Benay Enterprises, Inc. Client News WINTER 2010 Happy New Year! Another year has gone by in the blink of an eye. The oughts are gone and now, entering the pre-teen years, we look ahead. Despite the economic downturn—something you might have heard about—we have been very busy here at Benay. We welcomed an exciting new client to our family this past August, Soho Press. If you aren’t already familiar with Soho —they began in 1986 and are an established general interest publisher, publishing 60-80 titles per year, though they are best known for their mystery series and crime series. We are very happy to have them aboard. Another exciting change for us is that we have moved our offices. After being located in a quiet country setting for over 30 years, we have decided that an office in the downtown of the burgeoning main street of Danbury will be a welcomed new environment. Our new address is: 155 Main Street, Suite 201 Danbury, CT 06810 (our phone and fax numbers remain the same) Please remember - if you have news that you would like us to share, please send the information to merrilee@benayei.com so we can include it in our next newsletter.
Soho Press Publisher www.sohopress.com Soho Press is an independent book publisher based in New York City. Since 1986, they have been publishing literary fiction, narrative nonfiction, and mysteries set in exotic locations.
Our deepest condolences go out to Bronwen, her family, the Soho Press family, and the publishing world for their (and our) loss of Laura Hruska— a mother, author, and pioneer. Soho has been very busy this past year, as always—feeling the love, review-style, from Booklist, Publishers Weekly and the New York Times throughout the year. One of the most recent releases, Village of the Ghost Bears (December 09) by Stan Jones from Soho Crime got a starred review in
Publishers Weekly and a few nods from some of the smaller periodicals such as Entertainment Weekly, People Magazine, Library Journal and the still in-print (yay) Kirkus Reviews! With arson, murder and situated in the remote area of the grand state of Alaska, how could you go wrong? PW also points out that the books gives great homage to the “mixed-ethnic traditions” that makes the state such a cherished and inspirational place. Forthcoming titles include a first novel Alcestis (Feb) by Katharine Beutner that explores Greek mythology’s “good wife” and what her life must have been like before her self-sacrificial death; Rules of Play (Jan) by Jennie Walker – about a British woman having an extra-marital affair and discovers what's really missing in her life; and Sweet Sorrow (Jan) by David Roberts in which Lord Edward Corinth and his wife, Verity Browne, investigate the decapitation of a poet.
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Benay Enterprises, Inc., T 203.744.6010 F 203.794.0008, www.benay.com
Winter 2010 Client News - Page 2
Disinformation Publisher
Granta
www.disinfo.com
Publisher
Launched on September 13, 1996, Disinformation was designed to be the search service of choice for individuals looking for information on current affairs, politics, new science and the "hidden information" that seldom seems to slip through the cracks of the corporate-owned media conglomerates.
www.granta.com Granta does not have a political or literary manifesto, but it does have a belief in the power and urgency of the story, both in fiction and nonfiction, and the story’s supreme ability to describe, illuminate and make real.
Gaining a new editor and out-selling Dan Brown in one major US city made 2009 an exciting year for Granta. In October, 2009, the acting UK editor (already the US editor), John Freeman, was officially adopted as Granta’s official UK editor. And in Chicago… remember Dan Brown—DaVinci Code author—and his new book—The Lost Symbol that was mentioned in every form of media for the past year? Yeah, well—the Unabridged Bookstore reported that Granta’s Chicago issue outsold him – take that, bestseller man! Score one for Team Literary. And the new Granta has arrived! Granta 109: Work is about just that—work and how we as humans react, embrace and/or reject it as a function of life. With selections from Salman Rushdie, Daniel Alarcón, Yiyun Li, and many more. There is also online content (www.granta.com/Magazine/Granta-109Work) to check out including a video from Granta’s editor, John Freeman introducing the issue. This just in… the Telegraph (UK) just announced their “Top new novelists for 2010” and Granta’s Max Schaefer made the list! Congratulations! AND Granta has just welcomed new artistic director, Michael Salu.
“We’re not a magazine, really, but a cultural space where anything can happen. That’s Granta’s heritage.” – John Freeman, Editor Granta
The end is near! The end is near! Woo Woo! Get ready folks, the world is coming to an end–or so says the Mayan calendar. Come 2012 we’re all doomed. Disinformation has secured its own fate by releasing the DVD 2012: Science or Superstition earlier in 09 followed by Alexandra Bruce’s accompanying book of the same name. Both explore the existing debate with new researchers, writers, and scientists in the field—all trying to determine if the Mayan calendar was right. November brought Disinformation’s New York Times bestselling author, Jim Marrs’ first work of fiction: The Sisterhood of the Rose. Set in WWII Marrs uses fact and fiction to create a story about love and war, and a secret sisterhood that tries to stop Hitler from taking over the world. This year, Disinformation has some goodies for you including a Spring 2010 DVD release from veteran journalist for ABC News and CNN Danny Schechter's Plunder - The Crime of Our Time: Why Wall Street Is Not Too Big To Jail, exposing the financial crisis as a crime story and naming the criminals. Spring books include: Hidden Wisdom: The Secrets of the Western Esoteric Tradition by Tim Wallace-Murphy. From Egyptian mythology to Jewish mysticism, Rome and Greece to the druids and the gnostics, Wallace-Murphy exposes a fascinating lineage of hidden mysteries and secret societies. Fall 2010 brings us the author of Fingerprints of the Gods (inspiration for Roland Emmerich's 2012) Graham Hancock's debut fantasy novel Entangled.
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Winter 2010 Client News- Page 3
Overlook Press Publisher www.overlookpress.com
Tin House Books Publisher www.tinhouse.com Tin House salutes the artistic edge, but remains rooted in the tenets of the classic storytelling tradition.
From Portland, Oregon to Portland, Maine—everyone loves Tin House! OK, not exactly Portland, ME–but just slightly north in another lovely coastal town, Camden, there’s a mag called Down East who reviewed Tin House’s book called Asta in the Wings. The book is set in rural Maine, about a young girl who learns how to creatively cope with growing up in almost utter isolation. Not to mention some of the other periodicals that hailed Watson’s debut as the tops: Library Journal, and starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Booklist. 2010 brings us the release of many new titles as well as the new edition of the New York Times bestselling, How To Do Nothing with Nobody All Alone By Yourself by Robert Paul Smith (March). It’s an illustrated how to book perfect for today’s kids to get them away from the screen of whatever and discover their own imagination. Also on the hot Spring list, is fleeing from the past roadtrip, Hot Springs (ha! get it? “Hot Spring” is on the hot Spring list… anyone?) by Geoffrey Becker (February), short-story collection, Call It What You Want by Keith Lee Morris, and the complexities of apartheid-era relationships novel Agaat by Marlene van Nierkerk, trans. Michiel Heyns (May).
“I was immediately mesmerized . . . Its beauty matches its depth and her achievement is as brilliant as it is haunting.”
The Overlook Press is an independent generalinterest publisher, founded in 1971. The list is eclectic and includes interesting fiction, history, biography, drama, and design.
In 2009, Overlook readers laughed out loud to Overlook’s collection of the very English-humored Punch (no, not the puppet) cartoons, The Best of Punch Cartoons edited by Helen Walasek. The New York Times declared the collection as “…a document of social history as it is a cartoon album…” 2009 also saw the rise of Irene Levine’s Best Friends Forever, with an appearance on Good Morning America to discuss how women should deal with the breakup of not their lover, but their best friend. These breakups can be just painful as those of a lover, but are rarely broached by any expertsuntil now. Do you watch TV? Do you listen to the radio? Do you come within earshot of either? If you do, there was no escaping the name Susan Boyle last year (Britain’s Got Talent surprise of the year). Everyone fell in love with the spinster-turned-star and were fascinated with her story. Well, Overlook Press has the first book of her story. You heard it here first – this February 2nd, you can get your own copy of Susan Boyle: Dreams Can Come True by Alice Montgomery! If, like me, you’re an old-school Food Network fan, then you remember the Two Fat Ladies who loved their motorbike and put both Julia Child AND Paula Dean to shame with their love of butter. This month, Overlook released the US version of the 1997 UK best-selling memoir, Spilling the Beans, by surviving lady, Clarissa Dickson Wright, recounting her experience with fame, addiction, heartbreak and food.
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—Toni Morrison on Agaat Benay Enterprises, Inc., T 203.744.6010 F 203.794.0008, www.benay.com
Winter 2010 Client News - Page 4
AK Press Publisher/Distributor www.akpress.org AK Press is a worker run book publisher and distributor organized around anarchist principles. All decision-making, including the choice of titles to distribute and to publish, is made collectively. Their ultimate goal is to make radical books, DVDs, CDs, published by independent presses only, available to a wider audience and, in the end, provide materials with which people can make a positive change in the world.
As always, AK Press is a rock and roll distribution company, but they are also pumping out their own titles as well. New books include: Common Ground in a Liquid City: Essays in Defense of an Urban Future by Matt Hern—a fun and engaging look at the future of urban life. Hern takes the reader through many cities around the world and explores the building blocks that make them livable and even self-sustaining. If you have ever been part of a collective, then you know the frustrations that come with it. Come Hell or High Water: A Handbook on Collective Process Gone Awry by Richard Singer and Delfina Vannucci was written by veteran collective members to help those old and new navigate their way through the process to find a well-oiled collective respectful of all its members. Heard about the oil crisis? Yeah? Not much lately though, huh? Well, we’ll still in it and there’s a toll this race is taking on local social struggles. Kolya Abramsky addresses this straight on in the collected essays of Sparking A Worldwide Energy Revolution: Social Struggles in the Transition to a Post-petrol World. The essays come from all over the world and “document the social struggles at the heart of the existing energy sector, and trace the emerging alliances, conflicts, and hierarchies that are quickly defining the globally-expanding renewable energy sector.”
Literary Agency East Literary Agency www.theliterarygroup.com The Literary Group International is one of the premier literary agencies in the book publishing industry. The company represents more than 200 authors worldwide. Its formidable client list ranges from novelists, celebrities and public figures, to Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winning authors.
Last year, a story of friendship and perseverance hit the Bestseller List. Last May, almost 9 million Americans tuned in to watch “Farrah’s Story,” the late Farrah Fawcett’s documentary chronicling her threeyear battle with cancer. By her side throughout the illness was actor, former model, and longtime Fawcett friend Alana Stewart. Her book My Journey With Farrah: A Story of Life, Love and Friendship released August 11, and debuted at number 9 on the New York Times Non-Fiction Bestseller list. Writing candidly about aging, marriage, motherhood, and faith, Alana gives a moving tribute to a woman, once Hollywood's golden girl, and an inspiring celebration of life. My Journey with Farrah is the story of two courageous women who stood by each other through the ultimate test of friendship. Also, in the news—Literary’s other clients… Kristin Billerbeck's debut novel, What a Girl Wants, has been optioned as a film to Grammy-winning recording artist Rebecca St. James, who is poised to produce and star in the leading role. Award-winning journalist Peter Stevens' The Voyage of the Catalpa has been optioned for a film by legendary producers James Flynn and Morgan O'Sullivan of Braveheart and Tudors fame. Elizabeth Beckwith's hilarious and irreverent spoof of a parenting guide, How to Raise the Perfect Child Through Guilt and
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Winter 2010 Client News- Page 5
Manipulation was published by HarperCollins. In it, Beckwith bridges the gap between funny childhood memoirs, such as David Sedaris' Naked, and edgy self-help manuals like The Three Martini Playdate. And Hilary Swank and producer Molly Smith have optioned a first-look pact with the Warner Bros. affiliate Alcon Entertainment. Including a project based on Literary’s own, Karen Yampolsky and her novel Falling Out of Fashion, which may be a potential starring vehicle for Swank. Falling Out of Fashion centers on a woman who leaves a Georgia hippie commune for New York City with dreams of becoming a magazine editor.
For Beginners Publisher www.forbeginnersbooks.com For Beginners® books, a documentary, graphic non-fiction comic book series serve one purpose: to un-intimidate and un-complicate the works of great thinkers and subjects alike. Each book is painstakingly researched, humorously written and illustrated in a style that best suits the subject. With subjects ranging from philosophy, to politics, to art and beyond, the For Beginners® series presents a range of familiar concepts in an illustrated, humorous and readily accessible manner that’s respective of the intelligence of its audience.
We’ve had a good year at For Beginners. On the irony front, Ayn Rand For Beginners was our biggest seller of the year. It’s short and sweet (unlike the intimidating-sized tomes of Ms. Rand) with comic noir-styled illustrations. We’ve always had a strong backlist, but this Ayn Rand popped out ahead of the rest—closely followed by Relativity and Quantum Physics For Beginners. All of our titles had a strong showing, and many were definitely favored by the bloggers. Fresh on the market is Poetry For Beginners—an in-depth primer with over 170
illustrations, co-written by Margaret Chapman and Kathy Welton—both experts in the field of poetry. Also coming this year is Ben Franklin For Beginners, authored and illustrated by Tim Ogline. Not a straight up biography, but a sort of an expose compared to what you learned in history books. And we are very excited about our summer release: FDR and The New Deal For Beginners by Paul Buhle and illustrated by Sabrina Jones with a preface by Harvey Pekar. Paul Buhle is the co-author of The Art of Harvey Kurtzman: The Mad Genius of Comics; editor on Harvey Pekar’s Studs Terkel's Working: A Graphic Adaptation; and editor of The Beats: A Graphic History with Harvey Pekar; and co-authored the comic edition of A People's History of American Empire with Howard Zinn.) Sabrina Jones was a contributor to Wobblies! A Graphic History of the Industrial Workers of the World (Verso 2005) and her first book, Isadora Duncan, A Graphic Biography was published by Hill & Wang in 2008. Harvey Pekar is best known for his comic series, American Splendor which inspired a movie of the same name starring Paul Giamatti as Pekar.
Eskandar Clothier, Homeware, Bath & Body www.eskandar.com After only being available at Neiman Marcus and Saks, Eskandar opened the first US flagship store in New York in 2005. Eskandar offers high end clothing, bath products, furniture, accessories, and embroidered linens. Aside from being available at Bergdorf Goodman, Eskandar has headed west into new territories including Balliets in Oklahoma City, Jackson Hole Traders in Jackson Hole, Wyoming and Santa Fe Dry Goods in New Mexico. The Pre-Spring 2010 collection includes some punches of color like orange and blue in the form of
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Benay Enterprises, Inc., T 203.744.6010 F 203.794.0008, www.benay.com
Winter 2010 Client News - Page 6 sweaters and shirts in addition to their classic collection of soft hues of brown and grey. Their Home collection now has Sotis Filippides’ ceramics. Inspired by tree bark and volcanic rock among many other nature-based textures, the bowls and pots beg to be touched—and in dark earthly shades you’ll want to pick up all of these beautiful ceramics for your home!
Homer Hickam Author www.homerhickam.com
Homer Hickam is best known for his debut novel, Rocket Boys, which was based on his life and was adapted into the movie, October Sky. His novels celebrate and lament the life of the denizens of coal mining towns.
Steerforth Press Publisher www.steerforth.com Located in New Hampshire, Steerforth has demonstrated that an independent press publishing small, highly selective lists with energy, care and sophistication can have a dramatically outsized impact on our culture.
Steerforth is proud that Anthony Pitch's groundbreaking and critically acclaimed They Have Killed Papa Dead! is the winner of the 2009 Arline Custer Memorial Award for the best book involving historical research on the Mid-Atlantic region. The paperback edition was published in mid-November, just in time for the holidays! Steerforth's lead title for the fall, the novel The Last Day, received a starred review in Publishers Weekly and lavish praise in other outlets. It's the story a U.S. Army veteran, just returned from the Iraq War, who spends a day with Jesus. It's at once an impressive literary accomplishment and a deeply moving read. This spring will see the release of the annual edition of Zoland Poetry and The Counterfeit Murder in the Museum of Man: A Norman de Ratour Mystery by Alfred Alcorn.
“A powerful story of one young man's faith, failings, and redemption."
Homer is busy as always, with two novels in the works—apparently (according to his Facebook page) he has just sent of the manuscript for The Dinosaur Hunter to his editor. We’ll get in to that, but first, come February, My Dream of Stars, From Daughter of Iran to Space Pioneer is releasing. Homer co-wrote this memoir with Anousheh Ansari. “Anousheh is a fascinating woman. She's a refugee from the mullahs of Iran, an entrepreneur, a self-made multimillionaire, sponsor of the X Prize that sent the first private piloted ship into space, and also a daring explorer into space who fought for a seat aboard a Russian rocket, then lived for a week aboard the International Space Station.” And now, back to The Dinosaur Hunter: a novel, releasing this Fall. Here’s a description straight from Mr. Hickam: “Life on the ranchlands of Montana comes with more than its share of trouble. The unique people who live and work on this untamed stretch of today's American West expect it—and some of them even enjoy it. One of them is Mike Wire, a former homicide detective who once worked the decadent hills and valleys of Hollywood. Having enough of the violence of the big city, Mike has retreated to a far corner of civilization—the badlands and prairies of Fillmore County, Montana— to spend his days running the Square C Ranch and pining for Jeanette Coulter, its spirited and iron-fisted owner.”
—Library Journal on The Last Day
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