VIKING
PAMELA DORMAN BOOKS
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RIVERHEAD BOOKS
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2015
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SUMMER 2015
HOPE:
A Memoir of Survival
By Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus
Memoir | Viking | April 27, 2015 | World Rights
Agent: Robert Barnett/ Williams & Connolly
Manuscript available (embargoed)
On May 6, 2013, Amanda Berry made headlines around the world when she fled a
Cleveland home and called 911, saying: “Help me, I’m Amanda Berry. . . . I’ve been
kidnapped, and I’ve been missing for ten years.”
A horrifying story rapidly unfolded. Ariel Castro, a local school bus driver, had separately lured Berry, Gina
DeJesus, and Michelle Knight to his home, where he kept them chained. In the decade that followed, the three were
raped, psychologically abused, and threatened with death. Berry had a daughter—Jocelyn—by their captor.
Drawing upon their recollections and the diary kept by Amanda Berry, Berry and Gina DeJesus describe a tale of
unimaginable torment, and Pulitzer Prize–winning Washington Post reporters Mary Jordan and Kevin Sullivan
interweave the events within Castro’s house with original reporting on efforts to find the missing girls. The full
story behind the headlines—including details never previously released on Castro’s life and motivations—Hope is a
harrowing yet inspiring chronicle of two women whose courage, ingenuity, and resourcefulness ultimately delivered
them back to their lives and families.
Co-authors Mary Jordan and Kevin Sullivan, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists for the Washington Post, have
written extensively about difficulties facing women around the world. They are the authors of The Prison Angel:
Mother Antonia's Journey from Beverly Hills to a Life of Service in a Mexican Jail.
SOLD TO
Transworld/Random House UK
Brazil (Companhia)
Germany (Riva)
Netherlands (Luitingh-Sijthoff)
2
THE GHOST IN MY BRAIN:
How a Concussion Stole My Life and How the New Science of
Brain Plasticity Helped Me Get It Back
By Clark Elliott
Nonfiction | Viking | June 2, 2015 | World Rights
Agent: Howard Yoon/ Ross Yoon Agency
Manuscript available
A rare source of hope for the millions suffering concussions both diagnosed and undiagnosed: the remarkable
story of how, by retraining the neural optic paths in his brain, one man’s life was restored after 8 years of
cognitive impairment. In 1999, Clark Elliott suffered a concussion when a car rear-ended his at a stoplight. He
struggled with issues of decision-making, movement, and sensitivity to light and noise. In this book he shares his
descent into brain dysfunction, his constant struggles to lead a normal life, and his dramatic, full recovery thanks
to cutting-edge brain treatment that retrained his eyesight and helped him rebuild parts of his brain damaged by the accident. This help
came from Donalee Markus and Deborah Zelinsky, a pair of researcher-clinicians in Chicago using innovative treatments based on new
brain plasticity research.
Clark Elliott, PhD., is Associate Professor of Artificial Intelligence at DePaul University. His work involves artificially recreating brain
function.
Donalee Markus, PhD., is a cognitive restructuring psychologist who developed the Designs for Strong Minds program, which uses
visual-spatial puzzles to create new pathways for symbolic thinking in damaged brains.
Deborah Zelinsky, O.D., is a neuro-developmental optometrist whose work emphasizes neuro-optometric rehabilitation using
prescription glasses.
EARLY PRAISE
“This is a remarkable document, by a remarkable person, the most meticulous and informative account I have ever read of the
effects of a traumatic brain injury on a single mind. It should be mined for years to come by all who care about the subject, and is
filled with almost Proustian detail about how the brain and mind and heart respond to injury. It would have been just another
tragedy, but instead, it turns into an exciting triumph, because of the tireless, ingenious, and utterly creative work of Clark Elliott and
his healers—one inspired by the work of the Israeli pioneer, Reuven Feurstein, the other by a little known tradition of behavioral
optometry, which can literally use light shone into the eyes, to treat and rewire the brain.”
—Norman Doidge, M.D., New York Times bestselling author of The Brain That Changes Itself and The Brain’s Way of Healing
“It is not often that one can gain some genuine insight into the soul-destroying and debilitating experiential world of victims of Mild
Traumatic Brain Injury (MTBI). But through the brilliant descriptions that Clark Elliott provides, we can at least begin to grasp its
devastating perceptual, cognitive, and behavioral consequences—its profound disruption of every aspect of normal daily life, of
thinking and deciding, feeling and wanting, seeing and hearing, moving, and of our very sense of who we are. This is an
extraordinary book about the brain and the mind—a book that is hard to stop reading.”
—Andrew Ortony, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Psychology, Computer Science, and Education, Northwestern University
“Inspiring . . . Read it, first weep, then smile broadly!”
—Daniel Federman, Dean Emeritus, Harvard School of Medical Education, and past president of the American College of
Physicians
“A must-read for anyone in emergency medicine, trauma care, neurology, and primary care, as well as concussion sufferers and their
families.”
—Ted C. Shieh, clinical instructor in emergency medicine, RUSH Medical College; chairman of emergency medicine and
immediate care, DuPage Medical Group
“I have diagnosed more than six hundred mild traumatic brain injury (MTBI) cases over thirty years of practice and know firsthand
the devastating effects they can have on virtually any family. Dr. Clark Elliott’s comprehensive and creative analysis of this
pathological epidemic is uniquely insightful, accurate, scary—and most importantly encouraging—for those who are afflicted with
this disorder.”
—Michael P. Szatalowicz, D.C., A.O., whiplash trauma specialist
3
IN THE LANGUAGE OF MIRACLES: A Novel
By Rajia Hassib
Fiction | Viking | August 11, 2015
Agent: Lynn Nesbit/ Janklow & Nesbit Associates
Manuscript available
UK Rights Only
In this mesmerizing first novel, Rajia Hassib tells the story of an Egyptian-American family in
New Jersey reeling in the aftermath of a terrible event that tears apart their family as well as
their relationship with their community. IN THE LANGUAGE OF MIRACLES is an
unflinching portrayal of a family’s struggle to move on in the wake of tragedy, to stay true to
its roots—and above all else, to find acceptance.
Rajia Hassib was born and raised in Egypt and has been residing in the United States since she was twenty-three.
She holds an MA in Creative Writing from Marshall University, where her work has been repeatedly recognized by
the Maier Writing Awards. Her short fiction has appeared in Upstreet, Steam Ticket, and Border Crossing magazines.
MOVIE STAR BY LIZZIE PEPPER: with Hilary Liftin
By Hilary Liftin
Fiction | Viking | July 21, 2015 | World Rights
Agent: Lydia Wills/ Lydia Wills LLC
Manuscript available
A compulsively readable and witty roman a clef detailing the careful construction and
subsequent implosion of a Hollywood starlet's relationship with a fellow megastar in
Hollywood.
Hilary Liftin is a prolific Hollywood ghostwriter who worked in the publishing industry for 10 years before
publishing two books of her own. She has worked on books with Tori Spelling, Teri Hatcher, Tatum O'Neal and
Miley Cyrus.
EARLY PRAISE
“When we worked together, Lizzie Pepper was always the good girl, the confidante who kept all our secrets. It's
empowering to watch her now smash Hollywood rules by revealing the truth of her marriage that the tabloids never
got, in her witty, juicy, and addictive story.”
—Nia Vardalos, actress, My Big Fat Greek Wedding
“This fairy tale romance turned nightmare of marital imprisonment has all the hallmarks of a heart-pounding,
sprinkled-with-wit, Hollywood thriller. But what's more impressive—and indeed disturbing—is that is also feels
wholly plausible. Almost as if it had actually happened to a certain someone.”
—Evgenia Peretz
4
BEAUTY’S KINGDOM
By A.N. Roquelaure
Fiction | Viking | April 21, 2015 | World Rights
Agent: Lynn Nesbit/ Janklow and Nesbit Associates
Manuscript available
The erotic bestselling Sleeping Beauty trilogy now continues with a fourth novel by
master storyteller Anne Rice, writing as A. N. Roquelaure, following The Claiming of
Sleeping Beauty.
A.N. Roquelaure/Anne Rice is the author of many bestselling novels, including the hugely
successful Vampire Chronicles. Her other books include the Mayfair Witches series, the Sleeping Beauty trilogy,
and, most recently, Prince Lestat: The Vampire Chronicles (Knopf, 2014).
SOLD TO
Sphere/Little, Brown UK
OPTION PUBLISHERS: Sleeping Beauty trilogy
Brazil (Rocco)
Bulgaria (Pergament)
Finland (Basam)
France (Michel Lafon)
Germany (Marterpfahl)
Italy (Longanesi)
The Philippines (Precious Pages)
Russia (Eksmo)
Spain (Ediciones B)
Turkey (Pegasus)
5
KITCHENS OF THE GREAT MIDWEST: A Novel
By J. Ryan Stradal
Fiction | Viking | July 28, 2015 | World Rights
Agent: Ryan Harbage/ The Fischer-Harbage Agency Inc.
Manuscript available
A debut novel about a young woman with a once-in-a-generation palate, and the Midwestern foods
and traditions that help her overcome her traumatic childhood to become the mysterious chef behind
the most difficult dinner reservation in the country.
J. Ryan Stradal edits the fiction section of The Nervous Breakdown with Gina Frangello, writes
regularly for The Rumpus, and has been published in the Los Angeles Review of Books, McSweeney’s and
Hobart, among others. He produces a culinary reading series in Los Angeles called Hot Dish, and is the producer on the
History Channel’s show Ice Road Truckers and previously, Discovery Channel’s Deadliest Catch. He has an MFA from UC
Riverside and lives in Los Angeles.
SOLD TO
Quercus
Brazil (Rocco)
Finland (Tammi)
Germany (Diogenes)
Italy (Mondadori)
Netherlands (Prometheus)
Spain (Maeva)
EARLY PRAISE
“Tender, funny, and moving, J. Ryan Stradal's debut novel made me crave my mother's magic cookie bars...and every good tomato
I've ever had the privilege of eating. Kitchens of the Great Midwest manages to be at once sincere yet sharply observed, thoughtful yet
swiftly paced, and the lives of its fallible, realistic, and complicated characters mattered to me deeply. It's a fantastic book.”
—Edan Lepucki, bestselling author of California
In Kitchens of the Great Midwest, a charming, fast-moving round robin tale of food, sensuality and Midwestern culture, Mr. Stradal has
delivered one extremely tasty, well-seasoned debut in what is sure to be a long and savory career.
—Janet Fitch, author of White Oleander and Paint It Black.
"A Great American Novel in the fullest sense of the term. Everything you want a book to be."
—Ben Loory, author of Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day
"An impossible-to-put-down, one-of-a-kind novel. The prose is beautiful, the characters are unique and memorable, and the plot is
surprising at every turn. I have never read a book quite like this—and neither, I'll bet, have you. This stunning debut announces J.
Ryan Stradal as a first-rate voice in American fiction. This is a wildly creative, stunningly original, and very moving novel. I can't wait
to see what Stradal does next."
—Rob Roberge, author of The Cost of Living.
“Kitchens of the Great Midwest is a big-hearted, funny, and class-transcending pleasure. It’s also both a structural and empathetic tour de
force, stepping across worlds in the American midwest, and demonstrating with an enviable tenderness and ingenuity the tug of war
between our freedom to pursue our passions and our obligations to those we love.”
—Jim Shepard, author of Project X and National Book Award finalist Like You’d Understand, Anyway
“From the quite literally burning passions of a lonely eleven-year-old girl with an exceptional palate, to the ethical dilemmas behind a
batch of Blue Ribbon Peanut Butter Bars, J. Ryan Stradal writes with a special kind of meticulous tenderness—missing nothing and
accepting everything. A superbly gratifying debut.”
—Meg Howrey, author of The Crane’s Dance
6
MODERN ROMANCE
By Aziz Ansari
Nonfiction | Penguin Press | June 16, 2015 | World Rights
Agent: Richard Abate / 3 Arts Entertainment, Inc.
Manuscript available
MODERN ROMANCE is comedian and actor Aziz Ansari’s light-hearted but keen
examination of the pursuit of love, sex, and dating in an age where technology gives single
people previously unimagined new tools for making themselves embarrassed, anxious, and
obsessed. Together with famed NYU sociologist Eric Klinenberg, Ansari looks at how the
internet has irrevocably shaken up the realms of dating, marriage, and break-ups.
Aziz Ansari is an actor and comedian who stars as Tom Haverford in the Emmy-nominated comedy Parks and
Recreation. In 2005, Rolling Stone named him their choice for “Hot Standup” on their annual Hot List, and he was
awarded the Jury Prize for Best Standup at HBO's 2006 U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen. He lives in New York.
Website: www.azizansari.com
Twitter: www.twitter.com/azizansari
Facebook: www.facebook.com/azizansari
SOLD TO
Penguin Press/Penguin UK
Brazil (Companhia das Letras)
EARLY PRAISE
“It's the voices that will have you reading this remarkable book in one sitting! The voices of old people who married
someone who lived in their apartment building or the building next store and the voices of the young people who
check out hundreds of romantic possibilities a night, with so much choice that choice becomes impossible. And
then there is the voice of Ansari himself, funny, of course, but also deeply compassionate. For after a year of
surveying romance across the planet, he finds that all the apps in the world leave us with this human truth: you have
to spend time with a person to figure out, face-to-face, if they're the one. And perhaps, just perhaps, it's the fact of
spending time that makes them the one. We nurture what we love and we love what we nurture! This book defines
serious fun.”
—Sherry Turkle, Abby Rockefeller Mauzé Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology, MIT
7
THE STAR SIDE OF BIRD HILL: A Novel
By Naomi Jackson
Fiction | Penguin Press | June 30, 2015| World Rights
Agent: Julia Masnik/ Watkins/Loomis
Manuscript available
In the tradition of Edwidge Danticat and Jamaica Kincaid, this lyrical novel of community,
betrayal, and love centers on an unforgettable matriarchal family in Barbados. Jackson does
a remarkable job bringing three generations of women to life as she follows two sisters, age
10 and 16, exiled from Brooklyn to Barbados after their mother has a mental breakdown.
The girls spend the summer with their grandmother, a midwife and practitioner of obeah.
This tautly-paced coming of age story builds to a crisis when the girls’ father tries to reclaim them.
Naomi Jackson is an Iowa MFA graduate and Fulbright scholar. This is her debut novel.
EARLY PRAISE
“Jackson has written a first novel full of heart and heartbreak, a novel about going home, about the ties that bind
three generations of women across years and despite absence. It is a bittersweet lesson in learning to recognize
love.”
—Ayana Mathis, author of The Twelve Tribes of Hattie
“Naomi Jackson has written a tender novel exploring the complexities of motherhood and childhood. The Star Side
of Bird Hill holds together opposing elements—the book is quiet in the telling, but the story being told is sharp and
vibrant. It is as much a story of the fears of childhood as it is a story about welcoming old age with optimism. A
book that knows death and discovery. A book laced with pain but shimmering with hope. With care, the narrative
addresses huge issues such as mental illness, mortality, sexuality and, at its very core, what it means to love another
person as they are.”
—Tiphanie Yanique, author of Land of Love and Drowning and How to Escape a Leper Colony
8
THE LAST FOUR DAYS OF PADDY BUCKLEY: A Novel
By Jeremy Massey
Fiction | Riverhead | May 12, 2015 | World Rights
Agent: Ginger Curwen/ Julia Lord Literary Management
Manuscript available
Paddy Buckley is a grieving widower who has worked for years for Gallagher’s, a longestablished funeral home in Dublin. One night driving home, Paddy accidentally hits and kills
a pedestrian—none other than Donal Cullen, the brother of one of the most notorious
mobsters in Dublin. Bawdy, surprising and moving, The Last Four Days of Paddy Buckley is
unlike any novel you’ve ever read—a morality tale about what happens when man meets
mob, man meets dog, when man meets truth—all at once.
Jeremy Massey is a second-generation undertaker who worked with his father for many years at the family firm in
Dublin. A screenwriter by training, Massey has lived in New York and Los Angeles. He currently lives with his wife
and three children in Australia, where he teaches writing.
EARLY PRAISE
“Jeremy Massey puts a fresh and intriguing spin on the Irish crime novel with the tale of an ordinary man drawn
into a deadly conflict with a Dublin mob boss. The Last Four Days of Paddy Buckley is both a cleverly constructed
thriller and an unforgettable story of friendship, love, and loyalty. It’s sharply written, darkly comic, and full of
heart.”
—Harry Dolan, author of the New York Times bestseller Bad Things Happen
“This is what we call a ‘nightstand book’ at our house: it will joyfully make its way from my nightstand to my
husband’s. The gifted Jeremy Massey has created a complex, fascinating, and hilarious Irishman in Paddy Buckley,
the delightful center of a novel brimming with passion, humor, poetry, and wisdom that come only from the
Emerald Isle, where the best stories are born.”
—Adriana Trigiani, author of The Shoemaker’s Wife
SOLD TO
Germany (Carls Books)
Netherlands (Brandt)
9
LOCAL GIRLS: A Novel
By Caroline Zancan
Fiction | Riverhead | June 30, 2015 | World Rights
Agent: Monika Woods/ InkWell Management
Manuscript available
A sparkling, humorous, and eerily accurate portrait of youth and fame, this debut novel
follows three best friends on the night they encounter Sam Decker, a hugely famous actor, at
their favorite bar on the very night he dies of a drug overdose. The author writes with a rare
edge and a finely-tuned, original voice reminiscent of Jami Attenberg, Maria Semple, and
Joshua Ferris.
Caroline Zancan is a graduate of Kenyon College and holds an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars. Her
short story "Start Somewhere" was published as a Kindle single, "After" was published in the Day One literary
journal for new writers, and her stories have also received four honorable mentions in various Glimmer Train
contests. Zancan is an associate editor at Henry Holt.
EARLY PRAISE
“What is more compelling than a shared history with the power to both unite and destroy? Such is the situation in
Local Girls. Though the mystery of a death itself pulls the reader forward, the real suspense rests with the stories of
the young women. Caroline Zancan is a fine writer who brings great insight and wisdom."
—Jill McCorkle, New York Times-bestselling author of Life After Life
“Local Girls is part break-up, part love-letter to that languorous period just after high school ends and just before
real life—ever elliptical, always mercurial—begins. An utterly charming debut.”
—Hannah Pittard, author of The Fates Will Find Their Way and Reunion
10
FALL 2015
THE SECRET CHORD
By Geraldine Brooks
Fiction | Viking | September 22, 2015 | World Rights
Agent: Kris Dahl/ ICM
Manuscript available
From the author of the novels Caleb’s Crossing (Viking), People of the Book (Viking), and March
(Viking), winner of the Pulitzer Prize, a novel about King David, tracing his dramatic life from
shepherd to solider, obscurity to celebrity, insider to outlaw, beloved king to crumbling tyrant.
SOLD TO
Little, Brown UK
Hachette (Australia and New Zealand)
OPTION PUBLISHERS: Caleb’s Crossing
Brazil (Nova Fronteira)
France (Belfond)
Germany (Goldmann)
Israel (Modan)
Italy (Neri Pozza)
Spain (RBA Libros)
11
THE HOURS COUNT: A Novel
By Jillian Cantor
Fiction | Riverhead | October 20, 2015
Agent: Jessica Regel/ Foundry Literary + Media
Manuscript available
UK Rights Only
On June 19, 1953, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were executed for conspiring to commit
espionage. The day Ethel was first arrested in 1950, she left her two young sons with a
neighbor, and she never came home to them again. Brilliantly melding fact and fiction, Jillian
Cantor reimagines the life of that neighbor, and the life of Ethel and Julius, an ordinaryseeming Jewish couple who became the only Americans put to death for spying during the
Cold War.
Jillian Cantor has a BA in English from Penn State University and an MFA from The University of Arizona. She is
the author of award-winning novels for teens and adults including, most recently, the critically acclaimed Margot,
which was a Library Reads pick.
EARLY PRAISE
“A deeply compelling retelling of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg’s famous betrayal. Beautifully written and
meticulously researched, this book will leave you wondering about the intersection of truth and politics,
responsibility and love, long after you've finished reading it.”
—Anton DiSclafani, New York Times-bestselling author of The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls
“Utterly gripping and almost unbearably moving. A thought-provoking novel about a terrible aspect of America’s
recent past, with the pace of a thriller.”
—Natasha Solomons, New York Times-bestselling author of The House at Tyneford
“Taut, atmospheric and absorbing, this story provides an intimate window into a world most people only know
from the headlines.”
—Christina Baker Kline, New York Times-bestselling author of Orphan Train
“Fraught with tension and wise with empathy, this is the story of a shameful time in our nation’s history, but also of
friendship, love, and loyalty.”
—Laura Moriarty, New York Times-bestselling author of The Chaperone
“Fact and fiction are blended in a gripping tale of guilt, innocence, and heartbreak. I was bowled over by her
intimate portrait of women in crisis. Jillian has torn pages straight from the history books and transformed them
into a riveting story of intrigue, desire, and hope.”
—David R. Gillham, New York Times-bestselling author of City of Women
“Flawlessly mixes fact and fiction, drawing the reader into the world of the Lower East Side in the fifties—and the
lives of accused Communist spies Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. A finely drawn portrait of McCarthy-era America, by
turns heartwarming and haunting.”
—Susan Elia MacNeal, New York Times-bestselling author of the Maggie Hope novels
12
CAN I GO NOW?:
The Life of Sue Mengers
By Brian Kellow
Nonfiction | Viking | September 8, 2015 | World Rights
Agent: Edward Hibbert/ Donadio & Olson, Inc.
Manuscript due March 2015
An in-depth portrait of one of the most powerful, outrageous, and colorful women in
Hollywood history—the infamous first superagent Sue Mengers. More than twenty years after
she left business in the early ‘90s, she remains one of the legendary figures of the great movie
renaissance of the late ‘60s and ‘70s, a born rule-breaker who became a bigger celebrity than
many of her clients. CAN I GO NOW? will also provide vivid details about the business and social scene in
Hollywood during that time, and the role that Mengers played in it.
Brian Kellow is the features editor of Opera News, where his column “On the Beat” appears monthly. He is the
author of Pauline Kael, Ethel Merman, The Bennetts: An Acting Family and the co-author of Can’t Help Singin: The Life of
Eileen Farrell. A classically trained pianist, Kellow has also written for Opera and Playbill, among others.
THE OTTOMAN ENDGAME:
War, Revolution, and the Making of the Modern Middle East, 1908 - 1923
By Sean McMeekin
Nonfiction | Penguin Press | November 3, 2015 | World Rights
Agent: Andrew Lownie Literary Agency
Manuscript available
In THE OTTOMAN ENDGAME, acclaimed historian Sean McMeekin offers a blistering
exposé of the West’s partition plans for the Ottoman Empire, in which the Russians were
actually the driving force. British politician Sir Mark Sykes and French diplomat François
Georges-Picot, always painted as the main actors of this story, are shown by McMeekin to
have in fact been dupes of the Russian negotiator, Sazanov. World War I’s endgame is magnificently reconceived,
beginning with a revolutionary account of Brest-Litovsk and the carve-up of European Russia, with new revelations
on occupied Ukraine and German plans to depose the Bolsheviks by force in fall 1918. Finally, the book relates the
story of the birth of modern Turkey, including long-forgotten episodes like the King-Crane commission report,
which gave a snapshot of public opinion in the Middle East on the eve of the European takeover. In this engrossing
and revelatory new history, told with McMeekin’s great wit and storytelling flair, we’re shown that history is not
really as we believed it to be.
Sean McMeekin is a professor of history at Bard College. He is the author of July 1914, which was reviewed on the
cover of The New York Times Book Review; The Russian Origins of the First World War, which won the Norman B.
Tomlinson Jr. Book Prize; and The Berlin to Baghdad Express, which won the Barbara Jelavich Book Prize.
SOLD TO
Penguin Press/Penguin UK
China (Citic)
13
OUR ROBOTS, OURSELVES:
Robotics and the Myth of Autonomy
By David Mindell
Nonfiction | Viking | October 13, 2015 | World Rights
Agent: Katherine Flynn/ The Kneerim, Williams, and Bloom Agency
Manuscript available
An MIT professor takes on the myths of robotics, exploring the extreme environments —
high atmosphere, deep ocean, and outer space—where automated machines are already
employed, making a provocative argument for the crucial role of people in a changing
technological landscape: it is not the robots themselves but the novel mixtures of human- and
automated- machines that are changing the nature of the work and the people who do it. Employing firsthand
experience, extensive interviews, and the latest research from MIT and elsewhere, Mindell shows how people
operate with and through robots and automated systems and how these interactions will continue to impact our
work, experiences, and professional identities in the coming years.
David Mindell is the Dibner Professor of the History of Engineering and Manufacturing and Professor of
Aerospace Engineering at MIT. He is an award-winning author of several books on technology, most recently
Digital Apollo (MIT, 2008), which won the Eugene Emme award from the American Society of Astronautics and the
Gardner-Lasser Award from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. He has 25 years of experience
as an engineer in the field of undersea robotic exploration, and more recently as an airplane pilot and engineer of
autonomous aircraft.
14
BRAND LUTHER:
How an Unheralded Young Minister Turned his Small German Town
into a Center of Publishing, Made Himself the Most Famous Man in
Europe—and Started the Protestant Reformation
By Andrew Pettegree
Nonfiction | Penguin Press | October 27, 2015 | World Rights
Agent: c/o The Penguin Press
Manuscript available
In 1517, Martin Luther became the most (in)famous man in Europe. He was responsible for
catalyzing the violent wave of religious reform that would come to be known as the
Protestant Reformation, and which would engulf Europe in decades of bloody war. BRAND LUTHER is a unique
fusion of history and religion, chronicling the feedback loop between Luther and the emerging print industry that
powered—and was powered by—a demand for religious texts. That double vision has positioned Pettegree, perhaps
uniquely, to comprehend this epic event, not simply as a religious story, but as a story about the marketplace of
ideas, and specifically about how ideas were carried and spread in new ways, by new things—things called books.
Andrew Pettegree is professor of modern history at the University of St. Andrews, where he was the founding
director of the St. Andrews Reformation Studies Institute. He currently serves as vice president of the Royal
Historical Society. He is the author of The Invention of News and The Book in the Renaissance, which was a New York
Times Notable Book of 2010. He lives in Fife, Scotland.
EARLY PRAISE
"Andrew Pettegree draws on a lifetime's scholarly engagement with the history of the book to offer us a fresh way
of looking at Luther and his times. Of all the many new books which will commemorate the momentous events of
1517, this will be one of the most original: not just a biography of Martin Luther, but a study which uses the
printing industry as a lens through which to view his extraordinary achievement as writer and inspiration of the
movement which reshaped European religion."
—Diarmaid MacCulloch, author of The Reformation: A History and Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years
15
THE WIND IN THE REEDS:
A Storm and the City that Would Not Be Broken
By Wendell Pierce
Nonfiction | Riverhead | September 8, 2015 | World Rights
Agent: Laura Nolan/ Paradigm
Manuscript due April 2015
Since Hurricane Katrina, Tony Award winning producer Wendell Pierce has been helping to
rebuild the flood-ravaged Pontchartrain Park neighborhood in New Orleans where his family
lived. Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans. The hurricane breached many of the city’s
levees, and the resulting flooding submerged Pontchartrain Park under as much as 20 feet of
water. Katrina left New Orleans within hours, but water relentlessly gushed into the city for days, leaving 80% of
New Orleans under water. Nearly 1,500 people were dead. There was no electricity or clean water. Tens of
thousands of people were stranded in the city; many more evacuees were displaced, with no way back in.
Pierce and his family were some of the lucky ones: They were able to ride out the storm at a relative’s house 70
miles away. When they returned, they found their home in tatters, their neighborhood decimated. Pierce vowed to
help rebuild, and not just his family’s home, but all of Pontchartrain Park.
Wendell Pierce was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. An actor and Tony Award-winning producer, he starred in all
five seasons of the acclaimed HBO drama The Wire and was nominated for an NAACP Image Award for
Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series. He also starred in the HBO series Treme and has appeared in
many feature films including Ray, Waiting to Exhale and Hackers.
THE VATICAN PROPHECIES:
Investigating Supernatural Signs, Prophecies,
and Miracles in the Age of Reason
By John Thavis
Nonfiction | Viking | September 15, 2015
Agent: Kris Dahl/ ICM
Manuscript due April 2015
UK Rights Only
The New York Times- bestselling author of The Vatican Diaries examines how the Catholic
Church evaluates, judges and controls miraculous events—and offers a glimpse at the behindthe-scenes debate over their authenticity. In exploring all these issues, THE VATICAN
PROPHECIES also sheds light on the ongoing tension between traditional belief and contemporary skepticism,
and the Vatican’s efforts to bridge the gap, and also explores such controversial topics as the power of relics, the
“third secret” of Fatima, The Shroud of Turin, and miracle cures.
In 2012, John Thavis retired as the prize-winning Rome bureau chief of Catholic News Service, the world’s largest
and oldest religious news agency. Thavis began working as a journalist in 1978 for the Rome newspaper, the Daily
American, thereafter holding positions at the Associated Press, ABC News, and the Catholic News Service, where he
began reporting full-time on the Vatican and religious affairs. He served three years as president of the Association
of Vatican Journalists, the only American to ever hold that position.
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EXCELLENT DAUGHTERS
By Katherine Zoepf
Nonfiction | Penguin Press | January 12, 2016
Agent: Sterling Lord Literistic
Manuscript due March 2015
UK Rights Only
In 2004, Katherine Zoepf came to Damascus and Beirut as a stringer for the New York Times.
In EXCELLENT DAUGHTERS, she documents what she saw: a deeply complex culture
preoccupied with the role of women, especially the practice of honor killing and the
establishment of girls’ madrassas. In Lebanon, she finds a country whose women balance
extreme standards of beauty with Islamic codes of virtue. In Abu Dhabi, Zoepf reports on a
generation of Arab women who found freedom in work outside the home. In Saudi Arabia she chronicles driving
protests and the rise of the country’s first female owned and operated lingerie stores. She reports from Egypt in the
aftermath of Tahrir Square to examine the crucial role of women in Egypt's popular uprising and the backlash
against female political participation that followed. By showing us the intimate lives of these women, Katherine
Zoepf documents a critical and untold story of the Middle East—and forecasts a reshaping of the Muslim world.
Katherine Zoepf lived in Syria and Lebanon from 2004 to 2007 while working as a stringer for The New York Times.
She then worked in the Times’s Baghdad bureau in 2008. Since 2010, she has been a fellow at the New America
Foundation. Her work has appeared in The New York Observer, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The New York Times
Magazine, and The New Yorker, among other publications.
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FUTURE
IT DIDN’T START WITH YOU:
How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle
By Mark Wolynn
Nonfiction | Viking | Spring 2016 | World Rights
Agent: Bonnie Solow/ Solow Literary Enterprises
Manuscript due June 2015
An examination of how trauma is passed through the generations, and is encoded in gene expression and everyday
language – which also forms the key to our breaking these patterns.
Mark Wolynn is director of The Family Constellation Institute, The Hellinger Institute of Northern California, and
co-director of the Hellinger Learning Center in New York City. He is North America’s leader in Inherited Family
Trauma and conducts workshops and trainings in family therapy throughout the US, Canada, England and Latin
America.
DAREDEVILS
By Shawn Vestal
Fiction | Penguin Press | Spring 2016
Agent: Renee Zuckerbrot/ The Renee Zuckerbrot Agency
Manuscript due May 2015
UK Rights Only
The debut novel by the 2014 PEN/Bingham winner, set in mid-70s Arizona and Idaho, follows Loretta, a brave 15year-old from a fundamentalist Mormon family forced into a plural marriage with a town elder; Jason, the teenage
boy who loves her; and their mad dash for freedom, punctuated by visions of Evel Knievel.
Shawn Vestal is the author of Godforsaken Idaho, a collection of short stories which was named the winner of the
PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize and longlisted for the William Saroyan International Prize. His stories have
appeared in Tin House, McSweeney’s, Ecotone, The Southern Review, Cutbank, Sou’wester, Florida Review and other journals.
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HIT-MAKERS:
How to Succeed in the Age of Attention
By Derek Thompson
Nonfiction | Penguin Press | Winter 2017 | World Rights
Agent: Gail Ross/ Ross Yoon Agency
Manuscript due end 2015
The Atlantic senior editor’s investigation of why some songs, movies, books, games, and TV shows explode and so
many others fizzle; showing how success can happen for all of us in our new, wired world, whose currency is
attention, and what it says about us—putting pop culture under the lens of science with his trademark brilliance and
wit.
SOLD TO
Penguin Press/Penguin UK
China (Citic)
Korea (Book 21)
Derek Thompson is a senior editor at The Atlantic, where he writes about economics, labor markets, and the
entertainment business. He frequently appears on radio and television, including NPR and CNBC and is also an
adjunct professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, where he teaches a class on writing
for the Internet. In 2012, he appeared in FOLIO: magazine’s 15 Under 30, was one of Min’s People to Watch, and
his blog was named one to follow by Reuters’ Counterparties blog, newsletter and website.
EASTMAN WAS HERE
By Alex Gilvarry
Fiction | Viking | Winter 2017 | World Rights
Agent: Seth Fishman/ The Gernert Company
Manuscript due September 2015
A roman a clef by 2014 National Book Foundation 5 under 35 selection and author of From the Memoirs of a Non-Enemy
Combatant wherein a washed-up journalist, public intellectual, accidental cultural critic, husband, and philanderer sets
out on a reluctant journey that Norman Mailer never had the chance to complete.
OPTION PUBLISHERS:
Brazil (Alaude Editorial)
Germany (Suhrkamp)
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UNTITLED BIOGRAPHY ON MARTIN LUTHER
By Eric Metaxas
Nonfiction | Viking | Fall 2017 | World Rights
Agent: Joel Tucciarone/ Diadem Partners
Manuscript due January 2017
The definitive biography of Martin Luther, from the internationally bestselling author of Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr,
Prophet, Spy, to publish during the 500th anniversary of his 95 Thesis.
OPTION PUBLISHERS: Miracles: What They Are, Why They Happen, and How They Can Change Your Life
Hodder & Stoughton
Brazil (Companhia das Letras)
Croatia (Znanje D.D.)
Finland (Paiva)
Germany (SCM Haenssler im SCM)
Greek (Psichogios)
Hungary (Immanuel Kiado)
Poland (Spoleczny Instytut Wydawniczy Znak)
Romania (Scriptum Publishing House)
Slovakia (Fortuna Libri)
Sweden (Litzon Press)
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