Three Recently Sold Books

Okay, three entries in today’s Lunch Weekly, caught my eye, so I thought I’d share them with you.

Here’s the first:

Patrick Lee's two untitled Travis Chase thrillers, starring an ex-convict who's a combination of Jack Bauer and Jack Reacher, with supernatural suspense reminiscent of Dean Koontz and James Rollins, to Sarah Durand at William Morrow, in a pre-empt, by Janet Reid of FinePrint Literary Management (world).

Patrick Lee, or whoever wrote this blurb, is going to have a lot to live up to. In one sentence, the main character, Travis Chase, is compared to Jack Bauer of TV fame and Jack Reacher of suspense fame. I like both characters, but if I buy this book and Chase is not like Bauer or Reacher, I’m gonna be sorely disappointed. In the same sentence, the author Patrick Lee is compared to two very good writers, Dean Koontz and James Rollins. Plus, the book is not just suspense, it’s … supernatural! As I said, it’s a lot to live up to.

Children's author and illustrator (and multiple Caldecott winner) David Small's first work for adults, STITCHES, a graphic memoir about his 1950s childhood in a family where free expression was forbidden and where abuse was both emotional and physical in the most unusual of ways (the son of a radiologist, his exposure to x-radiation at the hands of his father gave him cancer at age 14; supposedly minor surgery left one of his vocal cords severed, leaving him virtually voiceless for ten years), to Robert Weil at Norton, at auction, for publication in fall 2009, by Holly McGhee at Pippin Properties (world, excl. Canada; already on offer at Frankfurt).

This made me go, whoa! A lot of us think we had not so great childhoods, but this guy had a whopper of a miserable time growing up. This is one I may want to read.

Psychologist, professor, dean and expert on the phenomenon of lying, Robert Feldman's lively analysis of the underlying causes, functions and implications of deception in contemporary society, including the
discovery that in a ten-minute conversation, the average person lies two to three times, to Jonathan Karp at Twelve, at auction, by Gillian MacKenzie at the Gillian MacKenzie Agency (NA).

This one caught my attention because of my recent participation in A Week of No Lying. I don’t believe I, at least, lie two to three times in a ten-minute conversation. That must mean the person I’m talking to tells a lot of lies!