SARAH LAZIN BOOKS RIGHTS GUIDE, London 2019
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SARAH LAZIN BOOKS ________________________________________________________________________ RIGHTS GUIDE, London 2019 Sarah Lazin Books Sarah Lazin 19 West 21st Street, Suite 501 slazin@lazinbooks.com New York, NY 10010 slazin@aevitascreative.com Phone 212.765.6900 www.lazinbooks.com Catharine Strong www.aevitascreative.com cstrong@aevitascreative.com
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Sarah Lazin Books London Rights Guide 2019
MICHAEL BENSON
SPACE ODYSSEY: Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke, and the Making of a Masterpiece
Simon & Schuster 2018 (Translation Rights Available)
Now in its fifth printing
• Finalist for the 2018 Marfield Prize
On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of one of the most celebrated films of all time, 2001: A Space
Odyssey, award-winning author and filmmaker Michael Benson has written the definitive history of this influential
production. Benson focuses on the fascinating interaction between two of the 20th century’s most compelling and
influential—yet enigmatic and even secretive—creative individuals. Created by noted filmmaker Stanley Kubrick,
then fresh off the success of his brilliant Cold War satire Dr. Strangelove, and Arthur C. Clarke, one of the century’s
most important science fiction writers, 2001 is now considered one of the most original and influential films ever
made. Drawing on his exclusive interviews with Clarke, full support of the Kubrick Estate, and access to a rich
lode of unpublished archives, Benson tells not just the story of a high-intensity creative partnership, but discusses
2001's origins and influences, as well as giving significant attention to the important work of Kubrick's other
collaborators. With a scope befitting such an epic film, Space Odyssey is an exploration of the relationship
between science and science fiction, 2001’s impressive cinematic legacy, and how the film speaks to our current
concerns regarding technology, artificial intelligence, space exploration, and art.
“At last! The dense, intense, detailed, and authoritative saga of the making of the greatest motion picture I’ve
ever seen, 2001: A Space Odyssey. Michael Benson has done the Cosmos a great service.” ― Tom Hanks
“A new and remarkably comprehensive look at the complex relationship between the two men whose
collaboration led to one of the greatest films of all time… Benson is clearly in tune with the film…and he follows
the story of the movie’s creation with an eye for small, precise detail. In its way, this story about the making
of 2001 is as compelling and eye-opening as the film itself.” ― Booklist (starred review)
“Michael Benson’s engrossing, immersive examination of the long path to Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke’s
masterpiece, […] is an astonishing tale of obsessive genius at work.” – The New York Times
Foreign sales:
Brazil: Todavia China: Chi Ming Publishing Company (complex) Japan: Hayakawa Publishing
Russia: Eksmo Publishing China: Ginko Press (simplified)
Michael Benson is a writer, photographer, filmmaker, and exhibitions producer. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker, The New York Times,
The Washington Post, Rolling Stone, Smithsonian, ArtForum, and other publications. His photography is shown internationally, most recently at the Natural History Museum
in London. He is the director of the award-winning film Predictions of Fire (1995) and the global road movie More Places Forever (2008). He is also the author of several art
books on space. He is based in Ontario, Canada and his website is www.michael-benson.net.
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Sarah Lazin Books London Rights Guide 2019
KATE BROWN
MANUAL FOR SURVIVAL: A Chernobyl Guide to the Future
W. W. Norton & Co. March 2019 (Translation Rights Available)
• US and UK First Serial rights sold to major publications
• Author will be touring the UK in March
Author of the award-winning Plutopia, a history of the Russian and US plutonium disasters, Kate Brown’s Manual For
Survival is an exposé of the Chernobyl nuclear accident, using evidence from archives that have previously been sealed to
the public eye. Brown draws on completely untouched material to reveal Chernobyl’s widespread effects on human and
environmental health. A powerful narrative about the influence Chernobyl has had over time, this groundbreaking work
speaks to current concerns about nuclear policy as it provides the first thorough reckoning with Chernobyl’s aftermath.
Manual For Survival details cover-ups conducted by the Soviet government and international organizations alike, showing
how the devastating effects of the explosion were mismanaged and lied about, even to this day. Kate Brown dramatizes
the initial Soviet response, the re-reckoning with Chernobyl after the fall of the USSR, and the role of US health
organizations and UN-associated groups like the World Health Organization and the International Atomic Energy
Association, all of which ignored evidence in order to protect the interests of the nuclear industry and avoid culpability for
a quickly snowballing public health crisis.
Based on research trips to Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus, Kate Brown gives an intimate portrayal of life after catastrophe.
She talks to civilians who fought against their erasure: organizing, petitioning, and breaking laws to make their voices
heard. Life in a post-nuclear landscape may seem the stuff of dystopian fiction, but Kate Brown argues that it is a present-
day, high-stakes reality.
“Brown’s in-depth research and clean, concise writing illuminate the reality behind decades of ‘half-truths and bald-faced
lies.’ Readers will be fascinated by this provocative history of a deadly accident and its consequences.” ― Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“In her exhaustive account of the tragedy, Brown profiles people who responded immediately to the accident and residents who were left behind in the contaminated
zones, while also exploring the environmental consequences. An important endeavor as this nuclear debacle recedes further into history” ― Booklist
Foreign Sales:
UK: Penguin Press Poland: Czarne France: Actes Sud
Kate Brown is an award-winning historian of environmental and nuclear history, fluent in Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, and German. She is the author of Plutopia:
Nuclear Families in Atomic Cities and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters (Oxford 2013) and Dispatches from Dystopia: History of Places Not Yet Forgotten (University
of Chicago Press 2015). Brown is the recipient of many fellowships, including ones from the John D. Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the
Humanities. Her Chernobyl research has been funded by the American Academy in Berlin, the ACLS, and a 2016-18 Carnegie Fellowship. She is currently based in
Pasadena, California and is a Professor of Science, Technology and Society at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. For more on Kate Brown, see page 13.
4 Sarah Lazin Books London Rights Guide 2019 ART CULLEN STORM LAKE: A Chronicle of Change, Resilience, and Hope From a Heartland Newspaper Viking Books 2018 (Translation Rights Available) When Art Cullen won the Pulitzer in editorial writing in 2017 for taking on corporate agriculture, it was a coup on many counts: a strike for the wellbeing of a rural community, a triumph for his family-run weekly newspaper The Storm Lake Times, and a salute to the special talents of a fierce and formidable writer—Cullen. In Storm Lake, Cullen’s candid and timely book, he describes how rural America has changed dramatically over his career, as seen from the vantage point of a small town in Iowa. Storm Lake may be a community in flux, occasionally in crisis, but one that's not disappearing—in fact, its population is growing with immigrants from Laos, Mexico, and elsewhere. Thirty languages are now spoken there, and soccer is more popular than American football. The immigrants to Storm Lake are the book's heart: from the family that swam the Mekong River to find Storm Lake to the Guatemalan woman with a baby who wonders if she'll be deported from the only home she has known. Iowa plays an outsize role in national politics due to its influence on presidential elections: Iowa introduced Barack Obama to the world stage in 2008 yet voted for Donald Trump in 2016. Is it a bellwether for America? A nostalgic mirage, or a harbinger of America’s (and the world’s) future? Cullen's answer is complicated and honest—but with optimism and the stubbornness that is still the state's, and his, dominant quality. “Art Cullen’s courageous writing—sensitive, challenging, sometimes abrasive—helped build Storm Lake into a community. Cullen captures, in prose that is almost poetry, the heart and soul of the ‘good America.’” ― Tom Harkin, former United States Democratic Senator “The pages of Storm Lake clearly demonstrate why Cullen won journalism’s most revered prize. He’s a real newspaperman who doesn’t spend his days entertaining the views of Fox News, CNN, or MSNBC. He doesn’t react, he reports…. You’ve got to love this guy.” ― James O’Shea, The National Book Review Art Cullen is 50 percent of the ownership and 25 percent of the staff of the The Storm Lake Times (a family-owned weekly newspaper located in rural Storm Lake, Iowa) and winner of the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial writing for his columns taking on corporate agribusiness for fouling the town's water and soil. He was profiled by the New York Times, NPR, Katie Couric and many others after winning. This is his first book.
5 Sarah Lazin Books London Rights Guide 2019 ANTHONY DeCURTIS LOU REED: A Life Little Brown 2017 (Translation Rights Available) As lead singer and songwriter for the Velvet Underground and a renowned solo artist, Lou Reed invented alternative rock. His music violated all definitions of genre while speaking to millions of fans, inspiring generations of musicians, and redefining cool. But while his iconic status may be fixed, the man himself was anything but. Eternally restless and endlessly hungry for new experiences, Reed reinvented his persona, his sound, even his sexuality time and again. Channeling his jagged energy and literary sensibility into classic songs—like "Walk on the Wild Side" and "Sweet Jane"—and radically experimental albums alike, Reed remained true to his artistic vision, wherever it led him. Rolling Stone writer Anthony DeCurtis, the only music journalist Reed trusted enough to speak to extensively, tells the story of Reed’s life. Through unparalleled access to dozens of Reed's friends, family, and collaborators, DeCurtis tracks Reed's five-decade career. We travel deep into his defiantly subterranean world, enter the studio as the Velvet Underground record their groundbreaking work, and revel in Reed's relationships with such legendary figures as Andy Warhol, David Bowie, and Laurie Anderson. Gritty, intimate, and unflinching, Lou Reed is an illuminating tribute to one of the most incendiary artists of our time. Some of the great reviews Lou Reed has gotten from: The New York Times The Guardian The Wall Street Journal New York Review of Books Financial Times Forbes.com "Anthony DeCurtis was one of the few music critics Lou Reed read and whose company he enjoyed. After reading this sublime and subtle book, the mystery of Lou's respect for Anthony is revealed. Anthony is a great story teller, a writer's writer, turning pain into beauty the way Lou did in his songs." ― Bono “The tension between Reed’s desire for acceptance – he was determined to be seen as a weighty literary figure – and bold defiance is well handled … The result is an even-handed, well-researched portrait rendered in the spirit of ‘the empathy and distance’ that DeCurtis identifies as crucial to Reed’s songwriting.” ― The Financial Times Foreign sales: UK: Little Brown The Netherlands: Spectrum Czech Republic: Euromedia Italy: Caissa Publishing Spain (world Spanish): Grupo Planeta Author of Rocking My Life Away: Writing About Music And Other Matters (Duke University Press 1998), Anthony DeCurtis co-edited The Rolling Stone Illustrated History Of Rock & Roll and The Rolling Stone Album Guide (both published by Random House) and edited Blues And Chaos: The Music Writings Of Robert Palmer (Scribner 2009). He is a contributing editor to Rolling Stone, where his work has appeared for more than thirty years. He won a 1988 Grammy Award for his essay accompanying the Eric Clapton box set, Crossroads, and he has three times received the ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award. He has appeared as a commentator on MTV, VH1, The Today Show, and
6 Sarah Lazin Books London Rights Guide 2019 many other news and entertainment programs. DeCurtis holds a Ph.D. in American Literature from Indiana University and teaches in the writing program at the University of Pennsylvania. Follow him on twitter @ADeCurtis. HOLLY GEORGE-WARREN JANIS: Her Life and Music Simon & Schuster October 2019 (Translation Rights Available) “Every celebrity could use a biographer like Ms. George-Warren.” –The New York Times Bestselling author and biographer Holly George-Warren was chosen by the Estate of Janis Joplin to write the definitive book on Joplin’s life and music. Janis Joplin was a rock legend, yet her music had not been examined in previous biographies. Her singing style bridged the gap between traditional blues and heavy rock, and her performances showed that the form could both be sensual and shatter traditional gender roles. By the time she produced her final album, she was exploring a variety of genres that she’d absorbed as a girl in her native Texas, including folk, country, blues, jazz, pop, and gospel, as well as the styles of blues-rock, improvisational psychedelic-rock, soul, and funk she recorded later in her career. From her colorful wardrobe to her articulate and outspoken comments to the media, Janis became an icon on her own terms, yet her impact on popular music and culture remains strangely underappreciated in the volumes of books published on the history of rock and roll. This biography will correct that distortion. Joplin’s surviving siblings, Laura and Michael Joplin, have given George-Warren exclusive access to thousands of documents, including transcripts, correspondences, photographs, scrapbooks, and memorabilia, as well as direct access to Joplin’s family and friends. Janis will be published to tie in with 50th anniversary celebrations of the ‘60s, as well as promotional activities of the Joplin Estate, including the Netflix documentary Janis: Little Girl Blue, whose ever-expanding screening list includes Mexico, the UK, France, Germany, Sweden, Poland, Austria, Chile, Netherlands, Columbia, Spain, Hungary, Croatia, Finland, and Serbia. Foreign Sales: UK: Simon & Schuster UK Germany: Droemer Poland: Czarne Brazil: Pensamento Netherlands: OverAmstel Holly George-Warren is an award-winning writer and music consultant. She is the author of A Man Called Destruction: The Life And Music Of Alex Chilton, From Box Tops To Big Star To Backdoor Man (Viking 2014), Grateful Dead: 365 (Abrams 2008), Punk: 365 (Abrams 2007), COWBOY! How Hollywood Invented The Wild West (Readers Digest 2002), and several children’s books. She also co-wrote How The West Was Worn: A History Of Western Wear (Abrams 2001), Musicians In Tune: 75 Contemporary Musicians Discuss The Creative Process (Simon & Schuster 1992) and others, and has edited or co-edited over a dozen more. As editorial director of Rolling Stone Press from 1993-2001, she created over forty books. She has worked as a curator for the Grammy Museum, which opened in L.A. in December 2008, and has consulted and appeared on numerous documentary films. She has written for Rolling Stone, The New York Times, The Village Voice, Redbook, More, Entertainment Weekly, MOJO, Texas Music, Journal of Country Music, Relix, Men’s Journal, Oxford American, Musician, Paste, and No Depression, among others. She lives in Phoenicia, NY. For more about her work, see www.hollygeorgewarren.com.
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Sarah Lazin Books London Rights Guide 2019
ROBIN GREEN
THE ONLY GIRL: My Life and Times on the Masthead of Rolling Stone
Little Brown 2018 (Translation Rights Available)
• One of The Observer’s “Best Books of 2018: Music”
A raucous and vividly dishy memoir of Robin Green’s sharp ascent from being hired at Rolling Stone to writing cover
stories and being the only woman on the masthead in the first years of the magazine’s existence. The Only Girl is a
hilarious yet biting account of working in journalism during the tumultuous late-‘60s and early ‘70s, and about coming
of age as a woman in the midst of it.
Green was fearless in her journalism and her personal life, from reporting stories that put her in uncomfortable and
sometimes dangerous positions to having affairs with editors and interview subjects. She wrote classic pieces on Marvel
comics, Dennis Hopper, California cults, and the Kennedy family, thoroughly entertaining her readers with her sharp,
ironic wit. Green was also a trailblazing figure at the magazine. While the Rolling Stone masthead was dominated by
powerful male egos, Green forged her own path, looking to women like Nora Ephron and Joan Didion for inspiration.
With all the wild, careening adventure of beloved classics of the era (from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas to the film
Almost Famous), The Only Girl has a major distinction—Green adds a much-needed female perspective on a girl’s place
in the workforce, the heyday of New Journalism, free-love and the sexual revolution. Brutally honest and bold, Green
reveals what it was like to be the first woman granted entry into an iconic boys’ club. In her own words: “It’s the story
of a love affair of sorts, because I loved the magazine and I loved my part in it, singular as it was, tumultuous though it
was, as were the times, those wonderful and awful years in America when I was in my twenties and on my own.” The
Only Girl showcases Green’s honesty, humor, and guts – the same qualities that made her such a valued writer at Rolling
Stone.
“A funny, frank, powerful and ultimately moving memoir by an extraordinary writer who didn't merely roll with the
Zeitgeist but remade it in her own image.” ― T. C. Boyle
“Compulsively readable, laugh out loud funny and beautifully crafted. I ate up every word. If you thought they had more fun back then, this book will prove that you
were right.” ― Ruth Reichl, New York Times bestselling author of My Kitchen Year
Foreign Sales:
UK: Virago
Robin Green is a TV writer/producer known for her work as a producer and writer for The Sopranos on HBO. She is also known for creating, with her husband
Mitchell Burgess, the CBS drama Blue Bloods, now in its ninth season, and the show Northern Exposure. She has won four Emmys, as well as several Golden Globes, two
Peabodys and a Writers Guild Award, with many nominations for Emmys and WGA awards. She has been an editor at Rolling Stone and California Magazine, and has
written for The Boston Real Paper, City Magazine of San Francisco, Ms. Magazine, and The L.A. Times, among others. She holds an MFA in fiction from the Iowa Writers’
Workshop, and regularly lectures and speaks on panels across the country. She is based in New York City.
8 Sarah Lazin Books London Rights Guide 2019 KEMBREW McLEOD THE DOWNTOWN POP UNDERGROUND: New York City and the literary punks, renegade artists, DIY filmmakers, mad playwrights, and rock ‘n’ roll glitter queens who revolutionized culture Abrams Books 2018 (Translation and UK rights Available) The 1960s to early ’70s was a pivotal time for American culture, and New York City was ground zero for some seismic shifts in music, theater, art, and filmmaking. In The Downtown Pop Underground, cultural historian Kembrew McLeod takes the reader on a kaleidoscopic tour of the city, telling the story of the interconnections between the alternative music, theater, film, video, writing, fashion and art worlds that flowered in downtown New York. McLeod uses accounts of these artistic cross-pollinations to reveal an alternative history of recent pop culture. Through interviews with the famous (Debbie Harry, Yoko Ono, Patti Smith) to lesser-known-but-essential offbeat artists, rule-breaking poets, gonzo filmmakers, and rock and roll drag queens, McLeod shows how these outsiders reshaped the larger culture, and from downtown New York made waves on an international scale. Ambitious in scope and scale, the book is fueled by the actual voices of many of the pivotal characters who broke down the entrenched cultural divisions between high and low, gay and straight, and art and commerce— and whose impact is still largely felt today. The book also features many never-before-seen photos of this glamorous and dynamic time. “The Downtown Pop Underground honors those who were at the forefront of a movement that transformed our understandings of sexuality and artist freedom.” ― Lily Tomlin “McLeod’s deft and generous book tells of a constellation of avant-garde squatters, divas, and dissidents who reinvented the world—a story which comes to seem more improbably the more meticulously he records it.” ― Jonathan Lethem, author of The Fortress of Solitude Kembrew McLeod is a Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Iowa. He has published and produced several books and documentaries about music and popular culture, and his writing has appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Slate, Salon, SPIN, MOJO and Rolling Stone. Kembrew’s documentary Copyright Criminals aired on PBS’s Emmy Award-winning Independent Lens series, his 2007 book Freedom Of Expression® (University of Minnesota Press 2007) received an American Library Association book award. He recently was awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities Public Scholar Fellowship to support The Downtown Pop Underground, which builds on research done for his book Blondie: Parallel Lines (Bloomsbury 2016) in the 33 1/3 series. He is based in Iowa City, and his other work can be found at www.kembrew.com, or on twitter @Kembrew. For more information on Kembrew’s books, see p. 27.
9 Sarah Lazin Books London Rights Guide 2019 MS. MAGAZINE I NEVER CALLED IT RAPE: The Ms. Report on Recognizing, Fighting and Surviving Date and Acquaintance Rape HarperCollins 1988, revised and updated February 2019 (Translation and UK Rights Available) Consideration Material: Final Book A new edition of the 1988 classic text that exposed the extreme prevalence of rape in America, coining the term acquaintance rape and establishing the disturbing statistics on sexual assault that still hold just as true today—now featuring an original preface from Gloria Steinem, a new introduction by Salamishah Tillet, an updated afterword by Mary P. Koss, Ph.D., as well as an updated resources section. In 1988, Robin Warshaw wrote I Never Called It Rape, the ground-breaking book that revealed a staggering truth: in a study of students on college campuses, 25% of women were the victims of rape or attempted rape. Over 80% of these women knew their assailants. Warshaw based her reportage on the first large-scale study into rape ever, conducted by Ms. magazine in the late 80s. Thirty years later, we now have a wealth of statistics on date rape. The disturbing truth is that the figures have not diminished. That our culture enables rape is not just shown by the numbers—the outbreak of allegations against serial rapists from Bill Cosby to Harvey Weinstein and the 2016 presidential election of Donald Trump, a man who was recorded bragging about sexual assault, have further amplified this horrifying truth. With over 80,000 copies sold to date, I Never Called It Rape has served as a guide to understanding rape as a cultural phenomenon for tens of thousands—providing women and men with strategies to address our rape endemic and survivors with the context and resources to help them heal from their experiences. This book pulls the wool from all our eyes on the pervasiveness of rape and sexual assault today. “Essential . . . It is nonpolemical, lucid, and speaks eloquently not only to the victims of acquaintance rape but to all those caught in its net.” – Philadelphia Inquirer “Painstakingly researched . . . chilling.” – San Francisco Chronicle “Provocative and important.” – Kirkus Reviews Foreign Sales: Korea: Media Ilda When Ms. magazine was launched as a “one-shot” sample insert in New York magazine in December 1971, few realized it would become the landmark institution in both women’s rights and American journalism that it is today. The founders of Ms., many of whom are now household names, helped to shape contemporary feminism. Ms. was the first national magazine to make feminist voices audible, feminist journalism tenable, and a feminist worldview available to the public. Today, the magazine remains an interactive enterprise in which an unusually diverse readership is simultaneously engaged with each other and the world. Ms. continues to be an award-winning magazine recognized nationally and internationally as the media expert on issues relating to women’s status, women’s rights, and women’s points of view. For more about Ms., visit http://msmagazine.com.
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Sarah Lazin Books London Rights Guide 2019
BACKLIST TITLES
MICHAEL AZERRAD
COME AS YOU ARE: The Story of Nirvana
Doubleday 1993 (Translation Rights Available)
• Over 235,000 copies sold in the U.S.
Written with the full cooperation of Kurt Cobain and Nirvana, Come As You Are tells the Nirvana story as no other book does, from their early days in rural
Aberdeen, WA, to their domination of the world music scene. With candor, Azerrad reveals the truth behind the allegations of heroin use blasted in the media, the
soul-crushing pressure of sudden success, the burden of Nirvana’s role as spokesmen for a generation, the controversy surrounding the release of their second major-
label album, In Utero, and the tragic spiral that culminated in Kurt Cobain’s suicide in April 1994. The book’s final chapter was written after his death.
"Amazingly raw and candid... Come As You Are is as good as rock bios get."
—Billboard
Foreign Sales:
UK: Virgin Books France: Austral
Belgium: Humo Germany: Hannibal
Brazil: Madras Editora Italy: Arcana
China (Simplified): Nanjing University Press Japan: Rockin’ On Inc.
Czech Republic: Votobia The Netherlands: Bzztoh
Estonia: Varrak Publishers Poland: In Rock Music Press
A former writer and associate producer for MTV News, Michael Azerrad has written for many publications, including Spin, Us, Details, Pulse, Billboard, Rolling Stone,
and Entertainment Weekly. He lives in New York City.11
Sarah Lazin Books London Rights Guide 2019
MARCUS BARAM
GIL SCOTT-HERON: Pieces of a Man
St. Martin’s Press 2014 (Translation Rights Available)
Gil Scott-Heron: Pieces Of A Man is the first biography of the late Gil Scott-Heron, a musical icon, considered to be the godfather of hip hop for his pioneering
style of rapping poetry over jazz-funk beats in the early ‘70s. Best known for the 1970 polemic “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,” his lyrics touched on politics,
racism, mass media and relationships with poignant honesty and a sarcastic edge. By refusing to compromise his music, his lyrics or his attitude, Gil Scott-Heron
always remained the great outsider – exalted by his legion of devoted fans and sampled by the likes of Kanye West and Elvis Costello, yet overlooked by the
mainstream. A life that tracks the ups and downs of the black experience in America over the last six decades, as well as the volatile journey of a troubled musical
genius, Gil Scott-Heron's full story has finally been told.
“Controversial and enigmatic, the tragic trajectory of Scott-Heron’s life and career is expertly examined in this testament to one of the last great radical artists.”
—Kirkus
Marcus Baram is a writer and journalist, whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Village Voice, New York Magazine, Vibe, The New York Daily News, and The
New York Observer. He has worked as an editor at The Wall Street Journal, The New York Observer, The Huffington Post and Fast Company. He is based in Brooklyn, NY.
Follow him on twitter @mbaram.
PATRICIA ROMANOWSKI BASHE
ASPERGER SYNDROME: The Oasis Guide, Revised Third Edition: Advice, Inspiration, Insight, and Hope from Early Intervention to Adulthood*
By Patricia Romanowski Bashe, forewords by Tony Attwood and Michael John Carley
Crown 2001, Revised and updated 2005. Third revised and updated paperback edition, 2014. (Translation Rights Available)
Since 2001, The Oasis Guide has been the reliable, comprehensive, authoritative guide to Asperger Syndrome, from diagnosis to adulthood. This new, fully revised,
updated, and expanded third edition captures the latest in research and strategies, and delivers it in the empathetic, practical, and hope-filled style The Oasis Guide is
famous for. The goal is to raise young people with AS to grow up successful, safe, independent, and happy.
“Bashe’s must-read third edition truly earns the title of a ‘definitive guide,’ with the added bonuses of being beautifully written, engaging, warm, encouraging, hopeful,
and enormously practical.”
—Dr. Shana Nichols
WE DON’T DIE: George Anderson’s Conversations with the Other Side, with Joel Martin and George Anderson
Putnam 1988, Berkley mass market 1989, 1999, trade paperback 2002 (Translation and UK Rights Available)
Foreign sales:
France: Carrere Editions The Netherlands: EDI Voor Boeken en Planetn bv
Japan: Kobunsha Publishing Co. Ltd.12 Sarah Lazin Books London Rights Guide 2019 WE ARE NOT FORGOTTEN: George Anderson’s Messages of Hope from the Other Side, with Joel Martin and George Anderson Putnam 1991, Berkley mass market 1992, 1999 (Translation and UK Rights Available) Foreign sales: France: Editions A.J. The Netherlands: EDI Voor Boeken en Planetn bv Italy: Armenia Editore OUR CHILDREN FOREVER: George Anderson’s Messages from Children on the Other Side, with Joel Martin and George Anderson Berkley mass market 1994, 1999 (Translation and UK Rights Available) Foreign sales: France: Editions A.J. The Netherlands: EDI Voor Boeken en Planetn bv In the bestselling series by Patricia Romanowski and Joel Martin, noted psychic George Anderson tells us “no one you are close to ever dies …” WE DON’T DIE, WE ARE NOT FORGOTTEN, and OUR CHILDREN FOREVER have sold well over a million copies throughout the world. LOVE BEYOND LIFE: True Accounts of Direct Personal Communication with the Other Side, with Joel Martin HarperCollins 1997, Dell 1999 (Translation and UK Rights Available) Based on years of research into bereavement and after-death communications, Joel Martin and Patricia Romanowski demonstrate the healing power of deathbed visions, dream visitations, apparitions, and other after-death phenomena. Foreign sales: Germany: Grasmuck Verglag The Netherlands: EDI Voor Boeken en Planetn bv Indonesia: PT Gramedia Pustaka Utama Patricia Romanowski Bashe, MSEd., BCBA, is a certified special education teacher, early intervention provider, and Board Certified Behavior Analyst. Currently BCBA supervisor at a special-needs preschool, Romanowski worked for many years as senior education specialist at the Cody Center for Autism and Developmental Disabilities at Stony Brook Long Island Children’s Hospital, Stony Brook University. She is also the coauthor of twenty-three books and four national bestsellers. Her works range in topic from popular culture and celebrity autobiography to children’s issues, parapsychology/bereavement, psychology, and self-help. Before becoming a writer, she worked as an editor at Rolling Stone Press. She lives in Baldwin, NY. For more information see www.pattyrbashe.com.
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Sarah Lazin Books London Rights Guide 2019
JENNY BLAKE
LIFE AFTER COLLEGE
Running Press 2011 (Translation Rights Available)
Paperback re-released Spring 2018, with updated information and a new cover.
Life After College—a guidebook, personal journal, and collection of twitter-fied short tips by popular life coach and blogger Jenny
Blake—appeals directly to millennials, who have limitless information at their fingertips but haven’t yet developed a method of
organizing or applying it. The book is organized into chapters that are focused on specific areas, such as Money, Relationships, and the
Big Picture, with tips, activities, inspirational quotes and advice from other recent college graduates featured prominently in each.
Catered specifically to Gen Y-ers and their taste for fast, useful information, Life After College is a must-have for recent graduates
making the overwhelming transition from college life to the “real world.”
“…it will resonate with anyone who is trying to figure out what they want – not just folks in their early twenties who are navigating life
without dining halls and class schedules.”
—Forbes.com
Foreign Sales:
China (Simplified): United Sky New Media Co., Ltd. Korea: Random House Korea Inc. Japan: Futami Shobo Publishing
Jenny Blake is an author, career and business strategist, and international speaker. She has been featured on Forbes.com, US News & World Report, Real Simple,
and CNN.com and has spoken at major universities and corporations. Jenny launched her blog, LifeAfterCollege.org, in 2005. She left Google in 2011 after six years at the
company (working on the Training, Career Development, and Authors@Google teams) to move to New York City, and has since co-founded an app called Lucent
(@LucentApp) for the “meditation-curious” and serves as Director of Operations for SpringUps (@SpringUpsLLC), an urban farm start-up in Brooklyn. She is the
author of Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One (Portfolio 2016) which won an Axiom award. She is currently based in New York. Follow her on
twitter @jenny_blake and visit her at JennyBlake.me.
KATE BROWN
PLUTOPIA: Nuclear Families, Atomic Cities, and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters
Oxford University Press 2013 (Translation and UK Rights Available)
In the aftermath of WWII and at the height of the Cold War frenzy, both the United States and Russia built plutonium plants around “model cities” whose citizens
were carefully selected and monitored by heavy security to work in these plants and produce plutonium as quickly as possible. In the U.S., it was the Hanford nuclear
facility in Washington state, and the Russian counterpart—modeled on Hanford—was the Maiak plant in the southern Urals. In over forty years of operation, they
each invisibly issued 200 million curies of radioactive isotopes into the environment, endangering not only these “model” citizens who became sick from radioactivity,
but also the rivers, fields, and forests surrounding the towns. Author and academic Kate Brown worked for over five years on this untold story, as Plutopia is the first
book to narrate the history of these disasters in tandem. Fluent in Russian and related languages, Brown is the first journalist to document the Russians’ experiences in14
Sarah Lazin Books London Rights Guide 2019
their own words; this, along with her first-hand observations of both areas and access to previously untouched archives, results in the completion of a powerful
narrative.
• Winner of the 2014/2015 John H. Dunning Prize from the American Historian Association (AHA)
• Winner of the 2014 George Perkins Marsh Prize from the American Society for Environmental History (ASEH)
• Winner of the 2014 Ellis W. Hawley Prize from the Organization of American Historians (OAH).
“Turning up a surprising amount of hitherto hidden material and talkative survivors, Brown writes a vivid, often hair-raising history of the great plutonium factories
and the privileged cities built around them. … An angry but fascinating account of negligence, incompetence and injustice justified (as it still is) in the name of national
security.”
—Kirkus (starred review)
Foreign Sales:
China (Simplified): Guangxi Normal University Press Japan: Kodansha
China (Complex): Editions du Flaneur Poland: Czarne
JEFF CAMPBELL AND THE CLEAN TEAM
• Over a million copies of “The Clean Team” books have sold in the U.S.
In 1979, Jeff Campbell created The Clean Team, a San Francisco-based company that specializes in residential cleaning. After researching a myriad of cleaning
products and tools, as well as experimenting with different cleaning techniques, The Clean Team’s renowned Speed Cleaning methods changed the way Americans
clean their homes. Now, forty years later, Jeff Campbell and The Clean Team have honed their innovative methods into a science, and in each of their titles give
readers the tools they need to clean most intelligently and efficiently.
Widely regarded as America’s home cleaning expert, Jeff Campbell has published numerous titles on household cleaning. His books have been excerpted in Reader’s
Digest and Family Circle. He lives in San Francisco.
Foreign sales:
SPEED CLEANING
UK: Robert Hale LTD Japan: Softbank
China (Complex): Solarsib Mexico: Editorial Diana
Hungary: Hatter Kiado Slovakia: Remedium
Italy: Sperling and Kupfer
CLUTTER CONTROL
UK: Robert Hale LTD The Netherlands: Bzztoh
Japan: Japan Times15
Sarah Lazin Books London Rights Guide 2019
GOOD AS NEW
Japan: Artist House
TALKING DIRT
UK: Robert Hale LTD The Netherlands: Bzztoh
Japan: PHP Institute, Inc.
ROBERT CHRISTGAU
BOOK REPORTS: A Music Critic on His First Love, Which Was Reading
Duke University Press April 2019 (Translation Rights Available)
In this generous collection of book reviews and literary essays, legendary Village Voice rock critic Robert Christgau showcases the passion that made him a critic—his
love for the written word. Many selections address music from blackface minstrelsy to punk and hip-hop, artists from Lead Belly to Patti Smith, and fellow critics from
Ellen Willis and Lester Bangs to Nelson George and Jessica Hopper. But Book Reports also teases out the popular in the Bible and 1984 as well as pornography and
science fiction, and analyzes at length the cultural theory of Raymond Williams, the detective novels of Walter Mosley, the history of bohemia, and the 2008 financial
crisis. It establishes Christgau as not just the Dean of American Rock Critics, but one of America's most insightful cultural critics as well.
IS IT STILL GOOD TO YA?: Fifty Years of Rock Criticism, 1968-2016
Duke University Press 2018 (Translation Rights Available)
Finalist for the 2018 National Book Critics Circle Award: Criticism
Is It Still Good to Ya? sums up the career of longtime Village Voice stalwart Robert Christgau, who for half a century has been America's most widely respected rock
critic, honoring a music he argues is only more enduring because it's sometimes simple or silly. While compiling historical overviews going back to Dionysus and the
gramophone along with artist analyses that range from Louis Armstrong to M.I.A., this definitive collection also explores pop's African roots, response to 9/11, and
evolution from the teen music of the '50s to an art form compelled to confront mortality as its heroes pass on. A final section combines searching obituaries of David
Bowie, Prince, and Leonard Cohen with awed farewells to Bob Marley and Ornette Coleman.
GOING INTO THE CITY: Portrait of a Critic As a Young Man, A Memoir
Dey Street/HarperCollins 2015 (Translation Rights Available)
Lifelong New Yorker Robert Christgau, one of our great essayists and journalists—the Dean of American Rock Critics—has been writing about pop culture since he
was twelve and getting paid for it since he was twenty-two, covering rock for Esquire in its heyday and personifying the music beat at the Village Voice for over three
decades. Christgau listened to Alan Freed howl about rock ‘n’ roll before Elvis, settled east of Manhattan’s Avenue B forty years before it was cool, witnessed
Monterey and Woodstock and Chicago ’68, and the first abortion speak-out. He’s caught Coltrane in the East Village, Muddy Waters in Chicago, Otis Redding at the
Apollo, the Dead in the Haight, Janis Joplin at the Fillmore, the Rolling Stones at the Garden, the Clash in Leeds, Grandmaster Flash in Time Square, and every punk
band you can think of at CBGB.
Christgau chronicled many of the key cultural shifts of the last half century and revolutionized the cultural status of the music critic in the process. Going Into the
City is a look back at the upbringing that grounded him, the history that transformed him, and the music, books, and films that showed him the way. Like Alfred16
Sarah Lazin Books London Rights Guide 2019
Kazin’s A Walker in the City and Patti Smith’s Just Kids, it is a loving portrait of a lost New York. It’s an homage to the city of Christgau’s youth from Queens to the
Lower East Side—a city that exists mostly in memory today. And it’s a love story about the Greenwich Village girl who roamed this realm of possibility with him
“To read Going Into the City is to spend hours in the company of a completely sui generis critical mind, one that’s not only encyclopedically knowledgeable about mid-
to-late 20th-century pop culture but capable of lapidary prose, astute insight, and savage wit.”
—Slate
Robert Christgau has been a rock critic since 1967. A longtime senior editor and chief music critic at The Village Voice, he has written for The New York Times, The New
Yorker, Esquire, Playboy, Rolling Stone, and Blender. He is currently a contributor at BarnesandNoble.com, and his record blog Expert Witness appears every Friday at
Noisey. A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, an NAJP senior fellowship at Columbia University, and a Ferris Teaching Fellowship at Princeton, he taught at
NYU’s Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music from 2005 to 2016. He lives in New York City. For more about his work, visit www.robertchristgau.com.
CHARLES R. CROSS
HEAVIER THAN HEAVEN: A Biography of Kurt Cobain
Hyperion/Hachette 2001, 2014; 2019 (reprint with a new preface and afterword for the 25th anniversary of Cobain’s death)
(Translation Rights Available)
• A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
• Audio rights sold to Blackstone Audio
• Film optioned by Courtney Love in association with Working Title Films/Universal Pictures
When Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain committed suicide at the age of twenty-seven, it was the end of a tragic life. Yet his music still
endures, excites, and sells. In this in-depth biography of Cobain, Cross fuses his intimate knowledge of the Seattle music scene
with his deep compassion for Cobain to vividly tell the story of Cobain’s extraordinary life. Serial rights were acquired by Playboy,
Spin, and Guitar World.
“Until someone writes a book that is more daring in its psychological and social analysis – and as thorough in its reporting –
HEAVIER THAN HEAVEN will be the place to start the dark journey into Cobain’s claustrophobic inner world.”
—Rolling Stone
Foreign sales:
UK: Hodder & Stoughton France: Le Camion Blanc Lithuania: Versus Aureus
Brazil: Editora Globa Germany: Hannibal The Netherlands: Fontein Tirion
Bulgaria: Mahaloto Hungary: Cartaphilus Poland: In Rock Music Press
China (Simplified): Jiangsu People’s Publishing Iceland: Holar Publsihing Portugal: Ponto de Fuga
Czech Republic: Volvox Globator Serbia: Rubikon Italy: Arcana Libri
Spain: Mondadori Denmark: Klim Japan: Rockin’ On
Turkey: Epsilon Estonia: Tanapaev Korea: Erum
Latvia: Mansards Indonesia: Penerbit KPG Russia: Eksmo17
Sarah Lazin Books London Rights Guide 2019
ROOM FULL OF MIRRORS: A Biography of Jimi Hendrix
Hyperion 2005 (Translation Rights Available)
• A NATIONAL BESTSELLER
• Audio rights sold to Blackstone Audio
It has been more than thirty-five years since Jimi Hendrix died, but his music and spirit are still very much alive for his fans everywhere. Charles R. Cross vividly
recounts the life of Hendrix, from his difficult childhood and adolescence in Seattle through his incredible rise to celebrity in London's swinging ‘60s. It is the story of
an outrageous life—with legendary tales of sex, drugs, and excess—while it also reveals a man who struggled to accept his role as idol and who privately craved the
kind of normal family life he never had. Using never-before-seen documents and private letters, and based on hundreds of interviews with those who knew Hendrix—
many of whom had never before agreed to be interviewed—Room Full of Mirrors unlocks the vast mystery of one of music's most enduring legends.
Foreign sales:
UK: Hodder & Stoughton Hungary: Cartaphilus
Bulgaria: Mahaloto Italy: Kowalski Editore
China (Simplified): Nanjing University Press Japan: Blues Interactions
Czech Republic: Volvox Globator Korea: Hyewon Publishing Co.
Denmark: Klim Poland: Publicat S.A
France: Le Camion Blanc Serbia: Rubikon
Germany: Hannibal Spain: Robinbook
Charles Cross is the author of many books about music and culture, including Here We Are Now (It/HarperCollins 2013), Cobain Unseen (becker&mayer!/Little Brown
2008), Led Zeppelin: Shadows Taller Than Our Souls (becker&mayer!/It Books 2009), and Kicking And Dreaming: A Story Of Heart, Soul, And Rock And Roll With Heart (It
Books/HarperCollins 2013). Cross was editor of Seattle’s The Rocket from 1986 through 2000, chronicling the rise of the Northwest music scene during the heyday of
grunge. He has written for hundreds of newspapers and magazines, from Rolling Stone to The Times of London. He lectures at colleges about journalism and pop culture,
and often appears on radio and television as an expert. He lives near Seattle, WA. For more about his work, visit www.charlesrcross.com.
STEPHEN DeANGELO
THE CANNABIS MANIFESTO: A New Paradigm For Wellness
North Atlantic Books 2015 (Translation Rights Available)
With medical marijuana now being recognized as a major healthcare issue, the question is no longer whether cannabis will be legalized, or even when it will be
legalized. The most important and pressing questions at this point are: how will it be legalized? How will it be regulated and marketed, by whom and in what manner?
In The Cannabis Manifesto, longtime activist Stephen DeAngelo charts a clear, well-reasoned course to bring cannabis responsibly into the mainstream of American
life. He looks beyond the question of if and when to examine the real challenges facing society as it brings this heretofore illegal substance out of the shadows.
“Harborside Health Center, a nonprofit medical marijuana dispensary in Oakland, Calif., is looked upon as a model of how others could operate.”
—The New York Times18
Sarah Lazin Books London Rights Guide 2019
Stephen DeAngelo is a longtime cannabis activist – arguably the national political leader of the $22.5 billion annual cannabis industry – and is the founder of the
largest medical cannabis dispensary in the world, The Harborside Health Center, www.harborsidehealthcenter.com, based in the Bay Area. DeAngelo has been featured
by The New York Times, Fortune Magazine, The Washington Post, CNN, The Associated Press, The Wall Street Journal, NPR, BBC, and many others. His creation of a model
medical cannabis dispensary coupled with his extensive knowledge as a lifelong activist make him one of the most respected speakers in the cannabis and hemp
industries. DeAngelo is based in Oakland.
JIM DICKINSON
I’M JUST DEAD, I’M NOT GONE
University Press of Mississippi 2017 (Translation and UK Rights Available)
• Excerpted in the “World’s Best Music Magazine” MOJO Magazine
Legendary producer Jim Dickinson’s death in 2009 punctured the heart of American music. The Memphis musician and producer worked on numerous classic albums
in a variety of genres, with artists from The Rolling Stones to Aretha Franklin to Bob Dylan to Ry Cooder. As Bob Dylan has said, “If you’ve got Dickinson, you don’t
need anybody else.” In this rollicking and heartfelt posthumous memoir, I’m Just Dead, I’m Not Gone, Dickinson recounts a life-long relationship with soul, roots,
and rock and roll music in the American South, from the zany characters and genius talents he worked with, to the magic of historic recording sessions with some of
the best musicians of our time.
“Dickinson is a world-class storyteller.”
―Kirkus Reviews
Jim Dickinson was an American record producer, pianist, and singer. He fronted the Memphis, Tennessee-based super group Mud Boy and the Neutrons, and was a
member of the Atlantic Records-contracted Dixie Flyers. During his extensive producing and recording career, Dickinson worked with Ry Cooder, The Rolling Stones,
Bob Dylan, Arlo Guthrie, and Aretha Franklin. In 2012 Jim was inducted into the Memphis Music Hall of Fame as part of the inaugural group of stars including Jerry
Lee Lewis, B.B. King and Elvis. Both Dickinson and his sons were honored with a marker on the Mississippi Blues Trail in 2015. Dickinson died in 2009.
BANNING EYRE
LION SONGS: Thomas Mapfumo and the Music that Made Zimbabwe*
Duke University Press 2015 (Translation and UK Rights Available)
Lion Songs: Thomas Mapfumo and the Music that Made Zimbabwe is both a biography of one of Africa’s most consequential musical innovators in the past
century and an expansive narration of Zimbabwe’s tumultuous history. Eyre interweaves Mapfumo’s personal journey and artistic evolution with a vivid account of
Zimbabwe’s remarkable past. He visited Zimbabwe four times, including a six-month stay in 1997-1998 during which he played guitar in over seventy-five Mapfumo
concerts around the country and interviewed a wide range of musicians, writers, political figures, and fans associated with Mapfumo’s story. Over time, Eyre came to
appreciate the deep resonance between Mapfumo’s complex personality and the development of the country. Both are stories of rapid change, cultural collision, and
the shift from a rural, ancient worldview to a radicalized, globalized contemporary one. With Lion Songs, he takes readers into the raw heart of Zimbabwe, where its
pulse—both musical and historical—can finally be felt and understood.19
Sarah Lazin Books London Rights Guide 2019
“A deep, detailed biography of a complex African musician and the homeland that has shaped his artistry. . . An essential book for those who love the artist's music
and want to know more.”
—Kirkus Reviews
Banning Eyre is a respected broadcaster, journalist, musician and radio/film producer of the public radio program Afropop Worldwide (www.afropop.org), and author
of the highly acclaimed In Griot Time: An American Guitarist In Mali (Temple University Press 2000). For over thirty years, Eyre has researched music and culture in Mali,
Congo, Morocco, Egypt, and beyond. He is based in Connecticut.
BEN FONG-TORRES
THE RICE ROOM: From Number Two Son to Rock and Roll—Growing Up Chinese American
Hyperion 1994; University of California Press 2011 (Translation and UK Rights Available)
One of America’s top rock and entertainment journalists describes his journey from
alienation to assimilation, from working for his conservative Chinese family in Oakland
to living the ‘60s scene of drugs, sex, and rock and roll. It is a story of respect for
ancestors and worship of Elvis, of Chinese wedding feasts and the tragic murder of his
older brother, to hippie happenings, of going with “suitable” girls and those
“unsuitable,” of working in the rice rooms of Chinese restaurants and in the newsroom
of Rolling Stone.
HICKORY WIND: The Life and Times of Gram Parsons
Pocket Books 1991; St. Martin’s Press 1998 (Translation Rights Available)
Gram Parsons lived hard and died young, and left behind a musical legacy that has influenced generations of rock and country legends. This moving account details
the cult star’s poor-little-rich-kid childhood through his stints with the Byrds and his own bands, the Flying Burrito Brothers and the Fallen Angels, to days and nights
spent with the likes of Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and Emmylou Harris. The book concludes with an intriguing epilogue that answers some lingering questions about
Parsons’ untimely and mysterious death—and raises a few more.
Foreign sales:
UK: Cadiz
Germany: Jens Seeling Verlag
Ben Fong-Torres began writing for Rolling Stone in 1968 and joined as news editor the following year. He contributed to the magazine for twenty-three years and was
portrayed in the Cameron Crowe film Almost Famous. Fong-Torres, who also served as a weekend DJ on KSAN radio in San Francisco from 1970 to 1981, has written
for dozens of magazines including Esquire, GQ, Parade, Playboy, Sports Illustrated, Travel & Leisure, and MOJO. He has co-anchored KTVU-TV’s coverage of the Chinese
New Year Parades since 1997, and won three Emmy awards for his work. He is the radio columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle. He lives in San Francisco and is the
subject of an upcoming documentary, Like a Rolling Stone. For more information, visit www.benfongtorres.com/Home/.20
Sarah Lazin Books London Rights Guide 2019
NELSON GEORGE
NONFICTION
JAMES BROWN READER
Edited by Nelson George and Alan Leeds
Plume/Penguin 2008 (Translation and UK Rights Available)
When James Brown died in 2006, the world lost one of the most influential musicians and memorable entertainers of the last fifty years.
Dubbed “the Godfather of Soul” and “the hardest working man in show business,” Brown began his career in an era when black
entertainers performed for black audiences in segregated clubs and theatres, and ended it playing sold-out $200 ticket shows around the
world. Featuring work from Robert Palmer, Robert Christgau, John Swenson, Philip Gourevitch, Jonathan Lethem, and many more, as
well as an original introduction by the editors, the pieces collected here range from the beginning of serious rock criticism in the ‘60s to
those written for The New Yorker and Rolling Stone close to the time of Brown’s death. Co-editor Alan Leeds is a writer and longtime music
business veteran who served as James Brown’s tour manager in the ‘70s.
“The legendary Soul Brother #1 is celebrated, analyzed, and placed within the context of American popular music in this collection of
pieces by pop-music critics and assorted informed observers and commentators.”
—Booklist
Foreign Sales:
Japan: Blues Interactions
HIP HOP AMERICA
Viking 1998; Penguin 1999, released in 2005 with a new foreword (Translation Rights Available)
Winner of the American Book Award
A National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist
In Hip Hop America, Nelson George provides a first-person tour through the history of hip hop – from its roots in the late Seventies to its emergence as the cultural
force that today influences everything from movies to fashion, and advertising to sports. It’s the story of a society-altering collision between black youth culture and
mass media, a story that touches on the themes of drugs, fashion, incarceration, basketball, entrepreneurship, technology, and language. Nelson George examines hip
hop as a form of music, a style, a business, a myth, and a moral force, and discusses the ways in which hip hop has been embraced by corporate America in its bid to
reach not just black consumers but all young people.
Foreign Sales:
UK: Viking Publishers Germany: The Orange Press Poland: In Rock Music Press
China (Complex): Business Weekly Japan: Rockin’ On Taiwan: Business Weekly
China (Simplified): Jiangsu People’s Publishing Norway: Kontur Publishing21
Sarah Lazin Books London Rights Guide 2019
POST-SOUL NATION: The Explosive, Contradictory, Triumphant, and Tragic 1980s as Experienced by African Americans
(Previously Known as Blacks and Before That Negroes)
Viking 2004 (Translation Rights Available)
One of the foremost chroniclers of the contemporary black experience offers an undeluded perspective on the 1980s. Here are crack,
AIDS, and the Reagan rollback of the major advances of the civil rights movement. But Nelson George also shows how black performers,
athletes, and activists made increasing inroads into the mainstream. This fast-paced, chronological retrospective profiles personalities from
Michael Jordan to Louis Farrakhan and explores such flashpoints as the first rap single and the infamous Willie Horton ad campaign.
Foreign Sales:
China (Simplified): Nanjing University Press
DEATH OF RHYTHM AND BLUES
Pantheon 1988; Penguin 2003 (Translation and UK Rights Available)
• A National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist
This passionate and provocative book tells the story of black music in the 20th century and describes the perilous position of black culture
within white America. In what is now considered a classic, George chronicles the rise and fall of “race music” and its transformation into the R&B form that eventually
dominated the airwaves, only to become diluted and submerged as crossover music.
“The first full-scale history of modern black music from ‘the best black writer writing about black music in America.’
—Newsweek
“A heartfelt, knowledgeable indictment of the American system of compromise, particularly as it operates in the entertainment industry…[It] is mountain high and
river deep, expressed with loving urgency.”
—The New York Times Book Review
Foreign Sales:
China (Simplified): Nanjing University Press
FICTION
TO FUNK AND DIE IN L.A.: A D Hunter Mystery
Akashic Books 2017 (Translation Rights Available)
In this fourth book of the D Hunter music noir series, the ex-bodyguard rushes to LA after his grandfather is mysteriously shot dead. D
comes to discover there was more to Big Danny's life than running his grocery, and soon finds himself embroiled in all corners of L.A. street
life, from Japanese b-boys and Korean DJs to Mexican narcocorridas and South Central gangbangers. In the tradition of Chandler and Mosley,
D rides through L.A. seeking truth and not always finding justice.You can also read
