Foreign Rights Catalogue

Foreign Rights Catalogue
The Ross Yoon Agency
1666 Connecticut Avenue NW
Suite 500
Washington, DC 20009 USA
Frankfurt Book Fair 2015
Contact: Anna Sproul-Latimer
email: [email protected] | office phone: +1 202 328 3282, ex. 1303
Table of Contents
New and Upcoming Releases ........................................................................................................................ 3
Into The Gray Zone by Adrian Owen ......................................................................................................... 3
Feminist Fight Club by Jessica Bennett ..................................................................................................... 4
Untangled: Guiding Teenage Girls Through the Seven Transitions into Adulthood by Lisa Damour ........ 5
Losing The Signal by Jacquie McNish and Sean Silcoff ............................................................................. 6
If At Birth You Don’t Succeed by Zach Anner ............................................................................................ 7
The Nurses by Alexandra Robbins ............................................................................................................. 8
Early Acceptance by Rachel Simmons....................................................................................................... 9
A Spy in Wartime by Nicholas Reynolds ................................................................................................. 10
March 1917 by Will Englund ................................................................................................................... 11
Hellfire Boys by Theo Emery ................................................................................................................... 12
The Cells and the Scientists by Meredith Wadman................................................................................. 13
Ghostland by Colin Dickey ...................................................................................................................... 14
Euroshock by Charles Dallara .................................................................................................................. 15
Overdrive by Frank Ahrens ...................................................................................................................... 16
Select Backlist.............................................................................................................................................. 17
About the Ross Yoon Agency ...................................................................................................................... 33
2
New and Upcoming Releases
Into The Gray Zone by Adrian Owen
Imagine yourself in a hospital bed after a traumatic brain
injury. You’re on life support. A feeding tube surgically
inserted into your stomach supplies you with essential fluids
and nutrients. A catheter drains your urine. You have no
control over your bowels, and you’re in diapers. Doctors
insist that you are in a persistent vegetative state, with no
more awareness than a head of broccoli. They say you don’t
understand speech or have memories, emotions, or volition,
and that you’re can’t feel pleasure or pain. They gently
remind those nearest and dearest to you that you require
round the clock care; the cost is high (about a million dollars
a year if you’re in a residential facility). In the absence of an advanced directive stating otherwise, you
should be allowed to die. This is doubtless what you would want. Tears flow and tempers flare. And
through all of this, you are aware of everything that is going on around you, unable to move or even
twitch a muscle to show the room you’re there.
This nightmarish scenario sounds like science fiction—or at worst, a one-in-a-million medical anomaly.
Unfortunately, however, as Dr. Owen and his colleagues are just beginning to discover, it’s reality for an
astounding number of patients in so-called vegetative or minimally conscious states. Using fMRI brain
scans, they have found that fifteen to twenty percent of these people are fully aware of their
surroundings. They can ask them yes or no questions and test their memories and moods. They have
found that they know who and where they are and are capable of making decisions about issues as
mundane as whether they would prefer to watch hockey or football and as profound as whether they
want to live or die.
Sourced in Dr. Owen’s experience as a global leader in brain imaging research, this book will take
readers to the edge of a dazzling, humbling frontier in our understanding of the brain: the so-called
“gray zone” between full consciousness and brain death. People in this middle place have sustained
brain injuries or are the victims of stroke or degenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
Many are oblivious to the outside world, as incapable of thought as their doctors believe. But a sizeable
number are experiencing something different: intact minds adrift deep within damaged brains and
bodies. When Dr. Owen discovered this population, it was a revelatory moment in medical history—and
the medical community has only just begun to grapple with its implications.
NORTH AMERICAN: Scribner (Rick Horgan)
DELIVERY: September 1, 2016
LENGTH: 80,000 words
FOREIGN SALES: UK/Guardian-Faber, Germany/Droemer
3
Feminist Fight Club by Jessica Bennett
This is a pocketbook Lean In for the Buzzfeed
generation; the Worst Case Scenario Survival
Handbook, but for feminists; the Zombie Survival
Guide, but instead of zombies, we’re battling the
guys, gals, and sometimes institutions who exhibit
brainless (and sexist) behavior. It’s a field guide for
the modern working woman: short, illustrated,
funny. Perfect for stuffing in a purse, bra, or cubicle
shelf. Women will give this book to each
other…and leave it on the desks of men who need
it. Men will give it to their girlfriends, wives, sisters,
daughters—to show they are supportive. HR
directors will give it to their staffs to help make
everyone’s jobs easier. Companies will embrace it,
too, because they know (and if they don’t know, they should): more women in power means better
performance, higher returns, more market shares, higher revenue and more profit. No, really.
The book will blend journalism, humor and the best academic and anecdotal research. It will assign
names to the clichés (and scenarios) that every woman has experienced: from the guy who can’t stop
“manterrupting”—yes, women get interrupted in meetings more than men—to the ways women
struggle to “own” a room. This book will unpack the gender bias and self-destructive behavior that
undermine women’s progress in the workplace—often unconsciously. The book will provide simple tips
on how to combat tricky situations and personalities—and advice for how to deal with what is often our
worst enemy: ourselves. Feminist Fight Club is a call to arms: it will motivate women to be more
proactive with what they know they should do (negotiate) but have trouble acting out (what if my boss
says no?). And they’ll have fun while doing it (er… at least… while reading about how to do it).
Author Jessica Bennett is an award-winning journalist and critic who writes on women, sexuality and
pop culture. She is a columnist at Time.com, covering women and the workplace, and a contributing
writer for the New York Times, where she writes on women, men, relationships, pot, emoji, texting, and
conducted the first print interview with Monica Lewinsky in a decade, for a profile that ran as the
Sunday Styles cover story. She is also a contributing editor for Sheryl Sandberg’s women’s nonprofit,
LeanIn.org, where she is the co-creator and curator of the Lean In Collection, a photo initiative to change
how women are portrayed in stock photography (more power, less stripper heels).
NORTH AMERICAN: Harper Wave (Julie Will)
DELIVERY: October 15, 2015
LENGTH: 45,000 words
FOREIGN SALES: UK/Portfolio, Brazil/Rocco
4
Untangled: Guiding Teenage Girls Through the Seven
Transitions into Adulthood by Lisa Damour
Lisa Damour, Ph.D., director of the internationally renowned Laurel
School’s Center for Research on Girls, pulls back the curtain on the
teenage years and shows why your daughter’s erratic and confusing
behavior is actually healthy, necessary, and natural. Untangled
explains what’s going on, prepares parents for what’s to come, and
lets them know when it’s time to worry.
In this sane, highly engaging, and informed guide for parents of
daughters, Dr. Damour draws on decades of experience and the
latest research to reveal the seven distinct—and absolutely
normal—developmental transitions that turn girls into grown-ups,
including Parting with Childhood, Contending with Adult Authority,
Entering the Romantic World, and Caring for Herself. Providing
realistic scenarios and welcome advice on how to engage daughters
in smart, constructive ways, Untangled gives parents a broad
framework for understanding their daughters while addressing their
most common questions, including
• My thirteen-year-old rolls her eyes when I try to talk to her, and only does it more when I get angry
with her about it. How should I respond?
• Do I tell my teen daughter that I’m checking her phone?
• My daughter suffers from test anxiety. What can I do to help her?
• Where’s the line between healthy eating and having an eating disorder?
• My teenage daughter wants to know why I’m against pot when it’s legal in some states. What should I
say?
• My daughter’s friend is cutting herself. Do I call the girl’s mother to let her know?
Perhaps most important, Untangled helps mothers and fathers understand, connect, and grow with
their daughters. When parents know what makes their daughter tick, they can embrace and enjoy the
challenge of raising a healthy, happy young woman.
“This is the book parents have been waiting, hoping, and praying for, because it’s far more than a book.
It’s a map, flashlight, and GPS device for navigating the landscape of adolescent girlhood. Dr. Lisa
Damour proves to be the perfect guide and companion: wise, whip-smart, and relentlessly practical on
every page. As the father of three teenage girls, I wish I had this book years ago—and I hope that it is
read by every parent, teacher, coach, administrator, and human being who wants to help girls grow and
thrive in today’s world.”—Daniel Coyle, New York Times bestselling author of The Talent Code
NORTH AMERICAN: Ballantine (Susanna Porter)
PUBLICATION: February 9, 2016
MANUSCRIPT AVAILABLE
FOREIGN SALES: Sigongsa/Korea, Atlantic/UK, Kosel/Germany
5
Losing The Signal by Jacquie McNish and Sean Silcoff
**Shortlisted for FT/McKinsey Book of the Year**
In 2009, BlackBerry controlled half of the smartphone
market. Today that number is one percent. What went so
wrong?
Losing the Signal is a riveting story of a company that
toppled global giants before succumbing to the ruthlessly
competitive forces of Silicon Valley. This is not a
conventional tale of modern business failure by fraud and
greed. The rise and fall of BlackBerry reveals the dangerous
speed at which innovators race along the information
superhighway.
With unprecedented access to key players, senior
executives, directors and competitors, Losing the Signal
unveils the remarkable rise of a company that started above
a bagel store in Ontario. At the heart of the story is an
unlikely partnership between a visionary engineer, Mike
Lazaridis, and an abrasive Harvard Business school grad, Jim
Balsillie. Together, they engineered a pioneering pocket
email device that became the tool of choice for presidents
and CEOs. The partnership enjoyed only a brief moment on
top of the world, however. At the very moment BlackBerry was ranked the world's fastest growing
company internal feuds and chaotic growth crippled the company as it faced its gravest test: Apple and
Google's entry in to mobile phones.
Expertly told by acclaimed journalists, Jacquie McNish and Sean Silcoff, this is an entertaining, whirlwind
narrative that goes behind the scenes to reveal one of the most compelling business stories of the new
century.
NORTH AMERICAN: Flatiron (Colin Dickerman)
PUBLICATION: May 26, 2015
COPIES AVAILABLE
FOREIGN SALES: Holland/Spectrum, HarperCollins/Canada
6
If At Birth You Don’t Succeed by Zach Anner
"Meet Zach Anner...He's handsome, smart, and funny
[and] has won...legions of online fans." --Tara ParkerPope, The New York Times
Comedian Zach Anner opens his frank and devilishly
funny book, If at Birth You Don't Succeed, with an
admission: he botched his own birth. Two months
early, underweight and under-prepared for life, he
entered the world with cerebral palsy and an
uncertain future. So how did this hairless mole-rat of
a boy blossom into a viral internet sensation who's
hosted two travel shows, impressed Oprah, driven
the Mars Rover, and inspired a John Mayer song? (It
wasn't "Your Body is a Wonderland.")
Zach lives by the mantra: when life gives you
wheelchair, make lemonade. Whether recounting a
valiant childhood attempt to woo Cindy Crawford,
encounters with zealous faith healers, or the time he
crapped his pants mere feet from Dr. Phil, Zach
shares his fumbles with unflinching honesty and
characteristic charm. By his thirtieth birthday, Zach
had grown into an adult with a career in
entertainment, millions of fans, a loving family, and
friends who would literally carry him up mountains.
If at Birth You Don't Succeed is a hilariously irreverent and heartfelt memoir about finding your passion
and your path even when it's paved with epic misadventure. This is the unlikely but not unlucky story of
a man who couldn't safely open a bag of Skittles, but still became a fitness guru with fans around the
world. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll fall in love with the Olive Garden all over again, and learn why
cerebral palsy is, definitively, "the sexiest of the palsies."
NORTH AMERICAN: Henry Holt (Emi Ikkanda)
PUBLICATION: March 8, 2016
GALLEYS AVAILABLE
7
The Nurses by Alexandra Robbins
Nursing is more than a career; it is a calling, and one of
the most important, fascinating, and dangerous
professions in the world. As the frontline responders
battling traumas, illnesses, and aggression from
surprising sources, nurses are remarkable. Yet
contemporary literature largely neglects them.
In THE NURSES, New York Times bestselling author and
award-winning journalist Alexandra Robbins peers
behind the staff-only door to write a lively, fast-paced
story and a riveting work of investigative journalism.
Robbins followed real-life nurses in four hospitals and
interviewed hundreds of others in a captivating book
filled with joy and violence, miracles and heartbreak,
dark humor and narrow victories, gripping drama and
unsung heroism.
Alexandra Robbins creates sympathetic, engaging
characters while diving deep into their world of
controlled chaos—the hazing (“nurses eat their young”);
sex (not exactly like on TV, but it happens more often
than you think); painkiller addiction (disproportionately
a problem among the best and brightest); and bullying
(by doctors, patients, and others). The result is a page-turner possessing all the twists and turns of a
brilliantly told narrative—and a shocking, unvarnished examination of our healthcare system.
THE NURSES is a must-read both for the general public, who will learn hospital secrets that could save
their own or a loved one’s life, and for nurses, who will proudly share the book as a rallying cry for
support and celebration.
NORTH AMERICAN: Workman
PUBLICATION: May 5, 2015
COPIES AVAILABLE
FOREIGN SALES: Knowledge Publishing House/ Vietnam
8
Early Acceptance by Rachel Simmons
Rachel Simmons, author of the New York Times bestsellers Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of
Aggression in Girls and The Curse of the Good Girl: Raising Authentic Girls with Courage and Confidence,
is at work on a new book about the challenges girls face in late adolescence—particularly as they
transition from high school to college.
At Smith College and elsewhere, Simmons has been developing programs to help girls reject the toxic
culture of effortless perfection that has become epidemic on campuses across the country. She is
helping girls not “lean in” so much as “lean inside”: teaching new skills and habits that help girls claim
success as more than the sum of good grades, filtered Instagram feeds, and salaries. In the process, her
students have discovered a hidden well of courage, skills, and character strengths that allow them to
take greater risks, manage setbacks, build support networks, and take control of their own lives.
Early Acceptance runs recon from high school and college campuses back to parents, showing them how
to help the young women in their lives raise their own architecture of authentic success.
*NB: title subject to change.
NORTH AMERICAN: Gail Winston (HarperCollins)
DELIVERY: December, 2016
LENGTH: 80-100k words
PROPOSAL AVAILABLE
9
A Spy in Wartime by Nicholas Reynolds
According to author Nicholas Reynolds, who spent a decade recruiting spies for the CIA in Latin America,
the most reliable way for a spy to confirm contact with a handler is not through code words or hand
gestures, but through the use of what’s called a “material recognition symbol.” This could be a piece of
paper or napkin, torn in half. The spy keeps one half and matches the other half when the recruiter or
handler arrives.
Ernest Hemingway used American stamps as his verification symbol when he met with a Soviet handler
in 1940. Few people know that he agreed to spy for the Soviets. Even fewer people know the story of
how the Soviets tagged and recruited Hemingway during the 1930’s, how he ended up ditching the
Russians to work for the OSS, and how his relationship with Russia may have affected his writing and his
state of mind after the war.
A Spy in Wartime will be the first book to tell the full story of Hemingway’s relationship with the Soviet
and American intelligence agencies. Using his background in the CIA, his training as a military historian
(D.Phil. Oxford, Chief Field Marine Historian for the second Iraq War), and driven by his love of
Hemingway, Reynolds pulls together all of the disparate pieces of research and information about
Hemingway’s conflicted life as a spy into one very readable—and commercial—book.
A Spy in Wartime is a cross between two successful hits: Ben MacIntyre’s A Spy Among Friends and Paul
Hendrickson’s Hemingway’s Boat (which covers the same time span in Hemingway’s life, from 19351961). The book will make Hemingway fans and scholars rethink everything they know about this man
and his body of work.
NORTH AMERICAN: William Morrow (Peter Hubbard)
DELIVERY: February 1, 2016
LENGTH: 80,000 words
PROPOSAL AVAILABLE
10
March 1917 by Will Englund
“We are provincials no longer,” said Woodrow Wilson on March 5, 1917, at his second inaugural. He
spoke on the eve of America’s entrance into World War I, just as Russia teetered between autocracy and
democracy in the fraught calm between storms of violent revolution. The timing of Wilson’s declaration
was no accident: That month, March 1917, forces that had been building for years in both countries
coalesced, sending America in one direction and Russia in quite another.
Pulitzer, Polk, and Overseas Press Club Award–winning journalist Will Englund, who covered Russia for
the Washington Post for twelve years, draws on a wealth of contemporary Russian and American
diaries, memoirs, and newspaper accounts to furnish texture and personal detail to the story of March
1917, the month that transformed the world’s greatest nations. It is a book that celebrates the dreams
of 1917’s warriors, pacifists, activists, revolutionaries, and reactionaries, even as it traces the way their
successes and failures constitute the origin story of the modern world.
NORTH AMERICAN: W.W. Norton (John Glusman)
DELIVERY: Spring, 2016
PROPOSAL AVAILABLE
FOREIGN SALES: China/Citic, Netherlands/Hollands Diep
11
Hellfire Boys by Theo Emery
Hellfire Boys, an historical narrative about the US gas warfare program during WWI, centers on the
young men who started a Manhattan project-type program at American University in an area dubbed
“Mustard Hill.” These soldiers and chemists worked on offensive and defensive gas measures: testing
hastily-made gas masks, observing the effects of mustard gas on goats and dogs and even humans, and
perfecting the ultimate weapon of mass destruction, lewisite, far more lethal than mustard gas, which
the US planned to unleash on Germans using another new technology, planes. The book traces in
parallel narrative the actions of the "Hellfire Battalion," a group of US engineers who were trained in gas
warfare and sent to the front lines in France to launch multiple assaults against the Germans.
The book is a little Girls of Atomic City (you can call it Boys of Mustard Hill), a little American Prometheus
(given the moral and ethical questions about gas warfare), and a lot of good straightforward war
narrative. The story has everything, even a German spy chemist who's caught in Cuba and forced to
work near NYC on gas weapons and aerial ordnance for the US, with Thomas Edison checking in
periodically on his progress.
The author is Theo Emery, a freelance journalist who's written for the New Yorker, NY Times, and Boston
Globe. He's been working on the research for over a year and has uncovered a public and private trove
of unpublished research and documents. Theo is married to Audie Cornish (host of NPR's All Things
Considered) and has strong media contacts.
NORTH AMERICAN: Little, Brown (John Parsley)
DELIVERY: October 1, 2016
PUBLICATION: 2017
PROPOSAL AVAILABLE
12
The Cells and the Scientists by Meredith Wadman
A Rhodes Scholar with a medical degree from Oxford and an MS in journalism from Columbia, Meredith
Wadman had been covering medical research policy for national media outlets for more than two
decades when she first became fascinated with the story of WI-38, a cell line used in many vaccines.
Until 1962, vaccine research was done using non-human cells. There simply was no line of healthy
human cells available until 1962, when Wistar Institute biomedical researcher Leonard Hayflick created
and then froze roughly 800 tiny ampules of what he dubbed WI-38. They were derived from the lungs of
an aborted fetus.
Those cells would become the basis for vaccines that have immunized hundreds of millions of people
worldwide against polio, rubella, rabies, chicken pox, and measles, and continue to be used in cuttingedge medical research. Over the decades, the cells would enrich companies including Merck, Sanofi,
Pfizer, and Wyeth. WI-38 would also spawn a lifetime feud between Hayflick and his superiors at the
Wistar, and an epic fight with the US government, first over whether the cells were safe to use to make
vaccines and then over who owned them.
The tale of WI-38 combines scientific discovery, rivalry, and timely questions about the tradeoff
between socially beneficial medical research and individuals’ rights. At its heart, it is also a profoundly
human story featuring larger-than-life characters.
NORTH AMERICAN: Viking
LENGTH: 125,000 words
DELIVERY: September 2015
EDITED MANUSCRIPT AVAILABLE IN 2-3 MONTHS
FOREIGN SALES: Transworld/UK
13
Ghostland by Colin Dickey
Imagine if Simon Winchester and Walter Benjamin had a love child and then let him ride his Big Wheel
Danny Torrance-style around America’s creepiest houses and hotels: such is the magic of Colin Dickey
and his new book, Ghostland. An intellectual feast for fans of Sarah Vowell, Mary Roach, and Atlas
Obscura, the book takes readers on a road trip through some of the country’s most infamously haunted
places—and deep into the dark side of our history.
Colin is a cult favorite writer in New York and LA literary circles. Known for his Bryson-esque humor and
boundless curiosity, he speaks to sold-out audiences around the country and writes frequently for
magazines such as Lapham’s Quarterly and the Paris Review. Ghostland promises to be his breakout
book, written for the national audiences who have already begun to pay attention to him.
Colin, who holds a PhD in comparative literature, owes much of Ghostland to Benjamin’s Arcades
Project, which argued that a country’s true history lies visible in its ruins. From an Indian burial ground in
West Virginia to the empty factories of Detroit and a troubled café in modern-day New Orleans, Colin
applies this philosophy to American dereliction, revealing the difference between the history in our
textbooks and the history that comes back to haunt us in the night.
NORTH AMERICAN: Viking (Melanie Tortoroli)
PROPOSAL AVAILABLE
MANUSCRIPT: Early 2016
PUBLICATION: Fall 2016/Winter 2017
14
Euroshock by Charles Dallara
Just a few years ago, Greece seemed poised to collapse under
the weight of its own debt—more than $300 billion, almost
twice the country’s GDP. If Greece fell, it would finish off the
already-wounded global financial system, and could destroy
the dream of a united Europe for good. After months of weak
proposals, stalled planning, and bluster from some of Europe’s
biggest egos, the 200+ creditors of the floundering Greek
government were no closer to striking a deal.
Just when negotiations threatened to fail, Charles Dallara, the
chief negotiator for the world’s largest banks and financial
institutions during the Greek Debt Crisis, brokered a solution
that may well have saved the Eurozone. It was the largest
debt restructuring in history, requiring the combined efforts of
a motley cast of characters from the regal German Chancellor
Merkel to anguished Greek Prime Minister Papandreou.
Unlike other commentators, Dallara was in the thick of the
negotiations, and EUROSHOCK is the first inside view of the
Greek Debt Crisis of 2011–2012. Dallara also moves beyond
the events of those years to provide an informed vision for the
future: a detailed plan for preventing and treating further threats to the stability of the Eurozone, and
thus, to the world.
NORTH AMERICAN: St. Martin’s Press (Emily Carleton)
LENGTH: 70,000 words
PUBLICATION: June 16, 2016
MANUSCRIPT AVAILABLE SHORTLY
15
Seoul Man by Frank Ahrens
In 2009, Frank Ahrens was a middle-aged bachelor and 18-year
veteran at the Washington Post, known equally for his
business reporting and his enthusiastic coverage of Star Trek.
Then, however, he fell in love with a diplomat, and his life and
career changed dramatically. Following his fiancée to her first
appointment in Seoul, South Korea, Frank packed up his
journalism career and accepted a position as director of global
communications at Hyundai Motors. There, he was one of
fewer than 10 non-Koreans in a building of 5000 employees—
in a land whose population is 97% Korean.
For the next three years, Frank traveled to auto shows and
press conferences all over the world, pitching Hyundai to
former colleagues while trying desperately to navigate cultural
differences back at the office. His finely-tuned appreciation for
absurdity enabled him to laugh his way through many
awkward encounters, but others were far more serious—
particularly as he rose through the ranks of corporate culture
and his job commitments began to take their toll on his
marriage and family. Eventually, he became a vice president—
the highest-ranking American in the history of Hyundai—but at
a nearly unbearable price.
By turns hilarious and heartbreaking, Seoul Man chronicles Frank’s three years spent in Korea with his
wife, their baby daughter, and their two dogs. The book sheds light on a business culture very few
Western journalists have been able to penetrate and fewer have been able to experience firsthand.
NORTH
AMERICAN:
Business
Heimbouch)
Seoul
Man
is Up in theHarper
Air meets
Lost in (Hollis
Translation:
a timely, page-turning fish-out-of-water story that
DELIVERY:
October
1, on
2015
offers
a funny
reflection
global work pressures, relationship battles, and cultural clashes.
PROPOSAL AVAILABLE
16
Select Backlist
PROOF OF HEAVEN by Eben Alexander
**New York Times #1 Bestseller – More than 2.5 Million Copies in Print (USA) – Translated Into 40 Languages
and Counting – Optioned for Film by Universal Studios**
**ALSO AVAILABLE IN A DELUXE EDITION WITH NEW AFTERWORD**
Thousands of people have had near-death experiences, but scientists have argued
that they are impossible. Dr. Eben Alexander was one of those scientists. A highly
trained neurosurgeon, Alexander knew that NDEs feel real, but are simply fantasies
produced by brains under extreme stress.
Then, Dr. Alexander’s own brain was attacked by a rare illness. The part of the brain
that controls thought and emotion—and in essence makes us human—shut down
completely. For seven days he lay in a coma. Then, as his doctors considered stopping
treatment, Alexander’s eyes popped open. He had come back.
Alexander’s recovery is a medical miracle. But the real miracle of his story lies
elsewhere. While his body lay in coma, Alexander journeyed beyond this world and
encountered an angelic being who guided him into the deepest realms of superphysical existence. There he met, and spoke with, the Divine source of the universe
itself.
NORTH AMERICAN: Simon and Schuster (Priscilla Painton/Jon Karp)
PUBLICATION: October 24, 2012
COPIES AVAILABLE
FOREIGN SALES: Macmillan/ANZ, Sextante/Brazil, Fortuna/Czech Republic and Slovakia, Ansata/Germany,
Hayakawa/Japan, Bruna/Netherlands, Centrepolygraph/Russia, Piatkus/UK, Gimmyoung/Korea, Beijing
Fonghong/Simplified Chinese, Eurasian/Complex Chinese, Tredaniel/France, Mondadori/Italy, Leya/Portugual,
Agave/Hungary, Planeta/Spain, Laguna/Serbia, Lifestyle/Romania, VBZ/Croatia, Hermes/Bulgaria, Poland/Znak,
Afrikaans/Penguin ZA, Greece/Kleidarithmos, Achuzat Bayit/Israel, Forum/Sweden, Avots/Latvia,
WSOY/Finland, Cappelen Damm/Norway, Pilgrim Group/Estonia, Det Bla Hus/Denmark, Morava/Albania,
Eurgrimas/Lithuania, Turkey/Klan, Indonesia/Betang Pustaka, Slovenia/Ucila, Nova Knjiga/Montenegro,
Saraswati/Marathi, Nha Nam/Vietnam, Olaf Olsen/Faroe Islands
17
THE MAP OF HEAVEN by Eben Alexander
**From the New York Times #1/1.5 million copy bestselling author of PROOF OF HEAVEN**
In the two years since Dr. Eben Alexander released Proof of Heaven, countless men and women have approached
him via email and at public appearances, thanking him for giving them the courage to talk about their own
experiences of life beyond death. They have told him stories sharp in detail and astounding in their similarity.
In The Map of Heaven, Alexander and writer Ptolemy Tompkins will share dozens of these personal stories, linking
them up with what the world’s spiritual traditions have had to say in times past about the journey of the soul. Each
story is interesting in and of itself—but each is vastly more interesting, and powerful, when it is linked with the
larger traditional understanding of the afterlife that, until the arrival of the modern scientific perspective, almost
all people through history (and prehistory) believed in.
Can we dare to believe once again in such a universe? A universe in which we—each of us—truly survive the death
of our physical bodies?
Combining great stories with ancient theology and a neurosurgeon’s understanding of cutting-edge brain science,
The Map of Heaven makes a compelling and convincing case for the immortality of the soul.
NORTH AMERICAN: Simon and Schuster (Priscilla Painton)
PUBLICATION: October 7, 2014
COPIES AVAILABLE
FOREIGN SALES: Macmillan/ANZ, Sextante/Brazil, Fortuna/Czech Republic and Slovakia, Ansata/Germany,
Bruna/Netherlands, Piatkus/UK, Mondadori/Italy, Agave/Hungary, Tredaniel/France, Centrepolygraph/Russia,
Gimmyoung/Korea, Cappelen Damm/Norway, Forum/Sweden, WSOY/Finland, Planeta/Spain, Znak/Poland,
VBZ/Croatia, Hayakawa/Japan, Ucila/Slovenia, Hermes/Bulgaria, Gyldendal/Denmark, Lifestyle/Romania
IRRITABLE HEARTS by Mac McClelland
In 2010, human rights reporter Mac McClelland left Haiti after covering the lingering devastation of the
earthquake. Back home, McClelland finds herself imagining vivid scenes of violence. She can’t sleep or stop crying.
It becomes clear that she is suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, triggered by her trip and seemingly
exacerbated by her experiences in the other charged places she’d reported from, places where she thought she’d
escaped emotionally unscathed. The bewilderment about this sudden loss of self-control is magnified by her
feelings for Nico, a French soldier she met in Haiti who despite their brief connection seems to have found a place
in her confused heart.
With inspiring fearlessness, McClelland sets out to repair her broken psyche. Investigating her own illness and the
history of PTSD, she discovers she is not alone: traumatic events have sweeping influence. While we most often
connect it to veterans, PTSD is more often caused by other manner of trauma, and can even be contagious—close
proximity to those afflicted can trigger it in those around them. As McClelland confronts the realities of her
disorder, she learns to open her heart to the love that seems to have found her at an inopportune moment.
Vivid, suspenseful, and intimate, Irritable Hearts is an unforgettable exploration of vulnerability and resilience,
control and acceptance, and a compelling story of survival that expands the definition of what trauma is and offers
powerful hope for those who need to work through it.
WORLD ENGLISH: Flatiron Press (Colin Dickerman)
COPIES AVAILABLE
PUBLICATION: February 25, 2015
18
THE FUTURE OF VIOLENCE by Benjamin Wittes and Gabriella Blum
From drone warfare in the Middle East to digital spying by the National Security Agency, the U.S. government has
harnessed the power of cutting-edge technology to awesome effect. But what happens when ordinary people have
the same tools at their fingertips? Advances in cybertechnology, biotechnology, and robotics mean that more
people than ever before have access to potentially dangerous technologies—from drones to computer networks
and biological agents—which could be used to attack states and private citizens alike.
In The Future of Violence, law and security experts Benjamin Wittes and Gabriella Blum detail the myriad
possibilities, challenges, and enormous risks present in the modern world, and argue that if our national
governments can no longer adequately protect us from harm, they will lose their legitimacy. Consequently,
governments, companies, and citizens must rethink their security efforts to protect lives and liberty. In this brave
new world where many little brothers are as menacing as any Big Brother, safeguarding our liberty and privacy
may require strong domestic and international surveillance and regulatory controls. Maintaining security in this
world where anyone can attack anyone requires a global perspective, with more multinational forces and greater
action to protect (and protect against) weaker states who do not yet have the capability to police their own
people. Drawing on political thinkers from Thomas Hobbes to the Founders and beyond, Wittes and Blum show
that, despite recent protestations to the contrary, security and liberty are mutually supportive, and that we must
embrace one to ensure the other.
The Future of Violence is at once an introduction to our emerging world—one in which students can print guns
with 3-D printers and scientists’ manipulations of viruses can be recreated and unleashed by ordinary people—and
an authoritative blueprint for how government must adapt in order to survive and protect us.
NORTH AMERICAN: Basic (Lara Heimert)
COPIES AVAILABLE
PUBLICATION: March 10, 2015
FOREIGN RIGHTS: Amberley/UK
MIDNIGHT’S FURIES by Nisid Hajari
Nobody expected the liberation of India and birth of Pakistan to be so bloody—it was supposed to be an answer to
the dreams of Muslims and Hindus who had been ruled by the British for centuries.
Jawaharlal Nehru, Gandhi’s protégé and the political leader of India, believed Indians were an inherently
nonviolent, peaceful people. Pakistan’s founder, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, was a secular lawyer, not a firebrand.
But in August 1946, exactly a year before Independence, Calcutta erupted in street-gang fighting. A cycle of riots —
targeting Hindus, then Muslims, then Sikhs — spiraled out of control. As the summer of 1947 approached, all three
groups were heavily armed and on edge, and the British rushed to leave.
Hell let loose. Trains carried Muslims west and Hindus east to their slaughter. Some of the most brutal and
widespread ethnic cleansing in modern history erupted on both sides of the new border, searing a divide between
India and Pakistan that remains a root cause of many evils.
From jihadi terrorism to nuclear proliferation, the searing tale told in Midnight’s Furies explains all too many of the
headlines we read today.
WORLD ENGLISH: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
PUBLICATION: June 5, 2015
COPIES AVAILABLE
19
WAR OF THE WHALES by Joshua Horwitz
**NYT Top 10 Bestseller—Science**
War of the Whales tells the unlikely story of an environmental lawyer named Joel Reynolds, who stumbled on one
of the U.S. Navy’s best-kept secrets. What Reynolds uncovered in 1994 was a submarine surveillance system
originally designed to mimic cetacean bio-sonar that evolved, ironically, into an acoustic assault on endangered
whales.
Like many serendipitous discoveries, its significance was not immediately apparent to Reynolds. But after patient
and persistent investigation, the knotted threads of evidence began to loosen and unravel, exposing a lengthy trail
of deception, denial, and death – and the truth behind an epidemic of mass whale-strandings.
War of the Whales narrates how Reynolds recruited a small band of whale researchers, including beaked whale
expert and Navy veteran Ken Balcomb, who shared his determination to hold the Navy accountable in a court of
law. Their refusal to back down from a confrontation with the world’s most powerful Navy galvanized a divided
community of biologists and conservationists to unite in protection of a magnificent species of marine mammal.
The story of the space race between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. is well-chronicled in books and films such as The
Right Stuff, Dr. Strangelove, and Apollo 13. But the parallel saga of the arms race below the ocean’s surface – and
its ongoing collateral damage to marine mammals – has remained, until recently, hidden beneath a veil of military
secrecy.
War of the Whales details how the rapid escalation of anti-submarine warfare during the Cold War unleashed a
Pandora’s box of lethal sound into the world’s oceans, threatening the survival of the most ancient marine
mammals. While this story begins at the end of World War II, its climax is unfolding right now, during the post9/11 war on terror.
The collision of Navy sonar and whales has become a legal, political, and societal test case of how we balance the
needs of national security and the security of our natural environment. The fate of the oceans, and the marine
species living there, hang in the balance as this battle moves towards a decisive showdown in the high courts and
on the high seas.
NORTH AMERICAN: Simon and Schuster (Jon Karp)
PUBLICATION: July 1, 2014
COPIES AVAILABLE
FOREIGN SALES: Guanxi Normal University Press/China (Simplified Chinese)
20
OVERWHELMED by Brigid Schulte
**NYT Top 10 Bestseller – Hardcover Nonfiction**
Can working parents ever find true leisure time?
According to the Leisure Studies Department at the University of Iowa, true leisure is “that place in which we
realize our humanity.” If that’s true, argues Brigid Schulte, then we’re doing dangerously little realizing of our
humanity. In Overwhelmed, Schulte, a staff writer for The Washington Post, asks: Are our brains, our partners, our
culture, and our bosses making it impossible for us to experience anything but “contaminated time”?
Schulte first asked this question in a 2010 feature for The Washington Post Magazine: “How did researchers
compile this statistic that said we were rolling in leisure—over four hours a day? Did any of us feel that we actually
had downtime? Was there anything useful in their research—anything we could do?”
Overwhelmed is a map of the stresses that have ripped our leisure to shreds, and a look at how to put the pieces
back together. Schulte speaks to neuroscientists, sociologists, and hundreds of working parents to tease out the
factors contributing to our collective sense of being overwhelmed, seeking insights, answers, and inspiration. She
investigates progressive offices trying to invent a new kind of workplace; she travels across Europe to get a sense
of how other countries accommodate working parents; she finds younger couples who claim to have figured out
an ideal division of chores, childcare, and meaningful paid work.
Overwhelmed is the story of what she found out.
NORTH AMERICAN: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux (Sarah Crichton)
PUBLICATION: March 11, 2014
COPIES AVAILABLE
FOREIGN SALES: Bloomsbury/UK, Gilbut/Korea, MIF/Russia, Novo Seculo/Brazil
21
THE LOUDEST VOICE IN THE ROOM by Gabriel Sherman
**NYT Top 10 Bestseller—Hardcover Nonfiction**
A deeply reported journey inside the secretive world of Fox News and the life of its combative, visionary founder.
When Rupert Murdoch enlisted Roger Ailes to launch a cable news network in 1996, American politics and media
changed forever. Now, with a remarkable level of detail and insight, New York magazine reporter Gabriel Sherman
brings Ailes’s unique genius to life, along with the outsize personalities—Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Megyn Kelly,
Sarah Palin, Karl Rove, Glenn Beck, Mike Huckabee, and others—who have helped Fox News play a defining role in
the great social and political controversies of the past two decades. From the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal to the
Bush-Gore recount, from the war in Iraq to the Tea Party attack on the Obama presidency, Roger Ailes has
developed an unrivaled power to sway the national agenda. Even more, he has become the indispensable figure in
conservative America and the man any Republican politician with presidential aspirations must court.
How did this man, whose life story has until now been shrouded in myth, become the master strategist of our
political landscape? In revelatory detail, Sherman chronicles the rise of Ailes, a sickly kid from an Ohio factory town
who, through sheer willpower, the flair of a showman, fierce corporate politicking, and a profound understanding
of the priorities of middle America, built the most influential television news empire of our time.
Drawing on hundreds of interviews with Fox News insiders past and present, Sherman documents Ailes’s tactical
acuity as he battles the press, business rivals, and countless real and perceived enemies inside and outside Fox.
Sherman takes us inside the morning meetings in which Ailes and other high-level executives strategize Fox’s
presentation of the news to advance Ailes’s political agenda; provides behind-the-scenes details of Ailes’s crucial
role as finder and shaper of talent, including his sometimes rocky relationships with Fox News stars such as O’Reilly
and Hannity; and probes Ailes’s fraught partnership with his equally brash and mercurial boss, Rupert Murdoch.
Roger Ailes’s life is a story worthy of Citizen Kane. The Loudest Voice in the Room is an extraordinary feat of
reportage with a compelling human drama at its heart.
NORTH AMERICAN: Random House (Jonathan Jao)
PUBLICATION: January 14, 2014
COPIES AVAILABLE
FOREIGN SALES: Simplified Chinese/Citic, Korea/Media Tiger, Turkey/Zodyak, Marathi/Saraswati
22
ACID TEST by Tom Shroder
It’s no secret that LSD, MDMA, and other psychedelics have the ability to cast light on the miraculous reality
hidden within our psyche. Almost immediately following the discovery of LSD less than a hundred years ago,
psychedelics began playing a crucial role in the quest to understand the link between mind and matter. With an
uncanny ability to reveal the mind’s remote frontiers and the unmapped areas of human consciousness,
compounds such as LSD and MDMA (better known as Ecstasy) have been proven to be extraordinarily effective in
treating disorders such as post-traumatic stress—yet the drugs remain illegal, out of reach of the millions of people
who could benefit from them.
Anchoring ACID TEST are the stories of three men: Rick Doblin, the founder and executive director of the
Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), who has been fighting government prohibition of
psychedelics for more than thirty years; Michael Mithoefer, a former emergency room physician who became a
ground-breaking psychiatrist committed to psychedelic therapy research for PTSD; and his patient Nick Blackston,
a former Marine who has suffered unfathomable mental anguish from the effects of brutal combat experiences in
Iraq.
Written by decorated journalist and editor Tom Shroder, ACID TEST covers the first heady years of
experimentation in the fifties and sixties, through the backlash of the seventies and eighties when the drug
subculture exploded and uncontrolled experimentation with street psychedelics led to a PR nightmare that would
set therapeutic use back decades. Meticulously researched and astoundingly informative, Acid Test is at once a
moving narrative of intertwining lives against an epic backdrop, and a striking and persuasive argument for the
unprecedented healing properties of drugs that have for decades been characterized as dangerous, illicit
substances.
WORLD ENGLISH: Blue Rider Press (Sarah Hochman)
PUBLICATION: September 9, 2014
COPIES AVAILABLE
23
SCRUM by Jeff Sutherland
We live in a world that is broken. For those who believe that there must be a more efficient way for people to get
things done, here from Scrum pioneer Jeff Sutherland is a brilliantly discursive, thought-provoking book about the
management process that is changing the way we live.
In the future, historians may look back on human progress and draw a sharp line designating “before Scrum” and
“after Scrum.” Scrum is that ground-breaking. It already drives most of the world’s top technology
companies. And now it’s starting to spread to every domain where people wrestle with complex projects.
If you’ve ever been startled by how fast the world is changing, Scrum is one of the reasons why. Productivity gains
of as much as 1200% have been recorded, and there’s no more lucid – or compelling– explainer of Scrum and its
bright promise than Jeff Sutherland, the man who put together the first Scrum team more than twenty years ago.
The thorny problem Jeff began tackling back then boils down to this: people are spectacularly bad at doing things
quickly and efficiently. Best laid plans go up in smoke. Teams often work at cross purposes to each other. And
when the pressure rises, unhappiness soars. Drawing on his experience as a West Point-educated fighter pilot,
biometrics expert, early innovator of ATM technology, and V.P. of engineering or CTO at eleven different
technology companies, Jeff began challenging those dysfunctional realities, looking for solutions that would have
global impact.
In this book you’ll journey to Scrum’s front lines where Jeff’s system of deep accountability, team interaction, and
constant iterative improvement is, among other feats, bringing the FBI into the 21st century, perfecting the design
of an affordable 140 mile per hour/100 mile per gallon car, helping NPR report fast-moving action in the Middle
East, changing the way pharmacists interact with patients, reducing poverty in the Third World, and even helping
people plan their weddings and accomplish weekend chores.
Woven with insights from martial arts, judicial decision making, advanced aerial combat, robotics, and many other
disciplines, Scrum is consistently riveting. But the most important reason to read this book is that it may just help
you achieve what others consider unachievable – whether it be inventing a trailblazing technology, devising a new
system of education, pioneering a way to feed the hungry, or, closer to home, a building a foundation for your
family to thrive and prosper.
WORLD ENGLISH: Crown
PUBLICATION: September 30, 2014
COPIES AVAILABLE
FOREIGN RIGHTS: Italy/Etas, Mexico/Oceano, Spain/Planeta, Korea/RHK, Germany/Campus,
Taiwan/Commonwealth, China/Citic, Brazil/Leya, Japan/Hayakawa, Thailand/WeLearn, Netherlands/Maven,
Russia/MIF, Turkey/Buzgadi, Poland/PWN, Slovenia/Zalozba Pasadena
24
MIDNIGHT IN SIBERIA by David Greene
Travels with NPR host David Greene along the Trans-Siberian Railroad capture an overlooked, idiosyncratic Russia
in the age of Putin. After two and a half years as NPR’s Moscow bureau chief, David Greene travels across the
country—a 6,000- mile journey by rail, from Moscow to the Pacific port of Vladivostok—to speak with ordinary
Russians about how their lives have changed in the post-Soviet years.
Reaching beyond the headline-grabbing protests in Moscow, Greene speaks with a group of singing babushkas
from Buranovo, a teenager hawking “space rocks” from last spring’s meteor shower in Chelyabinsk, and activists
battling for environmental regulation in the pollution-choked town of Baikalsk. Through the stories of fellow
travelers, Greene explores the challenges and opportunities facing the new Russia—a nation that boasts open
elections and new-found prosperity yet still continues to endure oppression, corruption, and stark inequality.
Set against the wintery landscape of Siberia, Greene’s lively travel narrative offers a glimpse into the soul of
twentieth-century Russia—how its people remember their history and look forward to the future.
NORTH AMERICAN: W.W. Norton (Maria Guarnaschelli)
COPIES AVAILABLE
PUBLICATION: October 7, 2014
FOREIGN RIGHTS: ANZ/Text, UK/Alma, Russia/AST
KEEP CALM AND PARENT ON by Emma Jenner
From a modern-day Mary Poppins and the former star of TLC’s Take Home Nanny comes a holistic and guilt-free
approach to parenting children ages seven and under. Emma Jenner lives, teaches, and nannies by this philosophy:
if parents are in control, they can enjoy their children more. And what could be more enjoyable than wellbehaved, respectful, healthy kids?
Keep Calm and Parent On effectively places parenting expert Emma Jenner on your shoulder, helping you see your
child’s behavior from an objective standpoint that puts you firmly in charge. Each chapter opens with a checklist of
questions to ask yourself when you run into a specific problem, whether it’s sleeping, nutrition, communication,
manners, consequences, or self-esteem. Jenner then breaks down each checklist, explaining how bad behavior is
really just a habit that needs to be corrected. By connecting the dots in all areas of your child’s life, you can
understand why he or she is acting out—and how to fix it. For example, the best discipline techniques in the world
won’t work if a child is sleep-deprived, and a child will not demonstrate good manners if communication is faulty
and he doesn’t understand what’s expected of him. Each chapter also features handy sidebars, as well as
instructive and memorable quizzes. A strong proponent of raising our expectations, Jenner shows how parents can
do more by doing less for their children.
With an interactive format and straightforward solutions, this invaluable guide is designed to give parents bite-size
takeaways they can use immediately with their children. Jenner’s blend of British and American parenting styles is
more than advice; it is proof that all children are capable of behaving—and that you have the keys to unlocking
their potential.
WORLD ENGLISH: Atria (Greer Hendricks)
PUBLICATION: July 15, 2014
COPIES AVAILABLE
FOREIGN SALES: Munhakdongne/Korea, Crown/Taiwan, Hachette-Phoenix/China, Gruner+Jahr/Poland
25
THE LANGUAGE OF FOOD by Dan Jurafsky
Stanford University linguist and MacArthur Fellow Dan Jurafsky dives into the hidden history of food.
Why do we eat toast for breakfast, and then toast to good health at dinner? What does the turkey we eat on
Thanksgiving have to do with the country on the eastern Mediterranean? Can you figure out how much your
dinner will cost by counting the words on the menu?
In The Language of Food, Stanford University professor and MacArthur Fellow Dan Jurafsky peels away the
mysteries from the foods we think we know. Thirteen chapters evoke the joy and discovery of reading a menu
dotted with the sharp-eyed annotations of a linguist.
Jurafsky points out the subtle meanings hidden in filler words like “rich” and “crispy,” zeroes in on the metaphors
and storytelling tropes we rely on in restaurant reviews, and charts a microuniverse of marketing language on the
back of a bag of potato chips.
The fascinating journey through The Language of Food uncovers a global atlas of culinary influences. With
Jurafsky’s insight, words like ketchup, macaron, and even salad become living fossils that contain the patterns of
early global exploration that predate our modern fusion-filled world.
From ancient recipes preserved in Sumerian song lyrics to colonial shipping routes that first connected East and
West, Jurafsky paints a vibrant portrait of how our foods developed. A surprising history of culinary exchange—a
sharing of ideas and culture as much as ingredients and flavors—lies just beneath the surface of our daily snacks,
soups, and suppers.
WORLD ENGLISH: W.W. Norton (Maria Guarnaschelli)
PUBLICATION: September 15, 2014
COPIES AVAILABLE
FOREIGN SALES: Hayakawa/Japan, Across Publishing Company/Korea, Rye Field/Taiwan, Shanghai Literature/
China
THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN IN AMERICA by Mark Perry
At times, even his admirers seemed unsure of what to do with General Douglas MacArthur. Imperious, headstrong,
and vain, MacArthur matched an undeniable military genius with a massive ego and a rebellious streak that often
seemed to destine him for the dustbin of history. Yet despite his flaws, MacArthur is remembered as a brilliant
commander whose combined-arms operation in the Pacific—the first in the history of warfare—secured America’s
triumph in World War II and changed the course of history.
In The Most Dangerous Man in America, celebrated historian Mark Perry examines how this paradox of a man
overcame personal and professional challenges to lead his countrymen in their darkest hour. As Perry shows,
Franklin Roosevelt and a handful of MacArthur’s subordinates made this feat possible, taming MacArthur, making
him useful, and finally making him victorious. A gripping, authoritative biography of the Pacific Theater’s most
celebrated and misunderstood commander, The Most Dangerous Man in America reveals the secrets of Douglas
MacArthur’s success—and the incredible efforts of the men who made it possible.
NORTH AMERICAN: Basic Books
PUBLICATION: April 1, 2014
COPIES AVAILABLE
26
A CURIOUS DISCOVERY: AN ENTREPRENEUR’S STORY by John Hendricks
In A Curious Discovery, media titan John Hendricks tells the remarkable story of building one of the most successful
media empires in the world, Discovery Communications.
John Hendricks, a well-respected corporate leader and brand builder, reveals that his professional achievements
would not have been possible without one crucial quality that has informed his life since childhood: curiosity.
This entrepreneur’s story takes you behind the scenes of some of the network’s most popular shows and greatest
successes, and imparts crucial lessons from the network’s setbacks.
With insights, anecdotes, photographs, and real-world wisdom, A Curious Discovery is more than a powerful
autobiography and corporate history: It also a valuable primer for business innovators and entrepreneurs.
NORTH AMERICAN: Harper Business (David Hirshey)
COPIES AVAILABLE
PUBLICATION: June 25, 2013
FOREIGN SALES: Global Business/Complex Chinese, Citic/Simplified Chinese, ReadySetGo/Korea
DO YOU BELIEVE IN MAGIC? by Paul Offit
In Do You Believe in Magic?, medical expert Paul A. Offit, M.D., offers a scathing exposé of the alternative medicine
industry, revealing how even though some popular therapies are remarkably helpful due to the placebo response,
many of them are ineffective, expensive, and even deadly.
Dr. Offit reveals how alternative medicine—an unregulated industry under no legal obligation to prove its claims or
admit its risks—can actually be harmful to our health.
Using dramatic real-life stories, Offit separates the sense from the nonsense, showing why any therapy—
alternative or traditional—should be scrutinized. He also shows how some nontraditional methods can do a great
deal of good, in some cases exceeding therapies offered by conventional practitioners.
An outspoken advocate for science-based health advocacy who is not afraid to take on media celebrities who
promote alternative practices, Dr. Offit advises, “There’s no such thing as alternative medicine. There’s only
medicine that works and medicine that doesn’t.”
NORTH AMERICAN: Harper (Gail Winston)
COPIES AVAILABLE
PUBLICATION: June 18, 2013
FOREIGN SALES: Fourth Estate/UK, Japan/Chijin, Korea/Purun Communication
27
THE ALCHEMISTS by Neil Irwin
When the first fissures became visible to the naked eye in August 2007, suddenly the most powerful men in the
world were three men who were never elected to public office. They were the leaders of the world’s three most
important central banks: Ben Bernanke of the U.S. Federal Reserve, Mervyn King of the Bank of England, and JeanClaude Trichet of the European Central Bank. Over the next five years, they and their fellow central bankers
deployed trillions of dollars, pounds and euros to contain the waves of panic that threatened to bring down the
global financial system, moving on a scale and with a speed that had no precedent.
Neil Irwin’s The Alchemists is a gripping account of the most intense exercise in economic crisis management
we’ve ever seen, a poker game in which the stakes have run into the trillions of dollars. The book begins in, of all
places, Stockholm, Sweden, in the seventeenth century, where central banking had its rocky birth, and then
progresses through a brisk but dazzling tutorial on how the central banker came to exert such vast influence over
our world, from its troubled beginnings to the Age of Greenspan, bringing the reader into the present with a
marvelous handle on how these figures and institutions became what they are – the possessors of extraordinary
power over our collective fate. What they chose to do with those powers is the heart of the story Irwin tells.
NORTH AMERICAN: Penguin Press
COPIES AVAILABLE
PUBLICATION: April 4, 2013
FOREIGN SALES: Business Plus/World English, Hayakawa/Japan, Econ/Germany, Cheers/Simplified Chinese,
Campus/Brazil, KPI/Korea, Planeta/Spain, Humanitas/Romania
A FIELD GUIDE TO AWKWARD SILENCES by Alexandra Petri
Washington Post columnist Alexandra Petri turns her satirical eye on her own life in this hilarious new memoir...
Most twentysomethings spend a lot of time avoiding awkwardness.
Not Alexandra Petri.
Afraid of rejection? Alexandra Petri has auditioned for America’s Next Top Model. Afraid of looking like an idiot?
Alexandra Petri lost Jeopardy! by answering “Who is that dude?” on national TV. Afraid of bad jokes? Alexandra
Petri won an international pun championship.
Petri has been a debutante, reenacted the Civil War, and fended off suitors at a Star Wars convention while
wearing a Jabba the Hutt suit. One time, she let some cult members she met on the street baptize her, just to be
polite. She’s a connoisseur of the kind of awkwardness that most people spend whole lifetimes trying to avoid. If
John Hodgman and Amy Sedaris had a baby…they would never let Petri babysit it.
But Petri is here to tell you: Everything you fear is not so bad. Trust her. She’s tried it. And in the course of her
misadventures, she’s learned that there are worse things out there than awkwardness—and that interesting things
start to happen when you stop caring what people think.
NORTH AMERICAN: NAL (Tracy Bernstein)
COPIES AVAILABLE
PUBLICATION: June 2, 2015
28
HEALING AT THE SPEED OF SOUND by Don Campbell and Alex Doman
“Healing at the Speed of Sound . . . provides us with powerful tools to enhance our general health and wellbeing as
well as expand our spiritual awareness.”
—David Perlmutter, MD, FACN, ABIHM, author of Power Up Your Brain: The Neuroscience of Enlightenment
“Healing at the Speed of Sound puts us in charge of our own sound health and well being. Life is good-but it can be
so much better with Campbell’s infinite illuminations contained in this wonderful body of work.”
—Barry Green, bestselling author of the The Inner Game of Music, The Mastery of Music, and Bringing Music to Life
“From the moment of our birth . . . to the last breath we take, sound is a primary, shaping force in our lives. Don
Campbell and Alex Doman have authored a wonderful treatise helping us understand the role sound plays in our
lives and the means by which we can be productive, healthy and happy.”
—Sam Goldstein, Ph.D., author of the Power of Resilience
Based on more than a decade of new research, Don Campbell, bestselling author of The Mozart Effect, and Alex
Doman, an expert in the practical application of sound and listening, show how we can use music—and silence—to
become more efficient, productive, relaxed, and healthy.
Each chapter of Healing at the Speed of Sound focuses on a single aspect of everyday life, providing advice,
exercises, wide-ranging playlists, and links so readers can use the music they love to create the perfect soundtrack
for any goal or task. Also included are “Sound Profiles”—brief stories showing how real people creatively tap the
power of sound to improve their own and other’s lives—as well as sound and video clips available on the authors’
dynamic website, www.healingatthespeedofsound.com.
Inspiring, practical, and truly enjoyable, Healing at the Speed of Sound opens the door to a fuller, richer, and much
more harmonious life.
NORTH AMERICAN: Hudson Street Press
RELEASE DATE: September 29, 2011
FOREIGN SALES: Sanchaek/Korea, Domain/Complex Chinese, L’Homme/French, Ascii/Japan
29
THE SECRET LIVES OF WIVES by Iris Krasnow
*New York Times Bestselling Author
*Inaugural selection for The Talk book club
America’s high divorce rate is well-known. But little attention has been paid to the flip side: couples who creatively
(sometimes clandestinely) manage to build marriages that are lasting longer than we ever thought possible.
What’s the secret? To find out, bestselling journalist Iris Krasnow interviewed more than 200 wives whose
marriages have survived for 15 to 70 years. They are a diverse cast, yet they share one common and significant
trait: They have made bold, sometimes secretive and shocking choices on how to keep their marital vows, “till
death do us part,” as Krasnow says, “without killing someone first.”
In raw, candid, titillating stories, Krasnow’s cast of wise women give voice to the truth about marriage and the
importance of maintaining a strong sense of self apart from the relationship. Some spend summers separately
from their partners. Some make time for wine with the girls. One septuagenarian has a recurring date with an old
flame from high school. In every case, the marriage operates on many tracks, giving both spouses license to pursue
the question “Who am I apart from my marriage?” Krasnow’s goal is to give women permission to create their own
marriages at any age. Marital bliss is possible, she says, if each partner is blissful apart from the other.
“The Fine Line Between Marriage and Divorce,” Iris’s Huffington Post article on her vintage wives’ tales, has been
read by more than 1.5 million people and circulated across the globe, prompting interview requests from the UK to
Poland and Brazil. For the week leading up to publication, the book was on Amazon’s top-50 bestseller list.
NORTH AMERICAN: Gotham (Lauren Marino)
RELEASE DATE: September 29, 2011
FOREIGN SALES: Commonwealth/Complex Chinese; Grand China/Simplified Chinese
30
THE MODERN BOOK OF THE DEAD by Ptolemy Tompkins
**Collaborator on Dr. Eben Alexander’s Proof of Heaven and The Map of Heaven**
“A fascinating, impassioned hybrid of memoir and divine supposition.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“A brilliant and absorbing exploration of our ideas about death and the afterlife, that brings much thought, insight,
and personal reflection to an area of experience we too often avoid examining. Some might consider this morbid—
mistakenly, I’d say—but it prepares the reader for the one spiritual adventure none of us will miss, and can even
make us look forward to it.”
—Gary Lachman
What happens to us after we die? All the world’s religions offer their own perspectives on what happens to us after
death, and even in the modern world, where the existence of the soul is so often questioned, channeling and neardeath experiences have kept those ancient questions alive all the same. So it is that in today’s largely secular
society, thousands still continue to turn to ancient texts like the Tibetan and Egyptian Books of the Dead for
consolation and inspiration.
Like the world’s other great sacred works, these Books of the Dead offer wisdom, hope, and comfort. But because
they’re so old, the material they present needs to be seen within a modern context in order to be truly useful. If
“What happens to the soul at death?” remains perhaps the single most important question we can ask, then
whatever answer we find should incorporate not just ancient wisdom, but also the fruits of modern
experience. The Modern Book of the Dead does just that.
Author Ptolemy Tompkins grew up in a family where questions about the shape and fate of the human soul were
discussed on a daily basis, and he has explored those concepts in his critically acclaimed books The Divine Life of
Animals and Paradise Fever. Part memoir, part history of ideas of the afterlife, and part road map to what might
truly await each of us when we leave our bodies behind, The Modern Book of the Dead is a wise and courageous
book that approaches the question of the afterlife in a refreshingly intimate manner.
NORTH AMERICAN ENGLISH AND SPANISH: Atria (Sarah Durand)
RELEASE DATE: February 14, 2012
FOREIGN SALES: Cygnus/UK, Agave/Hungary, Nar Kitap/Turkey
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UNCONDITIONAL PARENTING by Alfie Kohn
*Winner, 2006 National Parenting Publications Award
Most parenting guides begin with the question “How can we get kids to do what they’re told?”—and then proceed
to offer various techniques for controlling them. In this truly groundbreaking book, nationally respected educator
Alfie Kohn begins instead by asking, “What do kids need—and how can we meet those needs?” What follows from
that question are ideas for working with children rather than doing things to them. One basic need all children
have, Kohn argues, is to be loved unconditionally, to know that they will be accepted even if they screw up or fall
short. Yet conventional approaches to parenting such as punishments (including “time-outs”), rewards (including
positive reinforcement), and other forms of control teach children that they are loved only when they please us or
impress us. Kohn cites a body of powerful, and largely unknown, research detailing the damage caused by leading
children to believe they must earn our approval. That’s precisely the message children derive from common
discipline techniques, even though it’s not the message most parents intend to send.
More than just another book about discipline, though, Unconditional Parenting addresses the ways parents think
about, feel about, and act with their children. It invites them to question their most basic assumptions about
raising kids while offering a wealth of practical strategies for shifting from “doing to” to “working with”
parenting—including how to replace praise with the unconditional support that children need to grow into
healthy, caring, responsible people. This is an eye-opening, paradigm-shattering book that will reconnect readers
to their own best instincts and inspire them to become better parents.
North American: Atria
Pub: 2006
Foreign: Patria/Mexico; Kalima/United Arab Emirates; Arbor/Germany; Uriga/Korea; Il Leone Verde
Edizioni/Italy; Crianza Natural/Spain; Tianjin Huawentianxia Books/Simplified Chinese; BusinessWeekly/Complex
Chinese; Mizan Learning Center/Indonesia, Dariusz Syska/Poland, L’Instant Present/France, Multi Media
Est/Romania, Gorunmez Adam/Turkey, Vietnam
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About the Ross Yoon Agency
Ross Yoon is a literary agency specializing in serious nonfiction: everything from memoir and
history and biography to popular science, business, and psychology. Our clients include CEOs,
top doctors, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists, academics, politicos, radio and television
personalities, and many, many New York Times bestsellers.
A boutique agency, we focus on a select list of high-end clients who share our core belief that
books change lives. Each client has a story with tremendous potential to uplift and empower
readers all over the country—if not the world—and we’re proud to have the resources,
connections, and experience to help them share it with the widest possible audience.
Over the course of nearly 30 years in business, we’ve developed a reputation among major
publishers for representing substantive books that grab the attention of national media and sell
extremely well—not just in the weeks after publication, but through time.
Here’s what one client—a winner of the National Book Award, MacArthur Fellowship, and
Pulitzer Prize—wrote about us in the acknowledgements of her most recent book: “I owe
special thanks to my agent, Gail Ross, and her colleague Howard Yoon. They journeyed outside
the mapped terrain of agentry into inspiration, editing, guidance, nudging and hand-holding.
There is no one in my professional life to whom I have been attached for so many years as Gail,
and this has been my good fortune.”
Visit us online at www.rossyoon.com.
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