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FRONTLIST HIGHLIGHTS
A SCHEME OF HEAVEN by Alexander Boxer THE GOOD ASSASSIN by Stephan Talty 140 DAYS TO HIROSHIMA by David Dean Barrett THE COBBLER by Steve Madden LAST MISSION TO TOKYO by Michel Paradis THE GIRL AND THE BOMBARDIER by Susan Tate Ankeny OUR LIVEABLE WORLD by Marc Schaus MOM GENES by Abigail Tucker
BACKLIST HIGHLIGHTS
LABYRINTH OF ICE by Buddy Levy RAISING HELL by Jon Wiederhorn THANK YOU FOR MY SERVICE by Mat Best HUNGRY by Jeff Gordinier EVERY TOOL’S A HAMMER by Adam Savage SUPERBUGS by Matt McCarthy GO LIKE HELL by A.J. Baime
FRONTLIST
Jon Wiederhorn RAISING HELL: Backstage Tales From the Lives of Metal Legends (Diversion) Foreword by Gary Holt of Exodus and Slayer Music / UK: Abner Stein, Translation: WLA, NA: Diversion, Poland: Wydawnictwo Kagra Krzysztof Grausz
Manuscript available / Publishing January 2020
From the author of celebrated classic Louder Than Hell comes an oral history of the badass Heavy Metal lifestyle—the debauchery, demolition, and headbanging dedication—featuring metalhead musicians from Black Sabbath and Judas Priest to Twisted Sister and Quiet Riot to Disturbed, Megadeth, Throwdown, and more.
In his song “You Can’t Stop Rock and Roll” Ozzy Osbourne sings, “Rock and roll is my religion and my law.” And that’s why RAISING HELL is a must-have for anyone who wants to read about the iconoclastic culture of headbangers and the wild lives they lead. The book contains the crazy and funny, and sometimes horrifying, anecdotes musicians have told about a lifestyle both invigorating and at times self-destructive.
The metal genre has always been populated by colorful individuals who have thwarted convention and lived by their own rules. For many, vice has been virtue, and the opportunity to record albums and tour has been an invitation to push boundaries and opened a Pandora’s Box of wild experiences. Even before they joined bands, the urge for metalheads to rebel and a seemingly contradictory need to belong was ingrained in their DNA. Whether they were oddballs who didn’t fit in or angry kids from troubled backgrounds, metal gave them a sense of identity.
Alexander Boxer A SCHEME OF HEAVEN: The History of Astrology and the Search for our Destiny in Data (Norton) Science / Translation: WLA / NA: Norton, UK: Profile, Russia: Azbooka-Atticus
Manuscript available / Publishing January 2020
Humans are pattern-matching creatures, and astrology is the universe’s grandest pattern- matching game. In this refreshing work of history and analysis, data scientist Alexander Boxer examines classical texts on astrology to expose its underlying scientific and mathematical framework. Astrology, he argues, was the ancient world’s most ambitious applied mathematics problem, a monumental data-analysis enterprise sustained by some of history’s most brilliant minds, from Ptolemy to al-Kindi to Kepler.
Astrologers became the first to stumble upon the powerful storytelling possibilities inherent in numerical data. To correlate the configurations of the cosmos with our day-to-day lives, astrologers relied upon a “scheme of heaven” or horoscope, showing the precise configuration of the planets at a particular instant in time as viewed from a particular place on Earth. Although recognized as pseudoscience today, horoscopes were once considered a cutting-edge scientific tool. Boxer teaches us how to read these esoteric charts—and appreciate the complex astronomical calculations needed to generate them—by diagramming how the heavens appeared at important moments in astrology’s history, from the assassination of Julius Caesar as viewed from Rome to the Apollo 11 lunar landing as seen from the surface of the Moon. He then puts these horoscopes to the test using modern data sets and statistical science, arguing that today’s data scientists do work similar to astrologers of yore. Looking back at the algorithms of ancient astrology, he suggests, we can better recognize the patterns that are timeless characteristics of our own pattern-matching tendencies. At once critical, rigorous, and far ranging, A SCHEME OF HEAVEN recontextualizes astrology as a vast, technological project that foreshadowed our data- driven world today.
Bill Ripken STATE OF PLAY: An Old School Guide to New School Baseball (Diversion) Sports / UK: Abner Stein, Translation: WLA
Manuscript available / Publishing February 2020
Over the last few years the Sabermetric and Analytical (S&A) craze has infiltrated MLB front offices, dugouts, and news. S&A has certainly made contributions to better the game of baseball, but not to the extent that people seem to think it has. New terms, phrases, and unrealistic statistics like launch angle, spin rate, and pitch framing have been thrown at us and are being used as punchlines with little real meaning when it comes to how the game is actually played.
Former 12-year major league veteran and current MLB Network analyst Bill Ripken argues that new analytical terms are being introduced to the baseball lexicon before they’ve become completely validated ideas. He believes these new terms require qualifiers to make it clear to confused baseball fans that these new statistics and analytics aren’t necessarily relevant to the fundamental truths of the sport. These new ways of thinking, Ripken argues, are actually damaging to the way people experience and understand the game. STATE OF PLAY looks at these so-called new and improved statistics and methods and points out what makes sense and what doesn’t in a larger, historical context. Baseball common sense is the main focus. Ripken reconciles the old with the new, arriving at a modern baseball philosophy that accounts for both.
Bill Ripken is a 12-year major league veteran and current studio analyst appearing across MLB’s Network’s programming, including the Emmy Award-winning flagship studio show MLB Tonight. A three-time sports Emmy nominee, he captured the award for Outstanding Studio Analyst in 2016. Ripken is also a bestselling author.
Jonathan W. Jordan & Emily Ann Jordan THE WAR QUEENS: Extraordinary Women who Ruled the Battlefield (Diversion) History / UK: Abner Stein /World English Only
Manuscript available / Publishing March 2020
In gripping, cinematic detail, father-daughter duo Jonathan and Emily Jordan uncover the ingenious wartime tactics of some of history’s most powerful female leaders across millennia and continents, from the stifling battlefields of ancient Egypt to the frigid waters off the Falkland Islands.
History’s killer queens come in all colors, ages, and leadership styles. Elizabeth Tudor and Golda Meir played the roles of high-stakes gamblers who studied maps with an unblinking, calculating eye. Angola’s Queen Njinga, possessing limited resources but unmatched ferocity, was willing to shed (and occasionally drink) blood to establish a stable kingdom in an Africa ravaged by the colonial slave trade. Caterina Sforza defended her Italian holdings with cannon and scimitar, and Indira Gandhi launched a war to solve a refugee crisis.
From ancient Persia to modern-day Britain, the daunting thresholds these exceptional women had to cross—and the clever, sometimes violent ways in which they overcame them—are evoked in vivid detail by Jonathan and Emily Jordan. This gripping narrative sidles up to each war queen in the most dire, tumultuous moments of her reign and examines the deft, brilliant methods and maneuvers they each used to defend themselves and their constituents from enemy forces. In the end, we come away with a new awareness of the resilient, extraordinary power and potential of women in history who walked through war’s kiln and emerged from the other side—some burnished to greatness, others burned to cinders, all of them legends.
Stephan Talty THE GOOD ASSASSIN: How a Mossad Agent and a Band of Survivors Hunted Down the Butcher of Latvia (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) History / Translation: WLA, NA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, UK: Amberley
Manuscript available / Publishing April 2020
Before World War II, Herbert Cukurs was a famous figure in his small Latvian city, the “Charles Lindbergh of his country.” But by 1945, he was the Butcher of Latvia, a man who murdered some thirty thousand Latvian Jews. Somehow, he dodged the Nuremberg trials, fleeing to South America after war’s end.
By 1965, as a statute of limitations on all Nazi war crimes threatened to expire, Germany sought to welcome previous concentration camp commanders, pogrom leaders, and executioners, as citizens. The global pursuit of Nazi criminals escalated to beat the looming deadline, and Mossad, the Israeli national intelligence agency, joined the cause. Yaakov Meidad, the misfit Mossad agent who had kidnapped Adolf Eichmann three years earlier, knew if Cukurs was not captured soon, he may never be brought to justice. In a thrilling undercover operation unrivaled by even the most ambitious spy novels, Meidad traveled to Brazil in an elaborate disguise, befriended Cukurs and earned his trust, while negotiations to extend Nazi innocence neared a boiling point. THE GOOD ASSASSIN uncovers this little-known chapter of Holocaust history and the pulse-pounding undercover operation that brought Cukurs to justice.
David Dean Barrett 140 DAYS TO HIROSHIMA: The Untold Story of Japan’s Last Chance To Surrender (Diversion) History / UK: Abner Stein, Translation: WLA
Manuscript Available / Publishing April 2020
Historian David Dean Barrett puts readers inside the halls of power in Washington and Tokyo during the desperate final months of World War II. America’s strategic bombing campaign systematically incinerated Japan’s cities while the leaders of the Pacific’s two military giants waged a war of strategy, cultural differences, and diplomatic intransigence. The military brain trust of the United States called for “unconditional surrender.” Japan’s senior leaders responded with a plan of all-out military and civilian resistance termed Ketsu- Go, or “The Decisive Battle.” What Emperor Hirohito and his Supreme Council at the Direction of War seemed unable to grasp was the Americans’ development of a catastrophic ace-in-the-hole. As US leaders weighed a two-phrase invasion of the Japanese mainland that would have been twice as large as D-Day and astronomical in casualty count, a nuclear clock was ticking—America was arming itself with the ultimate weapon.
Within the war-room debates, two men—one Japanese, Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo; and one American, President Harry S. Truman—assumed leading roles. Togo risked assassination in his struggle to convince his dysfunctional government, dominated by militarists and determined to fight the decisive battle on Japanese soil, to save his country from annihilation. In Washington, an untested President Truman inherited the mandate of unconditional surrender, the bloodiest battle of the Pacific War, the plans for the invasion of the Japanese Homeland, and the development of the most terrible weapon the world has ever seen.
Even when Japan’s “Big Six” heard from the US that failing to surrender America’s terms would result in “a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth,” why did they not lay down their arms? The answer lies in 140 DAYS TO HIROSHIMA and the book’s nearly day-by-day account of the struggle to terminate a conflict when the positions of enemy leaders from different cultures seemed intractable. Seventy-plus years after the fact, the use of atomic bombs by the US in World War II remains one of the most controversial decisions of the 20th Century, and 140 DAYS TO HIROSHIMA unpacks the human drama that led to the decision, including the frustrating near-misses in diplomacy that could have prevented it.
Seth Tibbott with George Diaz IN SEARCH OF THE WILD TOFURKY: How A Business Misfit Pioneered Plant-Based Foods Before They Were Cool (Diversion) Business / Abner Stein: UK, Translation: WLA
Manuscript available / Publishing April 2020
“Seth's epic journey from his treehouse to flying high with Tofurky is one of the most inspirational in the history of the natural food movement. This book isn't about how an old hippie achieved success, but about a man who lived his truth and maintained his humility throughout his own evolution, and thereby touched lives across multiple continents, including mine.” —Miyoko Schinner, CEO, Miyoko’s Kitchen
From treehouse dream to global brand, Tofurky founder Seth Tibbott tells the triumphant story of a family-owned, eco-friendly enterprise that led the great vegan renaissance and made millions—without selling its soul.
“If there ever was a person more ill-prepared to run a business than I was in 1980,” writes Tofurkey founder Seth Tibbott, “I have yet to meet them.” Against all odds, however, this tree-hugging educator with no business background managed to build a global plant-based food brand worth millions.
How did he do it? This book details the improbable journey from treehouse to state-of-the-art eco-manufacturing plant churning out 12 million pounds of Tofurkey per year. It wasn’t an easy ride—the first nine years of business brought in a grand total of $31,000— but Seth held on, experimenting with products, staying true to his belief in eco-friendly practices, and, when necessary, getting out of his own way. For anyone who feels they have something great to offer the world but lacks formal business training, this is a story about hope, grit, and selling the dream—without selling out.
Steve Madden THE COBBLER: How I Disrupted an Industry, Fell from Grace, and Came Back Stronger Than Ever (Radius) Business / Translation: WLA, NA: Radius Books, Russia: Eksmo Bombara
Publishing May 2020
Everyone knows Steve Madden’s name and his shoes, but few are familiar with his story. Over the past thirty years Steve Madden has taken his eponymous shoe company from the fledgling start-up he founded with a mere $1,100 to a global, multi-billion-dollar brand. But Madden’s mistakes, from his battle with addiction to the financial shortcuts that landed him in prison, are as important to his story as his most iconic shoes. In this raw, intimate, and ultimately inspiring book, Madden holds nothing back as he shares what it took to get here and the lessons he’s learned along the way. From his unconventional hiring strategies to his slavish devotion to product, Madden offers a business perspective that is as unique as his styles. In THE COBBLER, readers are treated to the wild ride though his rise, fall, and comeback. But they will also walk away uplifted by a man who has owned up to his mistakes and come back determined to give back and use his hard-won platform to create positive change.
Michael Konik THE UNEXPECTED GUEST: How a Homeless Man from the Streets of L.A. Redefined Our Home (Diversion) Memoir / UK: Abner Stein / World English Only
Manuscript available / Publishing May 2020
“Heartwarming, compassionate, and well-crafted, The Unexpected Guest gives voice to those rarely heard, compels you to look closer when you want to look away, and reveals the joy of caring for others.”––Pete Earley, author of Crazy: A Father’s Search Through America’s Mental Health Madness, 2007 Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize
For years, “Fisher King Mike” wandered the streets of LA, preaching to his people. On occasion, he’d share an open mic night with Michael Konik, who befriended the homeless man at a distance and offered a confused but sympathetic ear when the Fisher King lamented having to be so far away from his wife, Selena Gomez, and their several children. As the pair began to cautiously trust one another, confusion and distance gave way to friendship, and what came next astounded them both.
In this poignant memoir from bestselling author Michael Konik, “family” and “home” take on a profound new meaning through one person’s care for a stranger. Konik offered extra food when his unlikely new friend came by, a pair of pants when it was clear he needed them, and wondered how much he, as a person, owed the troubled Fisher King—a question all of America faces, with a total of 552,830 people experiencing homelessness on a single night in 2018. When Konik and his wife offered Mike a place in their home, handy as he turned out to be with household projects, they were delighted with his transformation from Fisher King to Caretaker. Gone was the man who gave sermons about his estate next door to Kanye West, and the man drifting through life, wondering at his purpose and what was missing. What each never saw coming was their own transformation and the lessons they’d learn in what it meant to not only be good people, but be to human.
Michael Konik is the bestselling author of twelve books, among them The Smart Money and Ella in Europe. He is the winner of the 2016 Barrelhouse Prize for his novel Year 14, and has been published in over one hundred magazines, including Sports Illustrated, Travel and Leisure, and Maxim.
A.J. Baime DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN: The 1948 Election and the Battle for America’s Soul (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) History / UK: Abner Stein, Translation: WLA
Manuscript available / Publishing June 2020
DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN is about the greatest election upset of all time. On the eve of the 1948 election, Americans were certain that President Harry S. Truman’s political career was over. Newsweek polled 50 political writers and not one of them picked Truman to win. America’s most popular magazine, Life, had this to say: “Obviously, the Republican star is approaching its zenith.” The only man in the world confident that Truman would win was Mr. Truman himself.
Twenty-four hours later, a nation awoke stunned. Truman was “the political miracle man of this generation,” noted the Chicago Tribune. With perspective today, we can go ahead and call it the greatest presidential election upset of all time. DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN will be a road story, as we see our main character embark on his Whistle Stop tour of the nation in the Ferdinand Magellan, a bulletproof Pullman car originally designed for FDR. For two months, the Truman family lived in this train car. In Boston, a quarter of a million people turned out when Truman’s train roared into town. In other rural parts of the nation, crowds measured in the dozens. In all, there were 201 stops, with over 30,000 miles traveled. The last stop was Truman’s own Kansas City, where he received a heartwarming, hero’s welcome. Ultimately, the underdog wins in the end.
Sandra B. Tooze LEVON: How a Homeless Man from the Streets of L.A. Redefined Our Home (Diversion) Music / UK: Abner Stein / World English Only
Manuscript available / Publishing June 2020
“Levon Helm put his heart and soul into every beat he played, every song he sang. He brought joy to people all over the world by sharing the unique blend of musical styles he grew up with in the Arkansas Delta. Along the way, he became a good actor, too! I’m glad his story is getting the telling it deserves.”—President Bill Clinton
LEVON is the first major biography of Levon Helm, the legendary drummer and singer of the Band. Through rigorous research and interviews with close friends and fellow musicians, author Sandra B. Tooze ( Muddy Waters: The Mojo Man) has written an original, insightful investigation of the relentless perseverance that propelled Levon Helm from Southern cotton fields to the global limelight, and that kept him in the game despite career collapse, near bankruptcy, and what he saw as devastating betrayal by his closest friend, Band guitarist Robbie Robertson.
Levon Helm claimed that his drum stool was the best seat in the house. From that vantage point back in his childhood home of Turkey Scratch, Arkansas, he saw the convergence of musical styles—blues, country, and R&B—that would coalesce into rockabilly and then rock. Later, he became integral to the evolution of popular music, joining the raucous rockabilly group Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks, then merging hard-driving rock with Bob Dylan’s folk roots, and revolutionizing American rock with the Band. He not only provided the perfect “in the pocket” rhythm and unforgettable high-lonesome voice for many of the Band’s greatest songs, but he was also the Band’s soul. As a member of the Band, Levon was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and received the Grammy’s Lifetime Achievement Award. He also acted in eighteen movies, including Coal Miner’s Daughter and The Right Stuff. Universally loved and admired, he was described by Bob Dylan as “my bosom buddy friend to the end, one of the last true great spirits of my or any other generation.”
Michel Paradis LAST MISSION TO TOKYO: The Extraordinary Story of the Doolittle Raiders and Their Final Fight For Justice (S&S) History / Translation: WLA / NA + UK: Simon & Schuster
Manuscript available / Publishing July 2020
A thrilling narrative that introduces a key but underreported moment in World War II: The Doolitte Raids and the international war crimes trial in 1945 that defined Japanese-American relations and changed legal history. In 1942, freshly humiliated from the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States was in search of a plan. President Roosevelt, determined to show the world that our nation would not be intimidated or defeated by enemy powers, he demanded recommendations for a show of strength. Jimmy Doolittle, a stunt pilot with a doctorate from MIT, came forward, and led eighty young men, gathered together from the far-flung corners of Depression-era America, on a seemingly impossible mission across the Pacific. Sixteen planes in all, they only had enough fuel for a one-way trip. Together, the Raiders, as they were called, did what no one had successfully done for more than a thousand years. They struck the mainland of Japan and permanently turned the tide of the war in the Pacific.
Almost immediately, The Doolittle Raid captured the public imagination, and has remained a seminal moment in World War II history, but the heroism and bravery of the mission is only half the story. Michel Paradis reveals the dramatic aftermath of the mission, which involved two lost crews captured, tried, and tortured at the hands of the Japanese, a dramatic rescue of the survivors in the last weeks of World War II, and an international manhunt and trial led by two dynamic and opposing young lawyers—in which both the United States and Japan accused the other of war crimes—that would change the face of our legal and military history.
Melody Thomas Scott with Dana L. Davis ALWAYS YOUNG AND RESTLESS: My Life On and Off America’s #1 Daytime Drama (Diversion) Memoir / UK: Abner Stein / World English Only
Manuscript available/ Publishing July 2020
Melody Thomas Scott admits she is nothing like her The Young and the Restless role, which has seen it all in her forty-year tenure on America’s highest-rated daytime serial. But the high drama, angst, and catastrophes aren’t confined to her character’s plotlines. In this captivating memoir, Melody reveals behind-the-scenes tales of her own riveting journey to becoming an icon.
As Nikki Newman went from impoverished stripper to resourceful, vivacious heroine— with missteps as gripping as her triumphs—Melody became a household name, enthralling audiences across the globe. But her road to stardom also had to be one to freedom marked by an escape fit for cinema. In ALWAYS YOUNG AND RESTLESS, Melody tells of her troubled, untraditional upbringing for the first time.
Readers will learn how she suffered at home with her hoarder grandmother, whose cruelty as her manager is shockingly extreme; abuse at the hands of industry men; the intensity of acting in feature films with Alfred Hitchcock and Clint Eastwood; and how she finally took control of her life and career, in a getaway move as daring as any on The Young and the Restless. And of course, Melody divulges forty years’ worth of juicy on-and-off set details of what it’s like to be one-half of the show’s most successful supercouple, “Niktor,” plus her personal path to healing, love, and family. In witty, warm prose, meet the shining, persevering heart of an American icon—and prepare to be moved by a life story fit for a soap opera star.
Tanya Acker MAKE YOUR CASE: Winning Civil Court Strategies Straight from the Hot Bench (Diversion) Law / UK: Abner Stein, Translation: WLA
Proposal available / Publishing August 2020
Judge Tanya Acker, star of the Emmy-nominated CBS show Hot Bench, offers ten comprehensive lessons to demystify courtroom proceedings, laying out all the professional insider information to survive civil court. Millions of people end up in civil court each year. They assume going to court is the next logical step in their fight, but they often have little idea about how the court system works or what they can reasonably expect of it. They make poorly informed judgments about whether court is the best option for solving a problem, what kind of solutions it can provide, and why it proceeds in the (sometimes) counterintuitive way it does. They think “winning” is only about the judgment or verdict rendered by judge or jury. Those “wins” are great—but if you don’t know what the process can exact from you or why it works as it does, that blind procession to victory can end up costing you your real win.
In MAKE YOUR CASE, Judge Tanya Acker cuts straight to the essentials, providing curated, targeted advice based on her extensive experience regarding exactly what people want to know: what happens during court proceedings and why, and how to best prepare for it—or how to avoid court entirely and find a better way.
Susan Tate Ankeny THE GIRL AND THE BOMBARDIER: A True Story of Resistance and Rescue in Nazi-Occupied France (Diversion) History / Abner Stein UK, Translation: WLA
Manuscript available / Publishing September 2020 A downed B-17 bombardier’s unfinished World War II memoir and a box of letters from the French girl who saved him sets a veteran’s daughter on a journey, sixty-five years later, to craft their intersecting stories—a true WWII tale of danger, courage, love, and escape in THE GIRL AND THE BOMBARDIER.
Susan Tate Ankeny was sorting through the belongings of her late father—a World War II veteran bombardier who had bailed from a burning B-17 over Nazi-occupied France in 1944—when she found two boxes. One contained her dad’s Air Force uniform, and the other an unfinished memoir, stacks of envelopes, black-and-white photographs, mission reports, dog tags, and the fake identity cards he used in his escape. Ankeny spent more than a decade from that moment tracking down letter writers, their loved ones, and anyone who had played a role in her father's story, culminating in a trip to France where she retraced his path with the same people who had guided him more than sixty years ago.
A remarkable hero emerged—Godelieve Van Laere—just a teenaged girl when she saved the fallen Lieutenant Dean Tate, risking her life and forging a friendship that would last into a new century.
The result is an amazing, multifaceted World War II tale—perhaps one of the last of its kind to be enriched by an author’s interviews with participants. It traces the transformation of a small-town American boy into a bombardier, the thrill and chaos of an air war, and the horror of bailing from a flaming aircraft over enemy territory. It distinguishes the actions of a little-known French resistance network for Allied airmen known as Shelburne. And it shines a light on the courage and cunning of a young woman who put her life on the line to save another’s.
Ali Rogin BEAT BREAST CANCER LIKE A BOSS: 30 Powerful Stories (Diversion) Health / UK: Abner Stein / Translation: WLA
Manuscript available April 2020 / Publishing September 2020
High-profile and celebrity breast cancer survivors and “previvors” lend their voices to this inspirational support and recovery roadmap for anyone braving a cancer diagnosis, along with their loved ones.
When award-winning journalist Ali Rogin tested positively for the BRCA1 genetic mutation at age twenty-two—long before Angelina Jolie became the famous face of the gene—she was faced with an agonizing choice: Should she go ahead and cut the ticking time bomb cells out of her body or play a dangerous waiting game?
Rogin found answers in the vibrant, inspiring community of breast cancer survivors and “previvors” who also stared down the odds. With her brave, defiant decision to undergo a prophylactic bilateral mastectomy before even graduating college, she joined a diverse sisterhood of powerful women facing breast cancer in its many forms with dignity, strength, and humor. In BEAT BREAST CANCER LIKE A BOSS, they tell their stories. Drawing from first-hand interviews of successful, high- profile women from an array of industries and walks of life (including Edie Falco, Heidi Heitkamp, Joan Lunden, Sheryl Crow, and Andrea Mitchell), Rogin brings together a support and recovery roadmap for anyone confronting a cancer diagnosis, including tips on everything from telling your loved ones about your diagnosis, to navigating the myriad treatment options available, to managing the work/life/cancer balance. In this inspiring and highly informative volume, readers learn how preeminent actresses, musicians, politicians, journalists, and entrepreneurs faced a formidable disease and put it in its place.
Ali Rogin is a producer with the PBS NewsHour foreign affairs team. In addition to traveling the world for PBS, she shoots, edits, and produces her own stories for TV, radio, and print; her reports appear on MSNBC, ABC, PBS, SiriusXM, and nationally-syndicated FM radio shows. Rogin is a ten-year veteran of D.C.’s political scene, covering the White House, Capitol Hill, and the State Department. In 2012, she flew around the country on Air Force One and press planes when covering the presidential election.
Max Frumes and Sujeet Indap PALACE COUP: The Billionaire Brawl over the Bankrupt Caesars Gaming Empire (Diversion) History / Abner Stein UK, Translation: WLA
Manuscript available April 2020 / Publishing October 2020
PALACE COUP is a narrative-driven nonfiction account of the 2015 bankruptcy of one of the largest casino operators in the world, Caesars Entertainment. The backdrop for the narrative is a portrait of the modern distressed-debt-investing world. Distressed-debt investing—dubbed “vulture investing” in its infancy—is the buying of debt of struggling corporations, institutions, and even cities (Detroit) or countries, and making a windfall profit on a turnaround. In covering this extraordinary case, PALACE COUP paints an unforgettable picture of the modern corporate restructuring world that pervades our country’s economic ecosystem. Examining the Caesars example offers a window into just how sophisticated modern corporate finance has become. Leveraged buyouts by private equity firms—the proverbial Barbarians at the Gate—have spawned a new set of aggressive financial investors who can themselves make fortunes off bloodied, battered companies. The Caesars case further fascinates how it pits the billionaire titans of distressed debt against both each other and those of private equity—with Apollo as a hybrid. The scope of this one case spans the whole country, in and out of court, across multiple levels of government, throughout academia, and ultimately involves the whole financial system undergirding pensions and investments. Authors Max Frumes and Sujeet Indap, experienced financial journalists with industry experience, illuminate the major players and businesspeople at the tipping points of almost every major corporate and governmental turnaround in recent history. PALACE COUP is a story of cut-throat, multilevel competition between powerful investors used to getting their own way. And it’s a story of individuals who’ve managed to remain at arm’s length from the true impact of upheaval wrought by their actions.
Marc Schaus OUR LIVABLE WORLD: Creating the Clean Earth of Tomorrow (Diversion) Science / UK: Abner Stein, Translation: WLA
Manuscript available / Publishing October 2020
There’s finally reason to hope. Climate change is the existential threat of our time, but incredible new advancements in science and engineering can allow us to avoid the worst repercussions of global warming as we work to reverse it over time. In Our Livable World, research specialist and author Marc Schaus leads readers in an exploration of the newest and upcoming innovations in green technology poised to prevent the climate apocalypse—and usher in a sustainable, livable world.
To beat a challenge the size of climate change, our solutions will have to be ambitious: solar energy coatings that can be applied like paint, “smart highways” designed to charge your vehicle as you drive, indoor vertical farms automated to maximize crop growth with no pesticides, bioluminescent vines ready to one day replace our streetlights, jet fuel created from landfill trash—and next-generation carbon capture techniques to remove the emissions we have already released over the past several decades. Far from the geoengineering schemes of cli-fi action thrillers: real solutions are being developed, right this moment. Our Livable World features interviews with the innovators, real talk on the revolutionary technology, and a clear picture of a cleaner planet in the future.
Though climate change is arguably the biggest threat humankind has ever faced, this book proves that our ability to fight this change is limited only by the scope of our imagination and the power of our will.
Marc Schaus is a professional research specialist across the sciences for research ventures, craft product manuals, and policymakers. He is the author of Post Secular: Science, Humanism and the Future of Faith, and has written articles that have appeared in Areo Magazine, Free Inquiry Magazine, The Huffington Post, Patheos, and the academic journal Antennae.
Rosie Schaap THE SLOW ROAD NORTH: How a Troubled Soul Found Peace in an Improbable Country (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) Narrative Nonfiction / UK: Abner Stein, Translation: WLA
Proposal available / Manuscript due October 2020
After losing her husband and her mother to traumatic illnesses in a single year, Rosie pushed ahead in her professional life, summiting professional peaks most writers only dream of. But internally she had plunged into an anxious spiral of despair. For years she grappled to keep it together, a "professional drinker" with her grief on hold. It wasn't until she visited Belfast that she found a partner to heal with in the city itself.
THE SLOW ROAD NORTH will blend personal narrative and social history. The Irish have always had an openness in the face of death and loss, and this book will explore that communal candor and its effects both on Rosie's psyche and Northern Ireland's own sociopolitical healing. As an MA candidate at The Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry at Queen's University in Belfast, Rosie will have uninterrupted access to Northern Ireland during this pivotal time in its history as well as the time to write a fully realized manuscript.
Rosie Schaap is the author of the memoir, DRINKING WITH MEN, named one of the best books of 2013 by Library Journal, Maclean’s, and National Public Radio. She was from 2011 to 2017, the monthly “Drink” columnist for The New York Times Magazine. Her byline has also appeared in The New York Times’ book review, dining, sports, and travel sections, Bon Appétit, Food & Wine, Lucky Peach, Marie Claire, Saveur, and Travel + Leisure, among other publications, and her personal essays have been published in numerous anthologies. A contributor to the radio show This American Life, she is on the faculty of the MFA program in creative writing at Fairleigh Dickinson University.
Bill Plaschke PARADISE FOUND: A Football Team’s Rise From the Ashes (William Morrow) Sports / Translation: WLA / NA+UK: William Morrow
Proposal available / Manuscript due October 2020
“It’s like a movie,’’ says the longtime coach Rick Prinz. For 60 years, the northern California mountain town of Paradise has filled up the ancient 2,500 seat stadium on autumn Friday nights to cheer a group of undersized, overmatched players who somehow consistently triumph over larger teams from the valley. This spring author Bill Plaschke traveled to Paradise on assignment for the Los Angeles Times, tasked with writing a column about the plight of the Paradise High football team in the wake of the most destructive wildfire in California history, a November 8, 2018 blaze that leveled a city of 25,000 and killed 86 people.
The town has been unimaginably razed, and still is today, its population dropping from 25,000 to 2,000. The streets are still lined with piles of burned and twisted metal, vacant lots that once held homes, and lonely business signs rising above empty patches of concrete that once held the businesses. The football team was just as decimated. All but three of the kids live in temporary housing and when they gathered for their first spring practice, the Paradise Bobcats realized all of their equipment had been burned—they didn’t even have a football.
So, this spring, against all odds, but with a town betting its spiritual future on them, Prinz and his Bobcats started again. The roster was depleted, their equipment was gone, their scoreboard was partially melted, they had been dropped from their league because their enrollment dipped, they had no idea who they were going to play, they didn’t even have enough bus drivers to transport them to their games, but they decided to play anyway. It was during this spring visit that I realized, this is, quite simply, a book. PARADISE FOUND will be the story of this season of resurrection.
The book, as written through the eyes and access of contracted collaborator Rick Prinz, will document the difficult journey of a high school football team charged with rebuilding the spirit of a community. It will also include the perspectives of various players, coaches, and townsfolk involved in the Bobcats’ comeback.
John A. Riggs HIGH TENSION: FDR’s Battle to Power America (Diversion) History / UK: Abner Stein, Translation: WLA
Proposal available / Manuscript due October 2020
When Franklin Delano Roosevelt took office in the depths of the Depression, high tension—or high voltage—power lines had been marching across the country for decades, delivering urban Americans a parade of life-transforming inventions from electric lights and radios to refrigerators and washing machines. But most rural Americans still lived in the punishing pre-electric era, unconnected to the grid, their lives consumed and bodies broken by backbreaking chores.
HIGH TENSION is the story of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s battle against the “Power Trust,” an elaborate Wall Street-controlled web of holding companies, to electrify all of America—even when the corrupt captains of the industry and their cronies (led by a formidable and honest champion, Wendell Willkie, whose role in the battle propelled him to a presidential bid to unseat Roosevelt in 1940) cried that running lines to rural areas would not be profitable and that in a free market there would simply have to be a divide between the electricity haves and have-nots. FDR knew better, and in this story of shrewd political maneuvering, controversial legislation, New Deal government organizations like the Tennessee Valley Authority, the packing of Federal courts, towering business figures, greedy villains, and the crying needs of farmers and other rural citizens desperate for services critical to their daily lives John A. Riggs has chronicled democracy’s greatest balancing act of government intervention with private market forces—one that brought affordable electricity to all Americans, powered the industrial might that won World War II, and established a model for public-private solutions today in areas such as transportation infrastructure, broadband, and health care.
John A. Riggs, currently a Senior Fellow at the Aspen Institute, has been at the center of energy policymaking in Washington, DC, for more than thirty years. As a senior official of the Department of Energy, the House of Representatives, and the Aspen Institute, he observed the recent transformation of the electricity industry and helped develop the policies that govern it. Riggs received a master’s degree in public policy at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School and served five years in Vietnam with the Agency for International Development during the war. As Staff Director of the House Energy and Power Subcommittee, he participated in all the major energy legislation of the 1980s and early 1990s. From 1993 to 1995 he was Deputy Assistant Secretary and then Assistant Secretary for Policy and International Affairs at the U.S. Department of Energy. As Executive Director of the Aspen Institute Energy and Environment Program and as Senior Fellow, Riggs led the renowned Aspen Energy Policy Forum for nineteen years, working with utility CEOs, Members of Congress, Cabinet-level officials, environmentalists, academics, and other energy experts. He has edited or co-edited several Aspen Institute books and reports, including U.S. Policy and the Global Environment: Memos to the President, Electricity: Seeking Progress Amid Uncertainty; Conserving Biodiversity; and U.S. Policy on Climate Change: What Next? His letters on the New Deal and energy and environmental policy have been published in the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Baltimore Sun.
Abigail Tucker MOM GENES: Inside the Somewhat Unflattering, Totally Fascinating Science of Motherhood (Simon & Schuster) Science / Translation: WLA / NA + UK: Simon & Schuster, Japan: Intershift, Russia: Eksmo
Manuscript available March 2020 / Publishing 2021
Abigail Tucker, the New York Times-bestselling author of THE LION IN THE LIVING ROOM, turns her attention to the science of motherhood. Together with the thorough research and irreverent humor that made LION such a success, Tucker brings her own experience to bear on the experience of being a mom. With access to a growing body of scientific research, MOM GENES is filled with fascinating insights about the metamorphosis—or metamomphosis, in Tucker’s puckish phrase—the female body undergoes during and after pregnancy.
Tucker’s account begins with the story of the “Octomom”—a petite purple octopus that scientists discovered off the coast of California and monitored during the fifty-three months—nearly 5 years—of her gestation period, during which the octopus’s appearance and behavior change dramatically. Expanding from this anecdote, Tucker moves on to an account that mixes her own experience with captivating scientific insights from the animal world and new science on maternity, exploring the central question: “What rocks the hand that rocks the cradle?”
A rich scientific survey with a warm personal touch, MOM GENES is a book for anyone who wants to better understand their own mom, their wife, or the deranged-looking lady in the carpool lane. But most of all, it’s for women in search of themselves—the person they used to be, or the one they will soon become.
Krys Malcolm Belc THE NATURAL MOTHER OF THE CHILD (Counterpoint) Memoir / UK: Abner Stein, Translation: WLA
Manuscript available / Publishing March 2021
As a transmasculine parent, Krys has a unique perspective on the interplay between parenthood and gender. These identifiers we use to categorize people are more complicated for Krys, a man who gave birth to a child before formally beginning his transition into the male body he was meant to inhabit. Krys is now paradoxically perceived as a "good dad" by the world while in legal terms he is the natural mother of his biological son, Samson. In practice, Krys identifies as neither mother nor father but as caregiver to the three children he and his partner have created. Transitioning was an experience that not only altered Krys's body, but also changed the dynamics of his family to outsiders, making the Belc household appear to contain both a father and a mother. By engaging with court records and photographic evidence of the author's evolving existence, THE NATURAL MOTHER OF THE CHILD creates a new kind of record, one that establishes an identity based in human-ness.
Krys’s visceral voice and ability to connect with the reader is a key ingredient in what makes this memoir essential in the conversations about bodily autonomy, parenthood, and human rights. In the vein of Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts and Sally Mann's Hold Still, THE NATURAL MOTHER OF THE CHILD is a journey both toward and through common perceptions of what it means to have a body and an example of how to move past societal expectations to take control of one's own narrative.
A.J. Baime WHITE LIES: The Double Life of Walter White and America’s Darkest Secret (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) Memoir / UK: Abner Stein, Translation: WLA
Proposal available / Manuscript due April 2021
Walter White lead two lives: one as an African-American leader of the Harlem Renaissance and the NAACP, and the other as a white newspaperman who covered lynching crimes in the deep South. Born of mixed blood with particularly caucaisian features, White was able to "pass" as white while undercover. His reporting brought to light the darkest crimes in America and planted the seeds of the Civil Rights movement. Throughout his life, White also experienced ongoing conflict for his own identity, what might be called an internal double life. Eventually, he would make the most difficult decision of his life in order to finally find inner peace and his true self. White's story is complex, fraught with internal and external conflict, much like the story of race in America.
BACKLIST
Buddy Levy LABYRINTH OF ICE: The Triumphant and Tragic Greely Polar Expedition (St. Martin’s Press) History / UK: Abner Stein, Translation: WLA / Czech Republic: Prostor
Published December 2019
In LABYRINTH OF ICE, Buddy Levy takes on the ill-fated Greely Expedition of 1881, shedding new light on both the arctic landscape of the story and the continuing contributions of the expedition’s scientific documentation.
Led by the ambitious Lt. A.W. Greely, the Greely Expedition’s goals were three-fold: to set up the northernmost chain of research stations working to better understand the Earth’s climate, a search and rescue mission for the lost crew of the USS Jeanette, and an attempt to reach the North Pole. The mission required Greely and his men to be marooned in Greenland for two years with a supply ship arriving in the summer of 1882 and a contingency plan if a ship did not return to collect them in the summer of 1883. As happens with the best laid plans, no ship arrived, and Lt. Greely was left to decide whether to stay or set out on the small boats toward the agreed upon rendezvous point. His decision leads to the death (and possibly cannibalization) of all but seven men. These survivors return as national heroes and provide the world with data that is currently helping meteorologists and scientists understand climate change and how humans have altered the world.
Buddy Levy has authored many books including NO BARRIERS: A Blind Man’s Journey to Kayak the Grand Canyon, GERONIMO: The Life and Times of An American Warrior, and RIVER OF DARKNESS: Francisco Orellana’s Legendary Voyage of Death and Discovery Down the Amazon.
Ryan Clancy and Margaret White with No Labels THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO THE 2020 ELECTION: 101 Nonpartisan Solutions To All the Issues That Matter (Diversion) Politics / Translation: WLA
Published October 2019
With the 2020 presidential election looming, the emerging contest doesn’t seem so much a battle of ideas as it does a war of two tribes bent on the other’s destruction.
THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO THE 2020 ELECTION gives back to the center its voice with clear, easy-to-understand information on several key issues, including health care, climate change, infrastructure, big tech, immigration, the American dream, the national debt, and gun safety. No Labels had a hand in creating the Problems Solvers Caucus, a bipartisan group in the US Congress dedicated to bridging the divide between the political extremes. Senior advisors Ryan Clancy and Margaret White have spent the last several years building support for No Labels’ politics of problem solving, working with thousands of U.S. citizens from the fifty states to bring American leaders together to address the nation’s most pressing issues. No Labels has 1.3 million Facebook followers and has the ear of movers- and-shakers both inside and outside the DC beltway.
Curt Sampson ROARING BACK: The Fall and Rise of Tiger Woods (Diversion) Sports / Translation: WLA / NA+UK: Diversion Books
Published October 2019
Once hailed as “the greatest closer in history,” Woods fell further than any beloved athlete in America’s memory, only to swing at the world’s wildest expectations and beat the skeptics with his April 2019 championship. ROARING BACK traces his road to Augusta and the improbable, phenomenal comeback of one of the greatest golfers in history.
New York Times-bestselling author Curt Sampson details the highs and lows of Tiger’s career in four gripping acts. Examining his startling loss at the 2009 PGA Championship, his detrimental obsession with his swing, and that infamous night involving an ex-wife and a nine-iron, Sampson explores the dark years when adoring fans and lucrative sponsors turned their backs, topped by an arrest and a toxicology report. Finally, readers arrive at Tiger’s historic triumph: donning his fifth green jacket as the crowd rumbled in Georgia. Woods’ comeback is, in many ways, a medical miracle. The New York Times reported in May 2019 that his recovery from spinal fusion surgery is so rare it is “like winning the lottery.” ROARING BACK finds the forty-four-year-old alone on Augusta’s eighteenth green as he achieves incredible victory against all odds.
Perfect for readers of Jeff Benedict’s Tiger Woods, Sampson looks ahead to Tiger’s future as an athlete poised to match or even break Jack Nicklaus’s record for major tournament wins. He also places Woods’ defeats and triumphs in the context of historic comebacks by other notable golfers like Ben Hogan, Skip Alexander, Aaron Stilton, and Charlie Beljan, proving Tiger’s unmatched prowess of mind and body. As this enthralling book reveals, Tiger never doubted the perseverance of the winner in the mirror.
Albert Chen BILLION DOLLAR FANTASY: The High-Stakes Game Between Fanduel and Draftkings That Upended Sports in America (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) Sports / UK: Abner Stein, Translation: WLA
Published September 2019
“Fans of financial thrillers such as Barbarians at the Gate will be excited by this insider account of the dizzying rise of fantasy sports websites”—Publishers Weekly
BILLION DOLLAR FANTASY is the untold story behind the clash of billion-dollar companies that unleashed an unprecedented advertising war. From Sports Illustrated’s Albert Chen comes the story of two companies whose battle unleashed a carpet bombing of advertising as they sought supremacy in an exploding fantasy sports and gambling market: In a time of gushing venture capital money, FanDuel and DraftKings turned into billion-dollar companies seemingly overnight—then, just as quickly, found themselves the target of FBI and Department of Justice Investigations, and facing likely destruction.
Chen tells the story of the improbable individuals behind the saga: An Irishman who knew nothing about American sports. A fantasy geek who felt it was his destiny to change the way fellow nerds watched the games they loved. A conflicted poker player. A mother of three in Scotland.
In a character-driven narrative with excursions into the strange and unexpected, Chen takes us from casinos to board rooms, from Edinburgh to Wall Street to the Vegas Strip, to tell a sprawling and intimate tale of the new world that this group of accidental disruptors helped to create. It’s a story of ideas and dreams, about a world of risk, luck, hubris, greed, and redemption—a story for our high-stakes times.
Bob Batchelor BOURBON KING: The Life and Crimes of George Remus, Prohibition’s Evil Genius (Diversion) History / UK: Abner Stein, Translation: WLA
Published September 2019
Historian Bob Batchelor covers the life, times, and crimes of George Remus, the man who ran the largest bootlegging operation in America—larger and more powerful than that of Al Capone—and was considered the best criminal defense lawyer of his era. He bought an empire of distilleries on “The Bourbon Trail” and used his other profession, as a pharmacist, to profit off loopholes in the law. He spent millions bribing government officials in the Harding Administration. And he led a roaring, opulent lifestyle that epitomized the Jazz Age over which he ruled. So extravagant was this Bourbon King’s lifestyle that his lush parties—some attended by F. Scott Fitzgerald—made him the inspiration for The Great Gatsby.
But Remus came crashing down in one of the most sensational murder cases in American history. After serving a brief prison sentence, he was driven mad by his cheating wife Imogene and Franklin Dodge, the G-man who not only put him in jail, but also seduced her, then stole all his riches. Remus murdered his wife in cold blood, setting loose the most media-saturated trial of the Jazz Age.
Love, murder, mountains of cash, bribery, political intrigue, endless liquor, and a grand spectacle like few before it, the tale of George Remus transcends the era and provides readers with a lens into the dark heart of the American people and their fascination with crime.
Andy Anderson THE ULTIMATE YOU: Change Your Mind, Transform Your Life (Diversion) Self- Help / Translation: WLA / NA+UK: Diversion Books, Vietnam: Thai Ha
Published September 2019
From Andy Anderson, founder and CEO of Ultimate You—the innovative fitness, nutrition, and coaching franchise that is transforming lives and minds Down Under—comes a clear, actionable, step-by-step process that will help anyone make dramatic changes in their life and health. Anderson himself is a true embodiment of transformation: After years of excessive drinking and wallowing in self-doubt, he found the strength to dramatically improve his health, become a professional athlete, and build a seven-figure business with thousands of clients. And just how did he accomplish so much by his early thirties?
With action worksheets and coaching tools, THE ULTIMATE YOU’s innovative C-H-A-N- G-E goal-setting and three-phase mindset process, readers will be equipped to make instant and lasting changes in their lives.
Andy Anderson is an Australian entrepreneur, speaker, and professional athlete. As founder and CEO of Ultimate You, he is on a mission to help people transform their minds, bodies, and businesses worldwide. Be
Mat Best THANK YOU FOR MY SERVICE (Bantam) Narrative Nonfiction / UK: Abner Stein, Translation: WLA *NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER*
Published August 2019
In this hilarious memoir, readers ride shotgun alongside former Army Ranger and private military contractor and current social media phenomenon Mat Best, into the action and its aftermath, both abroad and at home. From surviving a skin infection in the swampy armpit of America (aka Columbus, Georgia) to kicking down doors on the outskirts of Ramadi, from blowing up a truck full of enemy combatants to witnessing the effects of a suicide bombing right in front of your face, THANK YOU FOR MY SERVICE will give readers fresh insight into what it’s really like inside the minds of men and women on the front lines.
It’s also a sobering yet steadying glimpse at life for veterans after the fighting stops, when the enemy becomes self-doubt or despair and you begin to wonder why anyone should be thanking you for anything, least of all your service. How do you keep going when something you love turns into somebody you hate? For veterans and their friends and family, THANK YOU FOR MY SERVICE will offer comfort, in the form of a million laughs, and counsel, as a blueprint for what to do after the war ends and the real fight begins.
And for civilians, this is the insider account of military life you won’t find anywhere else, told with equal amounts of heart and balls. It’s Deadpool meets Captain America, except one went to business school and one went to therapy, and it’s anyone’s guess which is which.
Jeff Gordinier HUNGER: Eating, Road-Tripping & Risking It All with the Greatest Chef in the World (Crown) Narrative Nonfiction / Translation: WLA / NA: Crown, UK: Icon, Spain: Planeta, Taiwan: Azoth
Published July 2019
World-renowned chef René Redzepi walked into Jeff Gordinier’s life at a charged time. This book emerges from that encounter. It’s more than a collection of journeys—it’s a connected and evolving narrative of this transformation in Jeff’s life to which he owes great credit to René and the time they spent together. Beyond the incredible food, cultures, characters, and genius is the magic that happens when someone says "yes" instead of "no," when they fly outside of their comfort zone and are able to truly live and take risks. For Jeff, this came at the perfect moment, and he was smart enough to jump.
Jeff has been a New York Times food writer for years. He has a distinct voice: at once fun, energetic, and wildly descriptive. A voice that jumps off the page. His work at the Times draws a large and devoted following, and his pieces on Redzepi in particular have been among the most popular for the section and the paper. Redzepi, co-owner of Copenhagen’s Noma restaurant and a pioneer of New Nordic cuisine, is considered by many to be the greatest chef of his generation, and this book will be a definitive portrait of this trailblazing genius, with a chance to hit readers of books like Born to Run and Heat alike.
Matt Kepnes TEN YEARS A NOMAD: A Traveler’s Journey Home (St. Martin’s) Memoir / UK: Abner Stein, Translation: WLA
Published July 2019
Matt Kepnes has built one of the best brands in the travel industry, one that reaches millions of people every month through his travel website nomadicmatt.com. Now, Kepnes is poised to build off the success of his New York Times bestselling first book, How to Travel the World on $50 a Day. TEN YEARS A NOMAD has at its core the stories of the seminal experiences Kepnes had while on the road, traveling over 500,000 miles and staying in 1,000 different hostels in 90 different countries. If you travel that much, especially the way Matt does, you are going to end up with some amazingly formative stories—and this book is packed with them.
Beginning with the trip to Costa Rica that shook him out of the doldrums of his early- twenties life, Kepnes goes on to recall formative friendships among backpackers in Thailand, a poker-playing guru in Holland, and experiencing travel burnout in Australia. Drawn from a decade spent circling the globe as a professional traveler and filled with the color and perspective that only hindsight and self-reflection can offer, these stories transcend the basic "how-to" of travel in order to plumb the depths of "why now" and "what for." TEN YEARS A NOMAD gets to the real questions at the heart of wanderlust.
Adam Savage EVERY TOOL’S A HAMMER: Life Is What You Make It (Touchstone) *NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER*
Business / Translation: WLA / NA: Touchstone, Simp. Chinese: United Sky, Russian: Eksmo, Taiwan: Locus, UK: Viking
Published May 2019
Adam Savage is a maker. From Chewbacca’s bandolier to a thousand-shot Nerf gun, he has built thousands of spectacular projects as a special effects artist and the cohost of MythBusters. Adam is also an educator, passionate about instilling the principles of making in the next generation of inventors and inspiring them to turn their curiosity into creation.
In this practical and passionate guide, Adam weaves together vivid personal stories, original sketches and photographs from some of his most memorable projects, and interviews with many of his iconic and visionary friends in the arts and sciences—including Jamie Hyneman, Nick Offerman, Pixar director Andrew Stanton, Oscar-winner Guillermo del Toro, artist Tom Sachs, and chef Traci Des Jardins.
EVERY TOOL’S A HAMMER is a chronicle of the author’s life as a maker. It’s an exploration of making and productive obsessions, but it’s also a permission slip to the reader. Permission to grab hold of the things you’re interested in, that fascinate you, and to dive deeper into them to see where they lead you.
David Wolman and Julian Smith ALOHA RODEO: Three Hawaiian Cowboys, the World’s Greatest Rodeo, and a Hidden History of the American West (HarperCollins) History / UK: Abner Stein, Translation: WLA
Published May 2019
ALOHA RODEO tells the story of a little-known chapter in U.S. history, one that changes our thinking about cowboys, the frontier, colonialism, and American identity at the dawn of the twentieth century. This lost tale of the Wild West blends a narrative about colliding cultures with a sports-underdog triumph in the vein of The Boys in the Boat or Seabiscuit. The book chronicles the lives of three paniolos—Hawaiian cowboys—who traveled to Wyoming in 1908 to compete in the granddaddy of all rodeo competitions: the Cheyenne Roundup. What happened in that dusty arena stunned not just locals and rodeo aficionados, but also Americans from coast to coast, up to and including President Roosevelt. Who were these men? How did they become riding and roping virtuosos? And where did you say they were from again?
Drawing on contemporary newspapers and diaries, interviews with the cowboys’ descendants, firsthand reportage, and historical archives, ALOHA RODEO showcases a Hawaii that most people know nothing about: sprawling cattle ranches, horses and cows thundering into the surf to waiting ships, and a cowboy culture predating that of the mainland United States. Before tiki bars and Trader Vic’s, before big wave surfing or a kid named Barack, a small band of buckaroos from an exotic land found themselves in the heart of the proud, rough-knuckled and deeply bigoted American West. There they pulled off a colossal upset, and in the process put their homeland on the map.
Julie Satow THE PLAZA: The Secret Life of America’s Most Famous Hotel (Twelve) History / Translation: WLA / NA: Twelve, Korea: Kyungrok
Published May 2019
From award-winning New York Times real estate reporter Julie Satow comes the inside story of the Plaza Hotel—a portrait of New York fortune and glamour won and lost, and the history of America’s one percent over the past century.
From the moment Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt walked through the Plaza’s revolving doors to become its first ever guest, the hotel has radiated wealth and luxury. For some, the Plaza evokes images of F. Scott Fitzgerald frolicking in the Pulitzer Fountain, or Eloise, the impish guest who pours water down the mail chute. THE PLAZA details these stories— and more.
For this deeply-reported book, Julie Satow conducted hundreds of interviews, from hotel bellmen to members of the Trump clan, traveled from Israel to India, and sifted through nearly a million news articles. THE PLAZA is a tale of beauty on the surface and grit behind the scenes, and how the Plaza Hotel became a mirror reflecting the country’s cultural narrative from era to era for over a century.
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Luis Tiant with Saul Wisnia SON OF HAVANA: A Baseball Journey from Cuba to the Big Leagues and Back (Diversion) Sports / Translation: WLA
Published May 2019
Luis Tiant is one of the most charismatic and accomplished players in Boston Red Sox history—a cigar-chomping maestro who was the heart and soul of Boston’s teams in the 1970s. In his white polyester uniform, with a paunch in his belly and a Fu Manchu mustache on his face, Tiant looked like a guy rolling out of bed for a Sunday- morning beer league. But nobody was a tougher competitor on the diamond, and few were as successful. There may be no more qualified pitcher not yet enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
His big-league dreams came at a steep price—racism in the Deep South and the Boston suburbs, fifteen years separated from a family held captive in Castro’s Cuba. But baseball also delivered World Series stardom and a heroic return to his island home after a half-century of forced exile. The man whose name—“El Tiante”— became a Fenway Park battle cry has never fully shared his tale in his own words, until now. In SON OF HAVANA, Tiant puts his huge heart on his sleeve and describes his road from fields strewn with rocks and rubbish in Havana to the pristine lawns of Major League ballparks. Ballplayers, family, and media also weigh-in—including a foreword by fellow 1975 hero Carl Yastrzemski and the first in-depth interview ever with Hall of Fame catcher Carlton Fisk on the magic behind the Boston battery mates.
Matt McCarthy SUPERBUGS: The Race to Stop an Epidemic (Avery) Science / Translation: WLA / NA: Avery, UK: Scribe, China: Croatia: Profil knjiga, Japan: Kobun-Sha, Korea: Next Wave Media, Russia: Piter Press
Published April 2019
New York Times-bestselling author Dr. Matt McCarthy, a doctor and professor at Cornell and New York Presbyterian Hospital in New York City, is on the front lines of a groundbreaking clinical trial testing a new antibiotic to fight the emergence of "superbugs," bacteria that have built up resistance to all known medical treatment. This trial serves as the backdrop for his new book, one which will explore this complex battle between nature and human ingenuity. It is a vitally important subject impacting every one of us. Throughout the book, Matt will also explore the history of bacteria and antibiotics dating back to the discovery of penicillin by Alexander Fleming, bringing to light how we arrived at this juncture in science, a place of both incredible breakthrough and extreme vulnerability.
SUPERBUGS is a story of cutting edge science with worldwide significance and edge-of- your-seat narrative potential. The clock is ticking throughout: can we stop the superbug bacteria from becoming unstoppable? Can Matt save the lives of his patients infected with the deadly bacteria? Will Matt and his colleague Dr. Walsh succeed in their clinical trial? All of these questions will be in constant play.
Matt McCarthy is a trained scientist who is highly regarded inside the world of medicine. As a writer, he blends high-level narrative with technical precision, attracting readers of commercial narrative non-fiction, serious science, and memoir. SUPERBUGS will sit comfortably alongside bestsellers like When Breath Becomes Air, The Emperor of All Maladies, The Gene, and Neurotribes.
George Papadopoulos DEEP STATE TARGET: How I Got Caught in the Crosshairs of the Plot to Bring Down President Trump (Diversion) Politics / Translation: WLA / NA+UK: Diversion Books
Published March 2019
DEEP STATE TARGET is the only firsthand account that proves the attempted sabotage of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign by American and international intelligence services.
As a young, ambitious foreign policy advisor to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, Papadopoulos became the first official to plead guilty in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. He is now the first campaign advisor sentenced and to have served time in prison. But as he explains in DEEP STATE TARGET, there was an intricate set up at play, and it was neither Trump nor the Russians pulling the strings. American and allied intelligence services set out to destroy a Trump presidency before it even started. An energy policy consultant working for the insurgent campaign, Papadopoulos encountered a rogues’ gallery of infamous figures employed by agents from the US, Britain, and Australia. Here, he gives the play-by-play of how operatives like Professor Joseph Mifsud, Sergei Millian, Alexander Downer, and Stefan Halper worked to invent a Russian conspiracy that would irreparably damage the Trump administration.
Papadopoulos was there: In secret meetings across the globe, on city streets being tailed by agents, and ultimately being the first target of Spygate, interrogated by Mueller’s team and agreeing to a guilty plea.
Mark Cuban, Shaan Patel, & Ian McCue KID START-UP: How YOU Can Be an Entrepreneur (Diversion) Business / Translation: WLA / NA: Diversion Books, Vietnam: Nha Nam
Published August 2018
A guide for kids (middle grade) interested in starting their own business, from American entrepreneur Mark Cuban, one of the stars of ABC’s Shark Tank, and two young entrepreneurs.
AUDIENCE US SCHOOL GRADE RANGE: Grades 4 To 7
You don’t have to be a grownup to launch your startup. We’ll show you how to discover a great business idea and get it off the ground. You can try one of our ten kid-friendly businesses, including timeless ventures like starting a lemonade stand to more modern-day endeavors like launching an Etsy art store, or create your own. Because every billionaire was once a kid with great ideas—just like you!
Through his bold and ingenious approach to business, sports, and life, Mark Cuban has become one of the world’s wealthiest entrepreneurs. With a knack for the inventive, as well as the spotlight, Cuban stands as one of the most innovative, successful, and talked about business minds of our generation.
Andrew Yang THE WAR ON NORMAL PEOPLE: The Disappearance of Jobs and What It Means for America (Hachette) Translation: WLA / NA + UK: Hachette, Simp. Chinese: Golden, Dutch: Leiden International, Japan: Nasu-Satoyamasya, Korea: Next Wave, Taiwan: Yuan-Liou
Published April 2018
Andrew Yang is not the first to realize that our shift toward automation is going to create a tsunami of unemployment; our system is about to be stress-tested on levels no one has ever experienced. A conservative estimate has 13 million American workers losing their jobs within the next seven years. Andrew is also not the first to realize that an income guarantee may be the only solution that will keep our country from falling off a cliff into unprecedented deprivation. He is however the first to recognize this impending catastrophe and decide to step down from the successful non-profit he founded in order to run for President as a Democrat in 2020 on the platform of Universal Basic Income for all Americans.
THE WAR ON NORMAL PEOPLE will be the central focusing point for the movement around Universal Basic Income, and it is going to redefine our political discourse over the coming months and years. It will describe how the combination of Artificial Intelligence, Software, Robotics and Automation is making millions of workers’ livelihoods irrelevant faster than most people imagine. It will then present the consequences of these changes, and a plan for how to address them. The most dramatic policy must be the separation of work from the ability to prosper – a universal basic income guarantee. Our jobs are disappearing faster than society can adapt.
Dr. Charles Casto STATION BLACKOUT: Inside the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster and Recovery (Radius) History / Translation: WLA / NA+UK: Radius Books
Published December 2018
On March 11, 2011, a forty-five-foot high tsunami engulfed the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, about 160 miles north of Tokyo, on Japan’s east coast. It disabled the plant’s power supply, causing three reactor cores to melt down in the first three days, leading to an unimaginable nuclear disaster. The person the Tokyo Electric Power Company called for help was Chuck Casto. In Station Blackout: Inside the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster and Recovery Casto tells his story and shares the lessons learned from Fukushima, and a lifetime in the nuclear industry—lessons in extreme crisis leadership and disaster response, as well as how to prevent such disasters.
Author Dr. Charles (Chuck) Casto is the president of Casto Group Consulting. A career nuclear safety and regulatory professional, he has thirty-eight years of experience in the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the commercial nuclear power industry, and the U.S. Air Force. He was a member of the Senior Executive Service at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), where he last held the position of Regional Administrator, Region III. He was awarded as a Distinguished Executive in 2012, by President Obama. Chuck served for 11 months as the Director for Site Operations in Japan during the Fukushima nuclear plant accident.
James Longo HITLER AND THE HABSBURGS: The Fuhrer’s Vendetta Against the Austrian Royals (Diversion) Translation: WLA / NA: Diversion Books, Czech: Slovart, Hungary: Alexandra Könyvesház Kft, Russia: Azbooka-Atticus, Spanish: Planeta Mexico, Slovak: Vydavatelstvo Motyl Branko Kocian
Published November 2018
During five youthful years in Vienna, Adolf Hitler’s obsession with the Habsburg Imperial family turned into a vendetta against a vanished empire, a dead archduke, and his royal orphans. The underlying reasons drove Hitler’s rise to power and led to the Second World War and the Holocaust. The royal orphans of Archduke Franz Ferdinand personified all that was wrong about the twentieth century and the Habsburg’s multi- ethnic, multi-cultural Austro-Hungarian Empire. They were on a collision course with the future Nazi leader.
As he rose to power Hitler’s hatred fixated on Franz Ferdinand’s sons, who became outspoken critics of racist Nazi ideology. When Germany seized Austria in 1938, Ferdinand’s sons were the first Austrians arrested by the Gestapo and sent to Dachau. The women in the family, including the Archduke’s daughter Princess Sophie Hohenberg, then declared their own war on Hitler. Through a decade of research and interviews with Habsburg descendants, scholar James Longo explores the roots of Hitler’s determination to destroy the family of the dead Archduke. And he uncovers the family members’ courageous fight against the Führer.
James Longo is Professor of Education and Education Department Chair at Washington & Jefferson College. He is a former Fulbright Scholar, Distinguished Chair of the Gender and Women’s Study Program at Alpen-Adrian University in Austria, and has lectured throughout Europe and America. His 2008 book, Isabel Orleans-Braganza: The Brazilian Princess Who Freed the Slaves was nominated for the Yale University Gilda Lehman Frederick Douglass Book Prize for the “most outstanding non-fiction book in English on the subject of slavery and abolition.” He lives in Washington, Pennsylvania.
Tina Turner MY LOVE STORY(Atria) *NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER*
Memoir / Translation: WLA / NA: Atria, UK: Penguin Random House, Brazil: Verus, Bulgaria: Janua`98 Ltd, Croatia: Iris Illyrica, Denmark: Memoris, Estonia: Tänapäev Publishers, Finland: Like Publishing, France: HarperCollins, Germany: Penguin, Hungary: Kossuth Publishing, Italy: HarperCollins, Russia: AST, The Netherlands: Bruna, Poland: Społeczny Instytut Wydawniczy Znak, Spain: Urano, Ukraine: Book Chef
Published October 2018
The incomparable Tina Turner has had one of the most storied lives in music history, from her tumultuous early days with Ike Turner to her triumphant emergence as the long-reigning Queen of Rock & Roll. She has won eight Grammys; sold 200 million records; set the stage on fire with every rock luminary from Mick Jagger to Beyoncé; and her bestselling book, I, Tina inspired the emotionally-charged, Academy Award nominated film, What’s Love Got To Do With It. But Tina says she’s just getting started. In her irresistible, say-anything voice— honest, intimate, and always unmistakably Tina—she has many more stories to tell about life and love at the top, spiritual fulfillment, and happy endings. Milestones include an international concert tour with monster sales that won her a Guinness World Record, the cover of Vogue, honors at the Kennedy Center and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and most importantly, her love affair and marriage to the man who has helped her create what she always wanted: a happy home (which happens to be a chateau in Switzerland). “I had a road and I followed it,” Tina says—no excuses, no regrets. In this book, Tina Turner continues her story, as compelling and entertaining as any of her greatest hits, with her signature blend of strength, energy, heart, and soul.
Rick Pitino with Seth Kaufman PITINO: My Story (Diversion) Sports Memoir / Translation: WLA / NA+UK: Diversion, Greece: Belle Epoque
Published September 2018
On September 26, 2017, the biggest recruiting scandal in college basketball history sent shock waves through the world of sports. Caught up in a massive FBI and NCAA investigation—and the intense media spotlight—was Rick Pitino, the Louisville Cardinals’ Hall of Fame coach.
Here, from Pitino himself, comes the real story of the ongoing case and the hard truth about how college hoops has been pushed to the brink of disaster by greed, bad actors, and shoe company money.
Rick Pitino has spent a lifetime in basketball. He is the recruiting and coaching maestro behind Final Four appearances with three different teams, and National Championships at two of them. He worked the early days of the legendary Five-Star camp and scouted players without the influence of agents, runners, or shoe companies. And he has run today’s recruiting gauntlet of sports apparel marketing, corrupted assistant coaches, unethical youth coaches, and powerful organizations hellbent against him. Rick Pitino has seen it all, dealt with it all, and now tells it all while offering his take on what needs to be done to save the game he loves.
Pitino is the story of an epic coaching career and the evolution of NCAA basketball to the multi-billion-dollar enterprise it is today. It is also a master’s course on the arts of coaching and recruiting. And in the telling, the one and only Rick Pitino lays all his cards on the table in addressing scandals of his past and the current headline-grabbing investigation that led a packed Board of Directors at Louisville to derail his career.
Mike Duncan THE STORM BEFORE THE STORM: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic (Public Affairs) *NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER*
History / Translation: WLA / NA + UK: Public Affairs, Korea: Gyoyuseoga, Comp. Chinese: Marco Polo, Simp. Chinese: Ginkgo, Spain: Ariel, Turkey: Egitim Yayinevi Bsim
Published October 2017
The creator of the massively popular, award-winning podcast series The History of Rome brings to life the story of the tumultuous years that set the stage for the fall of the Roman Republic.
The Roman Republic was one of the most remarkable achievements in the history of civilization. After its founding in 509 BCE, the Romans refused to allow a single leader to seize control of the state and grab absolute power. The Roman commitment to cooperative government and peaceful transfers of power was unmatched in the history of the ancient world.
But by the year 133 BCE, the republican system was unable to cope with the vast empire Rome now ruled. Almost as soon as they had conquered the Mediterranean, Rome became engulfed in violent political conflicts and civil wars that would destroy the Republic less than a century later. Chronicling the years 133-80 BCE, THE STORM BEFORE THE STORM is a rollicking deep-dive into the bloody battles, political machinations, and human drama that defined a dangerous new political environment—a stark warning for modern readers about what happens to a society driven by increasing economic inequality, political polarization, and ruthless ambition.
Abigail Tucker THE LION IN THE LIVING ROOM: How Housecats Tamed Us and Took Over the World (Simon & Schuster) *NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER *
Science / Translation: WLA / NA & UK: S&S, Japan: Intershift, Spain: Esfera, Compl. Chinese: Mangrove, Simpl. Chinese: Chuchin Media, Korean: Mati Books, Hungarian: Jaffa, Czech: Euromedia, Italian: Newton Compton, French: Albin Michel, German: MBG, Dutch: Kosmos
Published October 2016
A lively adventure through history, natural science, and pop culture in search of how cats conquered the world, the Internet, and our hearts. House cats rule back alleys, deserted Antarctic islands, and our bedrooms. Clearly, they own the Internet, where a viral cat video can easily be viewed upwards of ten million times. But how did cats accomplish global domination? Unlike dogs, they offer humans no practical benefit. The truth is they are sadly incompetent rat-catchers and pose a threat to many ecosystems. Yet, we love them still.
To better understand these furry strangers in our midst, Abby Tucker travels to meet the breeders, activists, and scientists who’ve dedicated their lives to cats. She visits the labs where people sort through feline bones unearthed from the first human settlements, treks through the Floridian wilderness in search of house cats on the loose, and hangs out with Lil Bub, one of the world’s biggest feline celebrities.
Witty, intelligent, and always curious, Tucker shows how these tiny creatures have used their relationship with humans to become one of the most powerful animals on the planet. The appropriate reaction to a cuddly kitten, it seems, might not be aww but awe.
Andrew Yang SMART PEOPLE SHOULD BUILD THINGS: How to Restore Our Culture of Achievement, Build a Path for Entrepreneurs, and Create New Jobs in America (HaperBusiness) Business / Translation: WLA
Published 2014
Andrew Yang, the founder of Venture for America, offers a unique solution to our country’s economic and social problems—our smart people should be building things. SMART PEOPLE SHOULD BUILD THINGS offers a stark picture of the current culture and a revolutionary model that will redirect a generation of ambitious young people to the critical job of innovating and building new businesses.
As the Founder and CEO of Venture for America, Andrew Yang places top college graduates in start-ups for two years in emerging U.S. cities to generate job growth and train the next generation of entrepreneurs. He knows firsthand how our current view of education is broken. Many college graduates aspire to finance, consulting, law school, grad school, or medical school out of a vague desire for additional status and progress rather than from a genuine passion or fit.
In SMART PEOPLE SHOULD BUILD THINGS, this self-described “recovering lawyer” and entrepreneur weaves together a compelling narrative of success stories (including his own), offering observations about the flow of talent in the United States and explanations of why current trends are leading to economic distress and cultural decline. He also presents recommendations for both policy makers and job seekers to make entrepreneurship more realistic and achievable.
Mark Cuban HOW TO WIN AT THE SPORT OF BUSINESS: If I Can Do It, You Can Do It. (Diversion) Business / Translation: WLA / NA: Diversion Books, Vietnam: McBooks
Published June 2013
More than 100,000 Print & Ebook Sold
"It’s New Year’s resolution time, and Mark Cuban’s new book offers the rationale for a good one." Business Insider
Using the greatest material from his popular blog, Mark Cuban has collected and updated his postings on business and life to provide a catalog of insider knowledge on what it takes to become a thriving entrepreneur. He tells his own story of how he went from selling powdered milk and sleeping on friends’ couches to owning his own company and becoming a multi-billion-dollar success. His unconventional yet highly effective ideas on how to build a successful business offer entrepreneurs at any stage of their careers a huge edge over their competitors.
Mark Cuban has risen to success by founding his own companies, including HDNet, Broadcast.com, and MicroSolutions, as well as investing in startups. His fame stems not only from his successful business ventures, but also his status as an influential figure in the world of media and sports. Cuban got his start in Dallas, Texas, founding the software company MicroSolutions and later Broadcast.com, a leading multimedia and streaming website which was acquired by Yahoo! for $5.7 billion. In 2000, he purchased the Dallas Mavericks. Since then the team has become one of the NBA’s most successful franchises, winning their first championship in 2011. In addition, Cuban has become one of the most recognizable figures in sports, gaining media attention for his unconventional and innovative approach as team owner. His efforts have transformed the franchise into a perennial contender and have helped develop a passionate fan base in Dallas. Through his bold and ingenious approach to business, sports, and life, Mark Cuban has become one of the world’s wealthiest entrepreneurs and one of the most talked about business minds of our generation.
A.J. Baime GO LIKE HELL: Ford, Ferrari, and Their Battle for Speed and Glory At Le Mans (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) History / Translation: WLA / NA: HMH, UK: Transworld, Bulgaria: List 2016, China: Peking University Press, Poland: Znak, Russia: Alpina
Published June 2009
By the early 1960s, Ford Motor Company, built to bring automobile transportation to the masses, was falling behind. Baby boomers were taking to the roads in droves, looking for speed not safety, style not comfort, and Ford did not offer what these young drivers wanted. Meanwhile, Enzo Ferrari lorded over the European racing scene, crafting beautiful, fast sports cars that epitomized style.
Baime tells the remarkable story of how Henry Ford II, with the help of a young visionary named Lee Iacocca and a former racing champion turned engineer named Carroll Shelby, concocted a scheme to reinvent the Ford company. They would enter the high-stakes world of European car racing, where an adventurous few threw safety and sanity to the wind. They would design, build, and race a car that could beat Ferrari at his own game, at the most prestigious and dangerous race in the world, the 24 Hours of Le Mans.