Every weekday, Publisher’s Marketplace emails the latest publishing deals in print, digital, audio and foreign sales (over 200 deals/week). Here are some of my favs -- not necessarily the biggest names or the buzziest deal… but the ones that piqued my interest for one reason or another.
Chopped Chicken Salad at Freds / via In Search of the Next Meal
FREDS AT BARNEYS NEW YORK COOKBOOK by Mark Strausman
Agent: Jennifer Cohen
Editor: Gretchen Young for Grand Central Life & Style, with Karen Murgolo editing
Description: The first cookbook from this powerhouse restaurant, offering classic recipes and cooking secrets, paired with anecdotes learned along the way.
I love love love department store restaurants. From the chopped salad at Freds to a vegetable plate at Dover Street Market to a bento box at Takashimaya (sadly closed) to an omelette at Ikram -- department store restaurants always have straight-forward, healthy(ish) lunches. And -- let’s get real -- sometimes you can’t afford the dress at Barneys, but getting one of their famous salads can satisfy the craving.
MASTERING PAN SAUCES by Susan Volland
Agent: Alison Fargis of Stonesong
Editor: Maria Guarnaschelli of Norton
Description: Featuring 100 contemporary and classic pan sauce recipes from the author of Mastering Sauces: The Home Cook's Guide to New Techniques for Fresh Flavors and editor and lead recipe tester of Modernist Cuisine at Home.
So Volland’s first book was a general sauce book. And her new book is about pan sauces. What is a pan sauce? It’s basically like gravy, thickened with butter (or not) instead of flour. Both start by deglazing the pan post meat-cooking with or without aromatics. I’m intrigued by this single subject and can definitely see how something so simple can lend itself to many variations (protein, deglazing liquid, aromatics, thickening agent, etc).
via ClaireLondon.com
LORENZO THE PIZZA-LOVING LOBSTER by Claire London
Editor: Charlie Ilgunas at Little Bee Books
Description: A lobster discovers and falls in love with pizza, and tries to recreate it with his sea turtle friend, with unexpected results.
The other day I walked past an old movie poster for SpongeBob: A Sponge out of Water. Spongebob was, for some reason, really buff. This made me laugh. And if the idea of a pizza-loving lobster doesn’t make you laugh, then I don’t know about you.
CICI RENO KNOWS IT ALL by Kristina Springer
Agent: Andrea Somberg at Harvey Klinger
Editor: Brett Duquette at Sterling Children's
Description: The first book in The Yoga Girls series, in which a pre-teen yoga enthusiast helps her best friend get a crush's attention by impersonating her on Twitter, but before long the favor turns into a social media love triangle.
Ah, is this sort of stuff the new Babysitter's Club? I'm digging how literature is integrating social media into its narratives (I'm thinking of Read Bottom Up, a love story told in emails and texts, and Unfriended, a horror movie via a terrorizing social media account). A couple years ago, these probably would have been written off as novelty pieces, but now social media is so ingrained in our day-to-day, of course art can arise from its nuances. I'm kind of waiting for a novel to be told in real-time through social media -- almost like you're a character and you're engaging with the story.
Does anyone know if this exists already?