguese (Brazil): Editora Novo Conceito Wax, Wendy TEN BEACH ROAD (Berkley Trade Paperback, May 2011) Trade Paperback, 432 pages On the brink of ruin, three very different women discover themselves where they least expect…at Ten Beach Road. Madeline, Avery, and Nikki are strangers to each other, but they have one thing in common. They each wake up one morning to discover that their life savings have vanished along with their trusted financial manager…leaving them with nothing but co-ownership of a ramshackle beachfront house. Madeline Singer is a homemaker coping with empty nest syndrome and an unemployed husband. Avery Lawford is an architect—or was, until she somehow became the sidekick on her ex-husband’s TV show. And professional matchmaker Nikki Grant is trying to recover from her biggest mistake… No one is going to save them but themselves. Determined to fight back, they throw their lots in together and take on the challenge of restoring the historic beachhouse to its former glory. But just as they begin to reinvent themselves and discover the power of friendship, their secrets threaten to tear down their trust, and destroy their lives a second time… Wendy Wax, a former broadcaster, lives in the Atlanta suburbs with her husband and two teenage sons, who have turned her into the shortest member of their family. She is the author of several women’s commercial fiction books including The Accidental Bestseller, Magnolia Wednesdays, and Single In Suburbia. Praise: “[Wax] writes with breezy wit and keen insight.” –The Atlanta Journal-Consitution “Showcasing three women who rise above their shattered realities with grace, determination, and a little elbow grease.” –Publishers Weekly Previous titles: Rights sold for The Accidental Bestseller: Hungarian: Pioneer Books Indonesian: Mizan Pustaka Russian: AST Turkish: EME Group 307 Seventh Ave. Suite 2407 NY, NY 10001 (T) 212.337.0934 (F) 212.337.0948 www.levinegreenberg.com LEVINE | GREENBERG LITERARY AGENCY, INC. 58 YOUNG ADULT & MIDDLE GRADE Rich, Simon ELLIOT ALLAGASH (Young Adult) (Random House, May 2010) Trade Paperback, June 2011( 240 pages) UK rights: Serpent’s Tail (via Random House) New York Times Editor’s Choice! Cunningly playful and wickedly funny, ELLIOT ALLAGASH is a tale about all the incredible things that money can buy, and the one or two things it that it can’t. Seymour Herson is the least popular student at Glendale, a private school in Manhattan. He’s painfully shy and physically inept, and his new nickname, “Chunk-Style,” is in danger of entering common usage. But Seymour’s solitary existence comes to a swift end when he meets the new transfer student: Elliot Allagash, evil heir to America’s largest fortune. Elliot’s rampant delinquency has already gotten him expelled from a dozen prep schools around the world. But despite his best efforts, he can’t get himself thrown out of Glendale; his father has simply donated too much money. Bitter and bored, Elliot decides to amuse himself by taking up a challenging and expensive new hobby: transforming Seymour into the most popular student in school. An unlikely friendship develops between the two loners as Elliot introduces Seymour to new concepts, like power, sabotage and vengeance. With Elliot as his diabolical strategist and investor, Seymour scores a spot on the basketball team, becomes class president, and ruthlessly destroys his enemies. Yet despite the glow of newfound popularity, Seymour feels increasingly uneasy with Elliot’s wily designs. For an Allagash victory is dishonorable at its best, and ruinous at its worst. Simon Rich has written for The New Yorker, GQ, Mad, The Harvard Lampoon and other magazines. He is the author of two humor collections, Free-Range Chickens and Ant Farm, which was a finalist for the 2008 Thurber Prize for American Humor. He lives in Brooklyn and writes for Saturday Night Live. Praise: “A lot of very successful adults I know still wish they could re-live high school as someone popular. Reading this hilarious morality tale about the cost of that popularity makes me happy that I went through my high school years as an outsider. And it makes me even happier that Simon Rich did.”—Seth Meyers, WGA and Peabody award-winning writer for Saturday Night Live “An unfailingly funny and compulsively readable mix of sweet and sour that will leave readers hoping for another helping.” –Booklist “The most enjoyable classroom comedy since Tom Perotta’s Election.”—Financial Times Film Rights: Jason Reitman (director of Juno) Rights sold: German: Goldmann Greek: P-Publishing Italian: Newton & Compton Korean: Sallim Portuguese(Brazil): Editora Planeta Turkish: Derin Kitap 307 Seventh Ave. Suite 2407 NY, NY 10001 (T) 212.337.0934 (F) 212.337.0948 www.levinegreenberg.com LEVINE | GREENBERG LITERARY AGENCY, INC. 59 Robinson, A.M. VAMPIRE CRUSH (Young Adult) (HarperTeen, January 2011) Trade Paperback, 416 pages A Scholastic Book Club Pick! First, six mysteriously pale new students show up at Sophie McGee’s high school. Then, Sophie’s childhood boynext-door crush James reappears, still displaying a knack for making Sophie’s blood boil. When Sophie finds out that James has a connection to the new students, she decides to investigate…never expecting her life will quickly begin to resemble a campy horror movie, complete with budding crushes and bloodthirsty villains. Perfect for fans of the Vampire Kisses and Vladmir Tod series, A. M. Robinson’s debut novel sparkles with action, intrigue, irresistible wit, and sizzling romance. A.M. Robinson lives in New York City, where she works in the publishing industry. She graduated from Indiana University with a double major in English and Chinese, but she is obviously only using the first one. VAMPIRE CRUSH is her first book. Praise: “Death, fangs, romance and all kinds of convoluted revised vampire lore are all packed in, but with a vampire-lite tone it hews to entertainment rather than angst. Sophie’s voice is smart, sassy and full of humorous asides…and her distinctive take makes this a smoothly enjoyable ride.” –Kirkus Reviews “Robinson’s debut novel is full of action, adventure, and suspense, with some romance as well. The fast-moving plot deals with issues like teen angst, facing your fears, and being true to yourself all rolled up with evil vampires and some serious fight scenes. An entertaining and satisfying read.” –School Library Journal “A snappy, romantic tale in which even vampires have to deal with high school drama.” –Publishers Weekly Rights sold: German: Penhaligon/RH Germany Russian: AST Springer, Kristina JUST YOUR AVERAGE PRINCESS (FSG Books for Young Readers, October 2011) Galley, 208 pages From the author of The Espressologist comes this hilarious new novel that reminds us that even though you can’t choose your family, you can learn to love them. Jamie Edwards has loved everything about growing up on a pumpkin patch, but ever since her cousin Milan Woods stepped out of Jamie’s dad’s old pickup truck and into a pile of rotten pumpkin guts, ruining her two-thousand-dollar shoes, things have really stunk. Making things worse, it seems that Milan is going to get everything Jamie’s ever wanted—the crown and the crush—unless Jamie takes matters into her own hands. But Jamie’s not going to stoop to Milan’s level. She’s going to don her overalls and do her job the way she’s always done it, pigtails and all. The people of Average, Illinois will know she’s the one who should be crowned Pumpkin Princess. They will pick the right person. She’s sure of it… until she’s not. Kristina Springer is the author of The Espressologist and My Fake Boyfriend is Better Than Yours. She lives in Bolingbrook, Illinois. 307 Seventh Ave. Suite 2407 NY, NY 10001 (T) 212.337.0934 (F) 212.337.0948 www.levinegreenberg.com LEVINE | GREENBERG LITERARY AGENCY, INC. 60 Praise for Kristina Springer: “Kristina Springer is a fantastic new storyteller who is going to do great things.” — Jessica Brody, author of The Karma Club “Springer does a spot-on job of creating [all sorts of interesting] situations, not least by speaking fluent teenager.” — Linda M. Castellitto, BookPage contributor “Springer writes in authentic tween language.”— School Library Journal Springer, Kristina MY FAKE BOYFRIEND IS BETTER THAN YOURS (Upper Middle Grade) (FSG, August 2010) Hardcover, 192 pages A Scholastic Book Club Bestseller! Film Rights: Jerry Kalajian, IPG Rights sold: German: Random House Verlag Springer, Kristina THE ESPRESSOLOGIST (Young Adult) (FSG, October 2009) Trade Paperback, January 2011 (208 pages) UK Rights with FSG Film Rights: Jerry Kalajian, IPG Rights sold: German: Ullstein Indonesian: Mizan Japanese: Shogakukan Korean: Sol Publishing Russian: United Press 307 Seventh Ave. Suite 2407 NY, NY 10001 (T) 212.337.0934 (F) 212.337.0948 www.levinegreenberg.com
