FICTION AND MEMOIR

Tess Callahan

APRIL AND OLIVER

Grand Central (editor Deb Futter), June 2009; paperback June 2010

Sold to: Windmill/Random House (UK); Frassinelli/Sperling (Italy), Cargo/Bezige Bij (The Netherlands)

APRIL AND OLIVER is a beautiful and stirring first novel about two inseparable childhood friends whose existences again collide after the sudden death of April’s younger brother. Both by now have lives of their own – Oliver, a law student newly engaged, has completely abandoned the promise of his youth as a piano prodigy, something that his fiancée knows nothing about; and April, a bartender, leads a reckless life, especially when it comes to men. But when Oliver tries to tend to April in her grief, the foundation of Oliver’s life is less stable than it seemed, and April perhaps has a more solid core than she shows the world. Their connection proves to be the force that helps each of them find their way.

Tess Callahan’s fiction has appeared in publications such as Agni, Cottonwood, The Stylus Anthology, and New York Newsday, and was nominated for a Pushcart. She has an MFA in Fiction from Bennington College, and has attended Breadloaf, Squaw Valley and the Ragdale Foundation.

“The urgency of Callahan's narrative and its volatile juxtapositions—innocent passion and dark sexuality; duty and desire; first love and ruined love—make it impossible not to care deeply for these characters and their thwarted yearning and their heart-wrenching stories.”

—Bob Shacochis, author of Easy in the Islands and Swimming in the Volcano

“Grappling fates are the DNA of suspense, and Tess Callahan braids loss, longing, romance and violence into a tense, gratifying narrative. The characters in April and Oliver feel inexorable—either destined or doomed to be together. The need to discover which—and how—keeps the reader turning pages.”

—Sven Birkerts, author of Art of Time in Memoir and Reading Life

“Callahan spins a dark, gritty tale of love, yearning, and choices while presenting engaging characters and substantial action that packs more than a few punches. Wise beyond words...”

—Library Journal

“In the delicious tradition of Jane Austen … a moving story and an impressive debut”

—The Boston Globe

Charlie Carillo

ONE HIT WONDER

Kensington Publishing (editor Gary Goldstein), October 2010

UK rights with Kensington, all other rights controlled by Anne Edelstein Literary Agency

Sold to: Pendo (Germany)

Mickey DeFalco left his childhood home in a blaze of glory when he became a pop-star with a single hit—a ballad he wrote while still in high school about his first love. Twenty years later, he's desperate, broke, and moving back in with his parents.  Lynn, the woman he still loves all these years later, is back too. In this sweet and uproarious novel, Mickey sees ahead of him a second chance, if only he can roll with all the craziness life throws his way. And if he can, he could finally have everything he missed out on the first time around: success, family, and, most of all, true love.

Charlie Carillo is the author of Raising Jake (Kensington, 2009), My Ride With Gus (Pocket, 1996), and the young adult novel Shepherd Avenue (Atlantic Monthly Press, 1986; an ALA best book of the year) and his have both by optioned several times for film. Throughout the 1980’s Carillo wrote for the New York Post, where he also had a personal column. For the next decade he worked for Inside Edition, where he continues to freelance today. Carillo also writes for a number of magazines from his current home in London.

Jennifer Lauck

FOUND: A Quest for Mother & Home

Seal Press (editor Brooke Warner), March 2011

Ms. available

FOUND: A Quest for Mother & Home is the long-awaited sequel to the 2000 international bestseller BLACKBIRD: A Childhood Lost & Found. Following this survivor’s account told in the voice of an abused child, FOUND is the story of a confident woman moving through this traumatic past to finally find lasting happiness. A hunger for identity has lead Jennifer to a career, motherhood, and a traditional Tibetan Buddhism spiritual practice. But she finally realizes that all along what has been fueling her quest is an unrealized desire to connect to her actual mother. At last confronting the significance of her adoption (not once but three times), she seeks the mother who gave birth to her. What she finds is not so much a storybook ending, but a physical mirror of herself which proves to be the key to her own self-determination. FOUND is about a child’s longing for a mother and the determination of one woman to go home.

Jennifer Lauck is a speaker, teacher, award winning journalist and the author of three books, including the New York Times Bestseller Blackbird, which was also translated into twenty-two languages and internationally bestselling. Featured on The Oprah Show, Winfrey told her audience, “Read it now!” Readers of Blackbird will certainly want to do the same with FOUND. Lauck lives in Oregon with her husband and two children.

Rachel Simon

THE STORY OF BEAUTIFUL GIRL

Grand Central (editor Deb Futter), May 2011

Ms. available; ARCs due October 2010

Sold to: Windmill/Random House (UK); Matar (Israel)

From the author of the bestselling memoir Riding the Bus with My Sister comes a bold new novel opening up the imagination to the world of disabilities. The book begins in the late 1960s when Lynnie, a beautiful young white woman with a developmental speaking disability, and Homan, an African-American deaf man who can only communicate through a self-made sign language, escape from an institution, The Pennsylvania State School for Incurable and Feebleminded. Their purpose is to deliver the baby that Lynnie has kept hidden throughout her pregnancy. Soon they are tracked down—Lynnie is returned to the institution while Homan slips into the night—but not before they manage to secretly hand the new baby over to the unsuspecting widow who has kindly given them shelter before they are found by the authorities. The novel traces the paths of the three lives desperate to connect for more than 30 years, but kept apart by what seems to be insurmountable obstacles. The power of this beautifully written novel unfolds as the reader discovers the interior worlds of Lynnie and Homan, perspectives no usually witnessed by the rest of society.

Rachel Simon’s sensitive treatment of disability should resonate with readers of her best-selling memoir, Riding the Bus with My Sister (Houghton, 2002; paperback Plume, 2003; Hallmark Hall of Fame movie starring Rosie O’Donnell and Andie MacDowell, 2005). Simon is also the author of the memoir The House on Teacher’s Lane (formerly Building a Home with My Husband, Dutton, 2009, Plume, 2010), The Writer’s Survival Guide (Story Press, 1997), a novel entitled The Magic Touch (Viking, 1994), and a story collection—Little Nightmares, Little Dreams (Houghton, 1990). She is also a teacher, speaker, and vocal advocate of tolerance and the understanding of mental retardation.

NON-FICTION

Arjia Rinpoche

SURVIVING THE DRAGON: A Tibetan Lama’s Account of 40 Years of Chinese Rule

Introduction by His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Rodale (editor Karen Rinaldi), March 2010

In this remarkable historical document, Arjia Rinpoche tells the story of his life as a Tibetan lama under Chinese rule and his escape from Tibet to the United States ten years ago at age 48. Chosen as the reincarnation of Arjia Rinpoche at age two, he was sent life at Kumbum Monastery, one of the most important monasteries in Tibet. In 1950 when Mao came into power, the eight-year-old Arjia found himself stranded in the monastery when all of the monks and attendees were sent to prison. He learned to operate under the different Chinese regimes, surviving as the government proceeded to whittle away at religious freedom of the Tibetans, and to dampen individual spirit and belief. He was very close to the Panchen Lama, with whom he shared the same tutor, and like the Panchen Lama lived with many obligations to Central Party in Beijing as the second highest religious leader remaining in Tibet. Rinpoche was with 10th Panchen Lama when he died under dubious circumstances, and he was present for the rigged selection of the ‘counterfeit’ 11th Panchen Lama. When the Chinese government requested that he be the tutor of the new reincarnate youth, Rinpoche saw no choice but to flee, and so began his harrowing flight from Tibet in 1998, when he found political asylum in the US.

Arjia Rinpoche today directs the Tibetan and Mongolian Cultural Center in Bloomington, Indiana (originally founded by the His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s eldest brother). He appears regularly on TV and radio, including Voice of America and Radio Free Asia, and lectures widely.

“This is the real story: A heroic account of the oppression of Tibet that needs to be told. In Surviving The Dragon, the world can hear the suffering and injustice that burden the Tibetan people and the heartfelt response of a truly wise lama. Maybe this will help us to act. I hope so.”

—Jack Kornfield, author of The Wise Heart and After The Ecstasy, The Laundry

“Surviving the Dragon is much more than an autobiography. It is a fascinating history, told by an insider, of China’s occupation, domination, and destruction of Tibetan culture. For anyone interested in the story behind the inner workings of China-controlled Tibet, this is a must-read told by a deeply religious leader.”

—Mikel Dunham, author of Buddha’s Warriors and Samye

“A deeply moving, vivid account that only a person who lived through these terrible events in Tibet could write. Free from polarized thinking and language, Arjia Rinpoche’s intimately told, candid portrayal of life in an occupied land poignantly depicts one of the most massive brutalizations in human history. This stunning book exposes the consequences of a regime without compassion, revealing how ungrounded, misguided plans have disastrous impact on peoples and cultures. I was often moved to tears.”

—Professor Jeffrey Hopkins, emeritus professor of Tibetan Studies, University of Virginia

Stephen Batchelor

CONFESSION OF A BUDDHIST ATHEIST

Spiegel & Grau (editor Cindy Spiegel), March 2010

Sold to: Heyne (Germany); Pensamento-Cultrix (Brazil); Le Seuil (France); Czarna Owca (Poland); Asoka (The Netherlands); Astrolabio-Ubaldini (Italy)

In CONFESSION OF A BUDDHIST ATHEIST, Stephen Batchelor moves away from the agnostic questioning of his earlier classic, Buddhism Without Beliefs, to look at the value Buddhism can have in a secular world. Batchelor’s inspiration comes from his recent translation and study of the Pali Canon, the first recorded document of the Buddha’s life, and his examination of his own personal journey through Buddhism – from a questioning (ex)monk to interpreter and critic of Buddhist thought. The crux of this book is the understanding that the Buddha was a man who looked at human life in a radically new way, an unequivocally secular view that has nothing to do with the piety or religiosity that has come to be part of the definition of modern Buddhism. This is an eloquent book for a contemporary audience grappling with the meaning of spirituality and religion in today’s world.

Stephen Batchelor is a former monk in the Tibetan and Zen traditions and the author of the national bestseller, Buddhism Without Beliefs, and many other books. He lectures and conducts meditation retreats worldwide, and is a contributing editor for Tricycle. He lives in France.

“The human thirst for the transcendent, the numinous--even the ecstatic--is too universal and too important to be entrusted to the cultish and the archaic and the superstitious. In this honest and serious book of self-examination and critical scrutiny, Stephen Batchelor adds the universe of Buddhism to the many fields in which received truth and blind faith are now giving way to ethical and scientific humanism, in which lies our only real hope.”

—Christopher Hitchens, author of God Is Not Great

“Following up on his seminal Buddhism Without Beliefs, Batchelor has put together a meticulous and unconventional historical look at the Buddha.” —Daily Beast (a “hot read of the week” selection)

“Seekers of truths large and small, no matter what their inclinations, will find [Batchelor’s] commentary valuable.” —Kirkus

“a moving and thoughtful book that does not fear to challenge” —The Guardian

Sophy Burnham

THE ART OF INTUITION

Tarcher (editor Sara Carder), February 2011

Ms. available

Sold to: Gildan Media (audio)

What is intuition? Do I have it? How do I get it? Sophy Burnham, of the phenomenal bestseller A Book of Angels, now ventures into the way the uncanny appears in our lives—auras, guardians, ghosts, psychic acuity, and other ways of ‘knowing.’ A book for anyone who has wondered what intuition is and how to be in touch with it, Burnham uses the keen sense of storytelling that has won her millions of readers worldwide, inspiring her audience to tap into the natural intuition that resides in all of us.

Tarcher will publish the revised edition of A BOOK OF ANGELS in April 2011, followed by the re-release of her inspiring FOR WRITERS ONLY in 2012.

A BOOK OF ANGELS in print with: Goldmann/Mosaik (Germany) and Business Weekly Publications (Chinese, complex characters). Previously published by: Marabout (France), Il Corbaccio and T.E.A. (Italy), Planeta (Latin America); Planeta (Spanish North America), Ediciones Martinez Roca and Circulo de lectores (Spain), Bertrand (Brazil), Karisto (Finland ), Zysk (Poland), Nakladetelstvi (Czech Republic), Sol Vita (Latvia), Hungaprint (Hungary), Esotheria (Serbia), Urania (Russia), Hilt & Hansteen (Norway), Borgens Forlag (Denmark), The Japan Times (Japan)

Sophy Burnham is the author of twelve books, eight plays, and numerous essays and articles that have been syndicated worldwide. Her books have appeared on the New York Times, Washington Post, Publishers Weekly, and other bestseller lists, and she has been featured on such esteemed television shows as The Oprah Winfrey Show, Larry King Live, Today, and Good Morning America. Her works have been translated into more than twenty languages. Burnham divides her time between Washington, D.C., and Taos, New Mexico.

Kay Larson

WHERE THE HEART BEATS: John Cage, Zen Buddhism, and the Inner Life of Artists

Penguin Press (editor Ann Godoff), 2012

Ms. due 2011

WHERE THE HEART BEATS promises to be a groundbreaking history of intellectual currents of the postmodernist cultural movement, and an illuminating view of Cage and his influence of modern art. For several decades an art critic, columnist, and editor, Kay Larson left her position at New York Magazine in 1994 to enter Zen practice at a monastery in upstate New York. There she became captured by the work of Cage. As her grasp and fascination with him grew, so too did her understanding of the pivotal influence of the Zen teachings of Suzuki on his life in the 1950’s and how Cage absorbed and, in turn, unleashed this perspective on the coterie of abstract expressionists and critics, including Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol, Leo Castelli, and Harold Rosenberg, among others. Hence the celebration of silence, non-doing and non-intention became the root of the groundbreaking acknowledgement of the art of process rather than product.

Steeped in cultural references from the Dadaists and Italian surrealists to the Beats, and historic influences of Schoenberg and Duchamp, Larson artfully takes us on the journey of Cage’s evolution, through his collaboration with Merce Cunningham, and beyond -- exploring his inspirational role in shaping the cultural era of postmodernism.

Liel Leibovitz

LEONARD COHEN: A Broken Hallelujah

W.W. Norton (editor Amy Cherry), 2012

Ms. due Fall 2011

In this philosophical biography, Liel Leibovitz looks at what it is that makes musician/philosopher/poet Leonard Cohen an enduring international figure in the cultural imagination. Born into a Canadian religious Jewish family, for years a reclusive lyricist on the Greek island of Hydra, known for his bold political commentary, his devotion to Buddhist thought and his later despair over contemporary Zionism, Cohen hardly follows the rules of a conventional rock star. Yet the prophetic themes of his music, often filled with pessimism and apocalyptic visions, prove redemptive to an audience that spans generations, from those who listened in the 1960’s to today. As Leonard Cohen requires, this is a passionate and personal evocation of the man who appeals to the inner spirit of his fervent followers.

Liel Leibovitz is the author/co-author of four books that include The Chosen Peoples (Simon & Schuster, 2010) with Todd Gitlin, and with Matthew Miller Lili Marlene: The Soldiers’ Song of WWII (Norton, 2009) and the forthcoming The Fortunate Sons (Norton, 2011). Leibovitz is also assistant professor of Communications at New York University and an editor at Tablet: The online magazine of Jewish life and culture.

Nathan Schneider

IF REASON RULED THE WORLD: The Search for Proof of the Existence of God

University of California Press (editor Reed Malcolm), 2011

Ms. due December 2010

This is a thoughtful and timely intellectual, historical, and theological journey through centuries of believers (and unbelievers) from the Greeks to C.S. Lewis, Thomas Aquinas to current activists on the blogosphere. Amidst all of the controversy surrounding New Atheism and the conflicts between faith and reason, Nathan Schneider puts the debate into its rich, original context. His sure-handed explanations of the historical moments in which the creator of each proof lived and his love for the elegance of their ideas illuminate both the people and their arguments, bringing them to life in their time, and—through his own personal discovery of thinkers throughout the ages—our own.

Nathan Schneider has written on the intersection of religion and culture for publications including The New York Times, The Guardian, The Boston Globe, The Nation and the website where he serves as senior editor, Killing the Buddha. He has an M.A. in Religious Studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara and a B.A. in the same field from Brown University.

James Shapiro

CONTESTED WILL: Who Wrote Shakespeare?

Simon & Schuster (editor Bob Bender), April 2010

Sold to: Faber (UK); Gredos/RBA (Spain)

Indiebound Notable Book

James Shapiro (winner of Samuel Johnson Prize for A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare: 1599) embarks on a search to answer the question he is most asked by lecture audiences far and wide – ‘Who wrote the plays?’ While academics may roll their eyes at this constant question, it’s unmistakably a matter of great and ongoing interest that includes interrogators as widespread as Sigmund Freud, Mark Twain, Charlie Chaplin and Malcolm X. As important as the answers that Shapiro finds is the history of the inquiry itself, which began in the mid-19^th century and reveals much about the contemporary concerns and the historical notion of authorship. In England, Shapiro tells us, the debate has to do with class—how could a glover’s son possibly have written what Shakespeare was said to have written?—while in American circles there is a thread of conspiracy theory.

James Shapiro is Professor of English at Columbia University, where he teaches Shakespeare. His previous book, A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare: 1599 (HarperCollins, 2005), received international acclaim, including the Samuel Johnson Prize. Shapiro is also the author of Oberammergau: The Troubling Story of the World’s Most Famous Passion Play (Pantheon, 2000), Shakespeare and the Jews (Columbia, 1996) and Rival Playwrights: Marlow, Shakespeare, Jonson (Columbia, 1991). He reviews regularly for The New York Times Book Review and other publications. He has been a visiting scholar at the New Globe Theatre in London, has advised on Shakespeare for the Public Theater in New York City, and taught the faculty seminar in Shakespeare at the Folger Library, where he delivered the ‘birthday lecture.’

Shapiro sprinkles his text with glinting, steely facts…[that are] riveting … Shapiro does not waste words on the preposterous, but he does uncover the mechanism of fantasy and projection that go to make up much of the case against Shakespeare. … Self-revelation, Shapiro persuades us, was not an early modern mode. What Shakespeare demonstrates is the authority of the human imagination.”

—Hilary Mantel, The Guardian

“authoritative, lucid and devastatingly funny” —The Sunday Times (London)

“This irresistible book hums with … learning and panache” —The Independent

“Shapiro weaves together various strands of recent scholarship to make a case [for Shakepeare’s authorship] which is about as watertight as it can be. … Shapiro is a gifted storyteller.”

—London Review of Books

James Shapiro

THE YEAR OF LEAR: Shakespeare in 1606

Simon & Schuster (editor Bob Bender), 2014

Ms. due Fall 2013

A natural book in the tradition of the award-winning and critically acclaimed A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare: 1599 comes the book that revolves around the year 1606, the year Shapiro views as Shakespeare’s most fruitful year as a mature playwright. This year that takes in King Lear, Macbeth and Anthony and Cleopatra, is also the year of the Plague and the Gunpowder Plot. It’s also a time of Shakespeare’s on reflection on his old age and his art.

Russell Shorto

AMSTERDAM: A Liberal History

Doubleday (editor Bill Thomas), 2013

Partial ms. due April 2011; ms. due October 2012

Sold to: Dutch sale pending

Options: Mouria (Holland); Longanesi (Italy); La Campana (Catalán); Objetiva (Brazil); Duomo (Spain); Shanghai Joint Co. (Chinese, simplified characters); Editions Telemaque (France); Seidosha (Japan)

AMSTERDAM: A Liberal History will be an authoritative, full-bodied narrative sweep of the city’s 2,000 years.  But more to the point, as a phenomenal storyteller and spinner of ideas, Shorto will look at Amsterdam’s history as a sort of blueprint for modern society.  Its centerpieces will be two periods, each the length of a single human life span.  The first stretches from the late 1500’s to mid-1600’s—Amsterdam’s Golden Age, when it emerged as a dominant world city and the seeds of its legacy of secularism, tolerance of diversity, capitalism, and other hallmarks of the modern state were sown. The second period ranges from World War II to the present.  During the Second World War the founding precepts of liberalism that had been nurtured over the centuries were threatened by Nazism, which was then countered by ‘Dutch resistance.’ Liberal ideals ultimately won out over totalitarianism, and a flourishing of the companion values of progressivism and trade globalization followed in Amsterdam right up to the present day, as the city continues to serve as a global model for liberal thought and ideas. Shorto will make the most of a dramatic past and colorful characters to bring this history of liberal society to light as these values again face intense examination in today’s world.  

Russell Shorto, the author of the bestselling The Island at the Center of the World (Doubleday, 2004) and Descartes’ Bones (Doubleday, 2008), writes regularly for The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, and many other publications. He currently resides in Amsterdam, where he is also the director of the John Adams Institute.

ADDITIONAL TITLES, RIGHTS CONTROLLED BY PUBLISHERS

His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Edited by Jeffrey Hopkins, Ph.D.

COMPASSION: The Global Solution

Atria Books, (editor Peter Borland), June 2012

Ms. due October 2011

Options: One Spirit (Book Club), Rider (UK), Librairie Plon (France), De Boekerij (The Netherlands), Tanapaev (Estonia), Kibea (Bulgaria), Metaekdotiki (Greece)

COMPASSION: The Global Solution is a practical/philosophical guidebook for all human beings who would like to live in a better world. Each of the book’s 12 chapters addresses a common human flaw and instructs the reader on overcoming what can become otherwise habitual behavoir. The core is that compassion is intrinsic to the human mind, and destructive emotions of anger, hate, lust, and egoism stand in the way of true inner peace. By addressing the potential for personal happiness by retraining the course of thought and behavior, the individual can also contribute to happiness of the world community. With wisdom and insight, His Holiness illuminates how to re-orient the mind and the heart and implement compassion in daily life.

His Holiness the 14^th Dalai Lama is the world’s foremost Buddhist leader. He is the author of numerous books, including the series edited by Jeffrey Hopkins—How to Practice, Advice on Dying (paperback title: Mind of Clear Light), How to See Yourself As You Really Are, How to Expand Love, and Becoming Enlightened, all published by Atria Books.

Jeffrey Hopkins was His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s Chief Interpreter for a decade, traveling with him widely and collaborating with him on several books. Hopkins is emeritus professor of Tibetan and Buddhist Studies at the University of Virginia and the author of more than 40 books.

Marian Faux

A WILD CIVILITY: A Social History of Democratic Manners

Random House (editor Susanna Porter), 2011

Ms. due December 2010

American manners—or the lack of them—have long been the subject of jokes. But even as she revels in the occasionally outlandish result of egalitarian social structure meeting traditional notions of etiquette, Marian Faux explores how the code of manners was deliberately constructed along with the new nation, and how class relations, the role of money rather than pedigree, and the changing role of women in society all contribute to Americans’ particular brand of etiquette.

Marian Faux is the co-author of The New York Public Library’s Student’s Desk Reference (1993), NYPL American History Desk Reference (1998), and Executive Etiquette (St. Martins, 1994). She is the author of Roe V. Wade (Macmillan, 1988), Crusaders: Voices from the Abortion Front (Birch Lane, 1990) and Childless by Choice (Anchor, 1983).

Olivia Ames Hoblitzelle

TEN THOUSAND JOYS & TEN THOUSAND SORROWS: A Couple’s Journey through Alzheimer’s

Forward by Jon Kabat-Zinn

Tarcher (editor Sara Carder), September 2010

Sold to: Sun Color Culture Publishing (Chinese, complex characters); Random House Korea (Korea)

When Olivia Hoblitzelle’s husband, Hob, was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s, they drew from their years of Buddhist practice and open honesty to live through Hob’s decline with intentionality and love. Olivia captures her husband’s witty voice and poignant acceptance of his own cognitive loss in this inspirational and instructional memoir about living with and caring for someone with Alzheimer’s.

Olivia Ames Hoblitzelle is a writer, therapist and teacher who has come to specialize in the integration of meditation, yoga and cognitive therapy with traditional Western medicine. She has lead workshops and developed training programs at a number of organizations, including the Mind/Body Medical Institute and Harvard Medical School.

“A heart-felt, wise, honest and tender book. Enormously helpful both to those facing Alzheimer’s and their loved ones.”

—Jack Kornfield, author of After the Ecstasy, the Laundry

“An eloquent and honest account of a long slow ordeal: because this life trial is experienced and shared by two brave, likeable, and loving people, it transcends pain and loss and becomes an inspiration.”

—Peter Matthiessen, author of The Snow Leopard

Liel Leibovitz and Matthew Miller

FORTUNATE SONS: How 120 Chinese Boys Came to America, Went to College, and Modernized an Ancient Empire

W.W. Norton (editor Amy Cherry), February 2011

Galleys available

Leibovitz and Miller tell the remarkable story of the Chinese Educational Mission, which sent 120 boys to the US in 1872 to be educated in its most prominent universities in an effort to expose a new generation to the ways of the west. The mission was aborted nine years later when Chinese politics dictated the prompt return of the boys before many had completed their educations. But within this single decade, they were able to absorb enough to radically affect their homeland in the years following their return. Graduates of the Mission played fundamental roles in China’s development, becoming leaders in areas as diverse as transportation, telecommunications, the navy, and government. The histories of the ‘boys’ of the Mission will be brought to life as seen through a wealth of original documents -- over 300 letters, 150 photos and numerous volumes of journals, newspaper articles and official reports are among the resources that the authors will utilize.

Liel Leibovitz and Matthew Miller, met at the Columbia School of Journalism and previously collaborated on LILI MARLENE: The Soldiers’ Song of World War II (W.W. Norton, 2008).

Liel Leibovitz and Todd Gitlin

THE CHOSEN PEOPLES: America, Israel, and the Ordeals of Divine Election

Simon & Schuster (editor Roger Labrie), September 2010

Foreign rights handled by Trident Media Group

Divine Election—the belief that for some reason God chose one specific nation above all others—has played a powerful role throughout history. However, only two countries, America and Israel, have crafted this idea into a powerful and enduring national force. It was largely in the name of this idea that the pilgrims landed on the shores of New England and the Zionists in Palestine. Current events in both countries—including contentious ideological expeditions both abroad and at home—extend from the subterranean force shaping these two countries: chosenness.

Weaving together history, theology, politics and analysis, “The Chosen Peoples” retells the dramatic story of two nations bound together by a wild and sacred idea, takes unorthodox perspectives on some of our time’s most searing conflicts, and offers an unexpected conclusion: only by understanding chosenness, wrestling with its meaning and taking on its responsibilities can both nations thrive.

Todd Gitlin, a professor of journalism and sociology at Columbia University, is the author of twelve books, most recently The Bulldozer and the Big Tent: Blind Republicans, Lame Democrats, and the Recovery of American Ideals (Wiley, 2007).

“This is one of the finest books I have ever read about the ideas which drive modern nations. Eloquent and erudite, Gitlin and Leibovitz reveal the promise and the pitfalls of a mass temptation neither Americans nor Israelis have been able to resist. The Chosen Peoples is a necessary work for our perilous era.”

—Michael Kazin, author of A Godly Hero: The Life of William Jennings Bryan

“Americans’ deep sense of connection to Old Testament prophecy and providence dates back to the Puritans. In their provocative new book, Todd Gitlin and Liel Leibovitz explore that connection anew for modern times—and offer food for thought and rich argument about the historical as well as political experiences of both Israel and the United States.”

—Sean Wilentz, author of The Rise of American Democracy

“A perceptive comparison between Israel and the United States as Chosen Peoples of God. The authors synthesize history, Bible study, and current events with their own deeply moral analysis. They explore the analogy between the Israeli settlers on Palestinian lands and the white American settlers on Native American lands in ways profoundly enlightening.”

—Daniel Walker Howe, Pulitzer-Prize-winning author of What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848