U.S. Editors' Page
Welcome to the Editors’ Page at New England Publishing Associates. Here is a complete list of the current projects available from New England Publishing Associates. Clicking on a title will lead you to a brief description of the proposed book and a short bio of the author. If you are interested in seeing a complete proposal for a certain title, please e-mail us at nepa@nepa.com with your request. [To see a list of all the titles available for reprints, click the Reprints button below.] If you are an editor for a publisher located outside the U.S., please click Rights Information to obtain information on foreign rights.

    New Titles Added: April 10, 2008

Arts and Culture
VOICE OF THE LOBSTER: Echoes from the Deep in Our History, Art, Myths and Minds By Nancy Frazier

 Biography and Memoir
JAMES MONROE: Father of the American Empire By Harlow Giles Unger
GRIP HANDS: How One Woman Merged Into West Point’s Long Gray Line By Gail Dwyer
I’M A DIABETIC TOO: A Doctor’s Story Rob Thompson, M.D.
BRAVO, FIGARO! BRAVO, BEAUMARCHAIS! The Spy Who Saved the American Revolution By Harlow Giles Unger

 Business
FUBARNOMICS: A Lightheartedly Serious Look at America’s Economic Ills By Robert E. Wright, Ph.D.
IS THIS ANY WAY TO RUN A COMPANY? Read One Short Chapter a Day and Be a Better Manager in Sixty Days By H. Lee Rust

 Children & Young Adult
ROCKING GRANNY By Dandi Mackall
LETTER MUSIC By Dandi Mackall
WINTER NIGHT By Jennifer Jones

Contemporary Affairs
THE LIFESTYLE PUZZLE: Being American in the 21st Century By Henrik Vejlgaard

 History
THE GREATEST RACE: The Natchez and the Robert E. Lee and the Climax of America’s Steamboat Era By Benton Rain Patterson
SLAUGHTER ON A SNOWY MORN: How Americas Greatest Female Detective Saved an Innocent Man from the Electric Chair By Colin Evans
THE EIGHT PILLARS OF ROMAN POWER By Stephen Bertman, Ph.D.
IRON ROADS WEST: The Story of America’s First Steam Railways By Andrea Sutcliffe
IT’S DARK AS A DUNGEON: The Bloody History of American Mining By William Weir
SEA LION: Hitler's Aborted Invasion of England, 1940 By Ronald E. Powaski, Ph.D.

 Literature
JUVENAL’S SATIRES OF ANCIENT ROME: A Modern Translation By Stephen Bertman, Ph.D.

 Quotation Books
OSCAR WILDE: A Life in Quotes By Barry Day

 Reference
THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ANCIENT EGYPT By Holly Schanz-Pederzoli, Ph. D.
COMPANION TO CLASSICAL DRAMA By Stephen Bertman, Ph.D.

Religion
FULFILL YOUR PROMISE: Carry out God’s Purpose for Your Life Using the Power of the Human Trinity By Dick Lyles & Martha Lyles

Science
THE ROAD TO EUREKA By Stephen Bertman, Ph.D.

Travel & Leisure
THE LIFE SWAPPERS By Mary and Wayne Christensen
AMERICA'S MOST INFAMOUS CRIME AND PUNISHMENT SITES By B.J. Welborn

Writing and Word Books
HOW TO SUCCEED AS A TECHNICAL WRITER: The Tools, Techniques and Tricks You Need to Know to Master the Craft By Shira Block

 

Arts and Culture

VOICE OF THE LOBSTER: Echoes from the Deep in Our History, Art, Myths and Minds
By Nancy Frazier
Fall 2009 (Ms. Delivery) 

Lobster is a tasty though messy meal, but if you think that's all it is, think again. Listen carefully and you will hear the voice of the lobster. This strange creature speaks to us from ancient myth to new wave rock. In our own words and images it tells us who we are. The lobster is our mirror. To consider the lobster throughout history is to contemplate ourselves. The relationship of people and lobsters traced in Nancy Frazier’s VOICE OF THE LOBSTER: Echoes from the Deep in Our History, Art, Myths and Minds (90,000 words) is remarkable, enigmatic, amusing and frightful. 

Until the era of underwater exploration, the lobster’s life in the ocean was largely a matter of conjecture, but that never inhibited the imagination of artists, photographers, novelists, playwrights, poets, potters, filmmakers, fashion designers, and chefs from ancient Greece to contemporary America, not to mention  comedians. In April 1982, on “Saturday Night Live,” Eddie Murphy held up Larry The Lobster for judgment in the court of public opinion. Larry was saved by some 12,000 votes out of 500,000 cast! Then there’s Lewis Carroll’s “Lobster Quadrille” in Alice in Wonderland, a rollicking commentary on 19th century manners, and the many still lifes featuring lobsters painted in the Low Countries during the 17th century. And while many of us would question their sex appeal, lobsters carried an erotic charge for artists of the 20th century who, inspired by Freud, found many opportunities to think of them that way. As signs, symbols, metaphors, code words, myth, lore and fantasy, lobsters speak to us. And this book plunges deep into these uncharted waters to explain how and why.  

There are several books on the subject of lobsters, but no direct competition. Trevor Corson’s The Secret Life of Lobsters sold very well; it weaves the life history of the lobster into the life stories of lobster fishermen in a dramatic, interesting way. Colin Woodard’s The Lobster Coast is a fine history that covers some of the same historic and scientific information as Corson’s book. The Lobster Chronicles by Linda Greenlaw is an account of her lobster fishing experiences. Fans of these books are Frazier’s ideal audience.  So too are readers of such magazines as the New Yorker, Atlantic and The New York Times Magazine and foodie publications such as Food and Wine or the journal Gastronomica, which recently commissioned Frazier to do a piece on lobsters in the works of Salvador Dalí.  

Frazier is the author of 8 books ranging from the first educational treatise on non-sexist teaching, Sexism in School and Society (1973), to museum guides, and biographies of William Randolph Hearst and Georgia O’Keeffe. Her most recent book — The Penguin Concise Dictionary of Art History – was published in 2000. Library Journal’s review began, “Just what we have all been waiting for! An easy-to-read, scholarly yet not lofty, fascinating, and very well-organized book written for everyone and anyone interested in art history.” She has also written numerous magazine and journal articles. Frazier holds a Master’s degree in Art History and a Ph.D. in American Studies, both from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. (Proposal and sample chapter available.)

Biography and Memoir

JAMES MONROE: Father of the American Empire
By Harlow Giles Unger
Spring 2009 (Ms. Delivery)

The presidency of James Monroe is known to history as “The Era of Good Feelings,” but it was one of the most dynamic and consequential periods in American history. As the United States recovered from the sacking of its national capital during the War of 1812, the President transformed a third-rate country confronted by the world’s great powers into a powerful empire that stretched “from sea to shining sea” and spread its influence over the entire Western Hemisphere.

In this gripping biography – JAMES MONROE: Father of the American Empire (120,000 words) – award-winning author Harlow Giles Unger reveals Monroe as not only a hero of the Revolution but as a dominant political figure of his era. A fierce fighter in four critical Revolutionary War battles and a courageous survivor of Valley Forge and near-fatal wound at the Battle of Trenton, Monroe went on to become America’s first, full-time politician, dedicating his life to serving his country and extending the American empire. Decorated by Washington for his exploits as a soldier, Monroe became a congressman, a senator, American minister to France and Britain, governor of his home state of Virginia, secretary of state, secretary of war and finally America’s fifth president. Americans embraced Monroe’s dreams of empire and elected him to two successive terms as president, the second time unanimously. Mentored by each of America’s first four presidents, Monroe was unquestionably the best prepared president in our history. Although fierce when confronted by perceived enemies, Monroe hid a warm and remarkably humane side behind his stony facial expression. He was all but inseparable from his stunningly beautiful, adoring wife and their two daughters. The wedding of their younger daughter was the first ever held in the White House. Surprisingly, recent historians have given Monroe short shrift. The most recent full-scale biographies are Harry Ammon ‘s James Monroe: The Quest for National Identity (1971) and W. P. Cresson ‘s James Monroe (1946).

Unger was recently named as the 2008 Distinguished Visiting Fellow in American History at George Washington’s Mount Vernon. A veteran journalist, broadcaster, educator, and historian, he is the author of 15 books, including 4 biographies of founding fathers: Noah Webster, John Hancock, The Unexpected George Washington, and the award-winning Lafayette. Cited by Florence King of the National Review as “America’s most readable historian,” Unger has appeared on the History Channel, C-SPAN’s Book Notes, and Sirius Satellite Radio and has spoken many times at Mount Vernon, Valley Forge, Yorktown, Williamsburg and historic sites in Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Washington. He has also spoken before the Sons of the Revolution, the Daughters of the American Revolution, and several chapters of the American Revolutionary Roundtable. Recently, he has spoken at the New York Historical Society, the University of Alabama, the University of South Carolina, and several other colleges and universities.  Altogether, Unger has promoted his books at more than 150 venues over the past several years, in the process establishing a large network of contacts who will invite him back to speak on the Monroe biography. (Proposal available.)

GRIP HANDS: How One Woman Merged Into West Point’s Long Gray Line
By Gail Dwyer
Winter 2007/08 (Ms. Delivery) 

GRIP HANDS is the memoir of an Irish-Catholic cheerleader from Boston’s South Shore who joined the second class of women to attend West Point – one of 104 women in the 1,470 members of the Class of 1981. Four years later, 63 of these women graduated, among them the author, Gail Dwyer.  She had decided she wanted to go to West Point back in fifth grade, six years before Congress voted to allow women to enter the military academies. Back then, Gail knew nothing about the Army. She didn’t have a feminist or military bone in her 97-pound-soaking-wet body. She hadn’t gained much knowledge or weight by the time she entered West Point in July 1977. 

GRIP HANDS (70,000 words)  reveals how West Point’s tough regimen engraved “Duty, Honor, and Country” onto one woman’s soul. Grim discipline, braced chins, and the aches and pains of forced marches are part of the cadet experience, but only part.  So are pranks, bull sessions, bitching, laughs and love just like at any other American college. Originally written to assist Gail in her role as a West Point admissions liaison officer, the book shares what she learned both as a cadet and in 15 years working with West Point admissions. It provides insights how our Army’s leadership – body and soul – is forged. What is this place called West Point? How does it instill leadership in its graduates? Who would want to go there? Why, in God’s name, would a woman want to go there? Why, indeed, would anyone want to go there?  These are the questions this book answers.   

This book will appeal to the broad audience of readers – especially women –  who enjoy coming-of-age memoirs, but it can also be promoted to several targeted markets: young people interested in attending West Point – and their parents (over 60,000 young people express an interest in West Point annually); West Point graduates, family members, and friends (:some 28,000 graduates subscribe to the web site, WP-ORG); readers interested in women’s history or the history of the American military. 

After graduating in 1981, Gail served five years as a military intelligence officer before switching from active duty to the reserves. Since retiring as a lieutenant colonel from the U.S. Army Reserves, she has spent 16 years serving with West Point admissions as a liaison officer. Gail and her husband, a retired colonel in the Class of 1980, have four children, two of whom are currently West Point cadets. She has published articles in the Army Times, the Assembly (West Point’s Association of Graduates magazine), numerous newspapers, and penned a humor column for Wiregrass Living.  She has written a course for Army spouses, Spouse Survival School, and an on-line course for Navy spouses, Spouses Trained and Ready.  Gail has easy access to the West Point market and strong contacts to arrange speaking engagements at many of the 350 West Point Society chapters who hold regular meetings attended by graduates. (Proposal and sample text available.)

I’M A DIABETIC TOO: A Doctor’s Story
Rob Thompson, M.D.
Spring 2008 (Ms Delivery)

Written by a doctor who specializes in treating diabetes, I’M A DIABETIC TOO is the factual account of Dr. Rob Thompson’s battle with adult-onset diabetes, from the surprise of the initial diagnosis to ultimate, excellent control of the disease. The doctor gets a taste of his own medicine as he confronts the same issues his patients face. He extricates himself not by the exertion of willpower but by using new strategies based on years of experience treating patients with diabetes. Not only does the book let readers know others have experienced what they are going through, it contains all of the basic information a person with type 2 diabetes needs to manage the disease successfully.

Dr. Rob Thompson is a board certified internist and cardiologist who for the past 25 years has specialized in preventive cardiology, the treatment of conditions that cause blood vessel disease including high blood cholesterol, obesity and diabetes. He has written two health books, The New Low Carb Way of Life (M Evans, 2002) and The Glycemic Load Diet (McGraw-Hill, 2006). He is presently working on The Glycemic Load Cookbook with Dana Carpenter (McGraw-Hill). Dr. Thompson has published several articles in medical journals including original contributions in The Journal of the American Medical Association and The Annals of Internal Medicine. Dr. Thompson has acquired personal knowledge of type 2 diabetes since developing the condition himself in 1999.  (Proposal and two sample chapters are available.)

BRAVO, FIGARO! BRAVO, BEAUMARCHAIS! The Spy Who Saved the American Revolution
By Harlow Giles Unger
Fall 2008 (Ms. Delivery)

In an age of picaresque swashbucklers, the life of Pierre-Augustin Beaumarchais (1732-1799) was even more over-the-top than that of his own stage alter ego: Figaro, the swaggering Barber of Seville. As daring as d’Artagnan, as sly as the Scarlet Pimpernel, as resolute as the Count of Monte Cristo, "Figaro" leaped on and off the 18th-century French stage, alternating roles as the real-life action hero Caron de Beaumarchais and the fictional Barber of Seville, both tweaking the collective noses of the aristocracy. To some, he was a hero--a towering intellect who saved American liberty, lit the flames of the French Revolution and sacrificed his fortune for the needy. To others he was an impudent, double-dealing adventurer and spy who stopped at nothing to achieve fame and fortune. He was both...and more: a brilliant inventor, gifted musician, courtier, swordsman, diplomat, advisor to kings, canny financier, irresistible lover, doting father...and... unquestionably the greatest French playwright of his or, perhaps, any era.

The rhetoric of the American Revolution inflamed Beaumarchais’ passions for liberty. He enticed Europe’s most despotic monarchy to supply arms and ammunition to a commoner rebellion against a kindred monarchy. Arriving just in time to enable the Americans to win the battle of Saratoga, the supplies from France reversed the course of the war. By its end, Beaumarchais had sent more than $210 million worth of military supplies to the United States. After the American Revolution, Beaumarchais’ unquenched passion for liberty spawned the second play of his Figaro trilogy. The Marriage of Figaro follows the continuing misadventures of the wily Barber of Seville, a symbol of all men of high merit and low birth, struggling for liberty, equality and justice. Later, Beaumarchais became a secret agent of the French Revolutionary government. Imprisoned during the Terror, he won release through the intervention of one of the many women he loved in a lifetime of romances.

Beaumarchais’s hilarious exploits on and off stage, in and out of bed, are certain to thrill a wide range of 21st century readers with interest in the American Revolution, the French Revolution, theater, opera, adventure and romance. BRAVO, FIGARO! BRAVO BEAMARCHAIS! (85,000 words) will be the first full biography of Beaumarchais for a popular audiences since 1962.

A veteran journalist, broadcaster, and historian, Harlow Giles Unger has published 12 books, including three biographies of America’s Founding Fathers, which he discussed on Book Notes. Selling 14,000 copies, his Lafayette (Wiley, 2002) won the 2003 book-of-the year award from the American Revolution Round Table and the Fraunces Tavern Museum’s award as the best book on the American Revolution. Unger’s earlier biographies were Noah Webster (Wiley, 1998) and John Hancock (Wiley, 2000). His The French War Against America: The Birth of a Treacherous Alliance (Wiley, 2005). Unger has appeared countless times on radio and television and toured more than a dozen states to promote his books in stores and before large audiences. (Proposal and sample chapters available.)

Business

FUBARNOMICS: A Lightheartedly Serious Look at America’s Economic Ills
By Robert E. Wright, Ph.D.
Spring 2009 (Ms. Delivery) 

First there was Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner’s best-selling Freakonomics, now comes Richard Wright’s FUBARNOMICS, a title coined from the words economics and FUBAR, G.I. slang standing for Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition [or Reason or Repair], shorthand for bad situations where causes and hence fixes are difficult to determine. Fubarnomics is simply the historical, empirical, and theoretical study of what is FUBAR in the U.S. economy and, by extension, the economies of other countries. FUBARNOMICS will appeal to the same wide audience that propelled Freakonomics to the top of the charts, in part, because everyone who watches the news already knows that critical segments of the American economy unquestionably fit the definition of FUBAR – health care, higher education, and the home mortgage market to name just three. 

Economists, policymakers, historians, and others who study the FUBAR portions of the economy – Wright calls them Fubaronomists – use market failures and government failures to explain FUBAR situations and to offer fixes. The fact that much of the economy remains FUBAR is testament to their failure. It turns out that fubarnomics is itself FUBAR because fubaronomists allow political ideology to color their analyses. Market failures imply government interventions and hence appeal to Democrats and statists. Government failures imply deregulation and hence appeal to Republicans and libertarians. Although most fubaronomists seek to score political points rather than fix reality, Wright is one fubaronomist who wants to eradicate all that is FUBAR. FUBARNOMICS (75,000 to 100,000 words ) offers a new, non-partisan approach to economic reform that stresses hybrid failures in which market and government failures combine to foul things up beyond any and all recognition or reason. The big lesson is that our most intractable economic problems cannot be solved simply through regulation or de-regulation. What is needed in many instances is a complex series of changes involving new market and governmental institutions that more carefully align incentives with goals. FUBARNOMICS explores the dark, inefficient nexus of markets and governments and the troubling effects of negative externalities and asymmetric information. To prevent itself from becoming a wonky downer, however, it does so in an irreverent style, with a wink and a smile. Each chapter in the book examines a different FUBAR area of the economy in a serious but nevertheless lighthearted and succinct manner.  

Robert E. Wright, holds a Ph.D. in History from SUNY Buffalo. The author of scores of articles, entries, reviews, and chapters, he has authored or co-authored ten books for leading university and commercial publishers. He has also written for Barron’s, the Chronicle of Higher Education, Forbes.com and other prominent publications and has appeared on NPR, C-SPAN, and the BBC. He currently teaches business, economic, and financial history at New York University’s Stern School of Business and is a curator for the Museum of American Finance.  (Proposal and sample chapters available.)

IS THIS ANY WAY TO RUN A COMPANY?  Read One Short Chapter a Day and Be a Better Manager in Sixty Days
By H. Lee Rust
Spring 2008 (Ms. Delivery)

Is This Any Way to Run a Company? is a concise manual that touches on a wide variety of management principles and policies.  It also addresses many readers’ desire for the maximum amount of pertinent information in the minimum amount of time.  The target audience includes virtually every member of middle and upper management at hundreds of thousands of companies who would like to improve his or her management skills without reading a dense text replete with obscure theories.  The book’s subtitle speaks directly to this audience: Read One Short Chapter a Day and Be a Better Manager in Sixty Days. For those readers, this book provides a quick look at sixty different management topics each of which relates to their everyday duties and responsibilities.  In almost every chapter, the author draws on real-life experiences taken from his thirty years of corporate finance and management consulting for a wide variety of companies to address a single management topic.

Some of the chapters discuss unusual management subjects such as the importance of knowing what business you’re in (with some surprising examples), why the receptionist is a particularly important person at any company, and how firing some customers can boost your bottom line.  Others give a fresh perspective on more conventional business topics such as marketing, the use of incentive compensation, and the value and protection of intellectual property.  The book can be summed up as: Sixty topics in 60,000 words and sixty chapters each one of which presents practical advice that any business manager can immediately apply to his or her own situation. The manuscript is complete except for final editing.

Rust has written two previous books.  Jobsearch: the Complete Manual for Jobseekers, was published by AMACOM Books in 1979.  That book sold well enough that Rust updated it for a “Revised Edition” published by AMACOM in 1990. He also wrote Let’s Buy a Company: How to Accelerate Growth Through Acquisitions published by Career Press at the beginning of 2006. After a varied career in business starting well before his graduation from Yale University (1962), Rust joined the investment banking field in 1978.  Since 1995, he has operated Florida Corporate Finance as a sole proprietorship and has analyzed, structured, negotiated, and financed numerous acquisitions, all for small and mid-sized company clients.  He has also sold almost as many companies and arranged public offerings for several relatively small ventures. (Proposal and sample text available)

Children & Young Adult

ROCKING GRANNY
By Dandi Mackall
Manuscript Available 

When the narrator of Dandi Daley Mackall’s ROCKING GRANNY visits her grandma, she expects to be bored. But she is about to discover that Granny rocks! Granny combs her hair into pony tails, dresses her in a Poodle skirt, paints her nails, gets out her old records and player, rolls back the rug and teaches her the Side Pass, Anchor Step, Underarm Turn, Cuddle, Tunnel, Octopus, and other dances. Written in white hot poetry, this picture book instills a love of words in the early reader. 

Dandi Daley Mackall has published over 330 books for children and grown-ups, with sales of 3 million in 22 countries. Her publishers include Prentice-Hall, Simon & Schuster, Dutton/Penguin-Putnam, Harper Collins, Harcourt, DreamWorks, Tyndale House, Tommy Nelson, Jossey-Bass, Broadman, Shaw, Concordia, Eerdmans, Standard, Honor Books, Augsburg-Fortress, Landoll's, Prima/St. Martin's, Ferguson, John Wiley, Sourcebooks, Disney, Warner Brothers, and Hanna Barbera. She's a frequent guest on radio talk shows, has hosted over 200 radio phone-in programs, and made dozens of appearances on TV, including ABC, NBC, and CBS. She was an instructor for Highlights conference and teaches novel-writing for the Institute of Children's Literature. Dandi conducts writing assemblies and workshops across the U.S. and keynotes at conferences and Young Author events.

LETTER MUSIC
By Dandi Mackall
Manuscript Available

Contemporary Affairs

THE LIFESTYLE PUZZLE: Being American in the 21^st Century
By Henrik Vejlgaard
Spring 2008 (Ms. Delivery) 

Mapping the social landscape of the United States today – and to a lesser extent other post-industrial countries – THE LIFESTYLE PUZZLE offers remarkable insights into the social forces changing who we are, the way we live, our relationships, how we do business, and all of Western society. The book also shows how some aspects of society surprisingly have changed little over centuries. For example, modern society is as tribal as it has ever been. Present-day tribes may not look like those of the Native Americans, but the 21st Century has become tribal nonetheless. Just like any tribal society, we use clothing and adornments to communicate who we are.  We use non-verbal communication – signs, symbols, and codes –to tell the world – and ourselves – about our lifestyle and to identify the tribe we belong to or aspire to belong to.  

In Anatomy of a Trend, his groundbreaking book about how changes in style and taste take place, Henrik Vejlgaard showed his mastery of the art of recognizing and explaining patterns. In THE LIFESTYLE PUZZLE (75,000 words) he reveals the surprising patterns behind a phenomenon with worldwide impact: The exact same changes that influence American society are now underway in the rest of the world, for better or worse mirroring what goes on in the United States almost to a T. Just like a jigsaw puzzle, piece by piece this book fuses different elements of modern life into a coherent picture showing who we are as individuals, as a nation, and citizens of the globe right now and what we’re likely to be later in the 21^st century.  

Books that reveal and explain fundamental social change – such as David Brooks’ Bobos in Paradise and several books by Alvin Toffler – have a often appeared on best-seller lists. Like those books, Vejlgaard’s will have great appeal for readers interested in social change, popular culture and modern life, including everything design related, and changing consumer tastes. Marketers and new product developers will be a prime audience. As there are no other books that attempt to explain the influence and consequence of the term lifestyle, there are no directly competitive books. 

Henrik Vejlgaard, M.A., M.Sc., is the author of Anatomy of a Trend, published by McGraw-Hill in October 2007 and sold for translation in six languages. The author has also published three books in his native Denmark. Vejlgaard is a pioneer in lifestyle and trend sociology. With his background in both social science and communication he has been a lecturer on lifestyle and trend sociology at the University of Copenhagen and the University of Arhus School of Business.  (Proposal and sample chapters available.)

History

THE GREATEST RACE: The Natchez and the Robert E. Lee and the Climax of America’s Steamboat Era
By Benton Rain Patterson
Summer 2008 (Ms. Delivery) 

The great Mississippi steamboat race between the Robert E. Lee and the Natchez, run in the summer of 1870, lives on in song, legend, Mark Twain’s books, and most of all in our collective imagination. The race between the two majestic side-wheelers is the first image most Americans conjure up when they think of the “Steamboat Era” – and no wonder: the race is one of the icons of American history, portrayed in millions of school textbooks. 

The narrative spine of THE GREATEST RACE (85,000 words) is the race itself, but in the background of the race from New Orleans to St. Louis, author Ben Patterson paints a panoramic history of the Mississippi River steamboat. Readers relive the on-board experiences of captains, pilots, passengers and crew. We attend theatrical performances aboard the showboats, hear the music of the steamboat’s calliope, broadcast from the river across miles of languid air, and look over the shoulders of the professional gamblers, who became a fixture aboard steamboats and a bane to the unwary traveler. THE GREATEST RACE covers it all.  

The book is aimed at readers of U.S. history in general, but it will have a special appeal for fans of maritime history. The book will also have a strong regional base in the Mississippi River Basin, which includes such cities as New Orleans, Memphis, St. Louis, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Kansas City, Cincinnati, Louisville and Pittsburgh.  A number of specialized museums (e.g. Mark Twain Home & Museum in Hannibal) along the Mississippi and its tributaries focus in whole or in part on the steamboat.  A motivated audience consists of the 50,000+ people a year who take cruises aboard the today’s Mississippi steamboats – the Delta Queen, Mississippi Queen and American Queen – and other paddle-wheel cruise boats on America’s waterways; nearly all have shops aboard that sell books.  THE GREATEST RACE faces zero competition, Although there are many books on the subject of steamboats in general, the most recent book devoted to the race was published in 1957. 

The author is a former newspaper and magazine writer and editor, formerly on the staffs of The New York Times and The Saturday Evening Post.  He is the author of Harold and William: The Battle for England, 1064-1066 (2001); Washington and Cornwallis: The Battle for America, 1775-1783 (2004); The Generals–Andrew Jackson, Sir Edward Pakenham and the Road to the Battle of New Orleans (2005); and With the Heart of a King–Elizabeth I of England, Philip II of Spain and the Fight for a Nation’s Soul and Crown (2007). (Proposal and sample text available)

SLAUGHTER ON A SNOWY MORN: How America's Greatest Female Detective Saved an Innocent Man from the Electric Chair
By Colin Evans
Spring 2009 (Ms. Delivery) 

Expert witnesses. We want to believe them. Our judicial system relies on their word. But what if they're wrong? Worse, what if they're lying? Who would be prepared to lie for a wad of cash, knowing that their testimony will doom an innocent man to the electric chair? Well, in 1915 this nightmare scenario really came to pass. The victim' was Charles Stielow, a 37-year-old illiterate farmhand who came within minutes of being executed at Sing Sing, only to be spared at the last moment, then ultimately set free. One of the most compelling—yet little known—stories in criminal history this multi-layered case is unique both because of its historical significance and because its fallout is still being felt in the courtroom today. SLAUGHTER ON A SNOWY MORN will be the first book-length account of the case that turned an upstate New York farm worker into the American Dreyfus. 

For three years, Stielow was a hapless pawn in a political chess game played out across New York State. Prosecutors in Orleans County wanted him dead; local voters, fueled by anti-German hysteria, also wanted to see him fry; Governor Charles Whitman, wrestling with a shaky conscience and plunging approval ratings, wasn't quite sure. On Stielow’s side stood a committed band of lawyers and political activists spearheaded by one of the most magnetic personalities in American criminology, Grace Humiston. This former government lawyer and wealthy Manhattan socialite, dubbed "the female Sherlock Holmes" for her uncanny investigative talents, was peerless and fearless when fighting death row battles. As a direct result of her dogged efforts, Stielow was granted a nail-biting string of last-minute reprieves until eventually Whitman, worn down by Grace's persistence, commuted the death sentence to life imprisonment. After being presented with irrefutable evidence that the prosecution’s key “expert witness” had perjured himself time after time on the stand, Whitman granted Steilow a full pardon 18 months later, setting him free. 

SLAUGHTER ON A SNOWY MORN (90,000 words) is far more than just a story about landmark legal victories and charlatan witnesses; it offers insight into an age of bare-knuckle politics and cynical courtroom maneuvering, jam-packed with memorable characters. Cinematic in its scope, Stielow’s saga has heartbreak, rage, dramatic tension, xenophobia, human tragedy on a Shakespearean scale, and ultimately a triumphant ending. A lot of people tried to kill Charlie Stielow, but in the end the good guys won. This story of this milestone case will captivate the same readers who bought Thunderstruck and The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson, Master Detective: The Life and Crimes of Ellis Parker–America's Real-Life Sherlock Holmes by John Reisinger; and Sacco and Vanzetti by Bruce Watson. 

Colin Evans is the author of 8 books including: BLOOD ON THE TABLE: The Greatest Cases of New York City's Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (Berkley, 2008); KILLER DOCTORS (Berkley, 2007); THE CASEBOOK OF FORENSIC DETECTION 2nd Edition (Berkley, 2007), which in its original Wiley edition it sold more than 75,000 copies in hardcover and paperback; THE FATHER OF FORENSICS: Sir Bernard Spilsbury and the Beginnings of Modern CSI (Berkley, 2006); and QUESTION OF EVIDENCE (Wiley, 2002); GREAT FEUDS IN HISTORY (Wiley, 2001). (Proposal and sample chapters available).

THE EIGHT PILLARS OF ROMAN POWER
By Stephen Bertman, Ph.D.
Summer 2008 (Ms. Delivery) 

From Hollywood to HBO, all roads perennially lead to Rome.  For over two thousand years, the epic virtues and lurid vices of the Romans have fascinated the public.  Despite the fixation of historians on explaining Rome’s fall, Rome’s rise demands equal, if not more, attention.  From its origins as a collection of mud and thatch huts overlooking a Tiber swamp to its rapid ascendancy as the political and military master of the Mediterranean, the biography of Rome is a rags-to-riches tale unparalleled in world history.  What were the guiding principles responsible for this stunning success?  

THE EIGHT PILLARS OF ROMAN POWER (65,000 words) answers this question by identifying the dynamic values that inspired and sustained Rome’s imperial growth and cultural ascension.  Each chapter will be illustrated with examples drawn from Roman history, religion, mythology, literature, law, engineering, and monumental art.  At its conclusion, the book will draw comparisons between ancient Rome and contemporary America and will invite readers to apply the constructive lessons of Roman civilization to their own lives. 

Like the popular cultural surveys by Thomas Cahill, THE EIGHT PILLARS OF ROMAN POWER will appeal to a wide audience, the same audience that avidly watches television specials about the ancient world broadcast on the History and Discovery Channels and buys books featured by their affiliated book clubs.  Because major universities offer large enrollment courses on the ancient world, Dr. Bertman will use his many personal contacts within the academic community to reach the teachers of these courses and to garner reviews in the journals they subscribe to.  In addition, the book will generate significant sales from academic and community libraries.  

Educated at NYU, Brandeis, and Columbia Universities, Stephen Bertman, Ph.D., is Professor Emeritus of Classical Studies at Canada’s University of Windsor.  His books on the ancient world include Art and Romans (Coronado 1975), The Conflict of Generations in Ancient Greece and Rome (Gruner 1976), Doorways Through Time: The Romance of Archaeology (Tarcher/Putnam 1986), Handbook to Life in Ancient Mesopotamia (Facts On File/ Oxford University Press 2003), Erotic Love Poems of Greece and Rome (New American Library 2005) and The Eight Pillars of Greek Wisdom (Barnes & Noble, 2007).  Dr. Bertman has been a frequent guest on interview shows, including NPR.  His public addresses on the lessons of the past, and their relevance to contemporary social challenges, have regularly appeared in Vital Speeches of the Day. (Proposal and sample text available).

IRON ROADS WEST: The Story of America’s First Steam Railways
By Andrea Sutcliffe
Fall 2008 (Ms. Delivery)

Many successful books have described the building of the transcontinental railroad in the 1860s, but the dramatic and challenging early years of American railroading have been sadly neglected. The obstacles were stupendous, as amateur engineers learned their trade by trial and error laying lines through wild and mountainous terrain. Andrea Sutcliffe’s IRON ROADS WEST recounts the difficult birth of railroads as the underdog alternative to canals. In the end, speed won out. Passenger railroads, even averaging only 15 miles an hour for their first 20 years, began putting the 4-mile-an-hour canals out of business by the late 1840s. Railroads were the first technology to shrink time and space, and Americans loved them from the start. In the first decade of the 21^st century, many still do.

The narrative spine of IRON ROADS WEST (80,000 words) is the rivalry between two once-great port cities, Philadelphia and Baltimore, as they struggled to remain vibrant after the Erie Canal opened. Each took a different way west, one safe, one risky, both incredibly ambitious for their time. Philadelphia chose a canal, supplemented by rail, known as the Main Line of Public Works. Baltimore went with America’s first long railroad, the B&O. Both would stretch for nearly 400 miles, and both would be among the longest of their kind in the world. This tale of two cities begins in the mid-1820s, when New York City began stealing their trade. It ends in 1852, when both lines reached the Ohio River, just weeks apart. By then, the Main Line Canal had morphed into the Pennsylvania Railroad. The canal era was over. By the 1840s, former B&O engineers were building the Moscow-St. Petersburg railroad, and Philadelphia and Baltimore manufacturers were shipping locomotives to railroads all over Europe.

The book targets the large general audience for American history narratives, but will especially appeal to railroad and canal buffs, who number in the hundreds of thousands. There are 177 railway historical societies in the U.S., including the National Railway Historical Society (20,000 members), 132 U.S. (and 33 Canadian) websites devoted exclusively to railroad topics, 430 railroad museums, and 30+ canal parks, trails, museums, historic and recreational areas. Books on the transcontinental railroad – such as Steven Ambrose’s Nothing Like It in the World and David Haward Bain’s Empire Express – have sold very well, paving the way for a popular history on the birth of railroads in America showing how in just 20 years they replaced canals as the nation’s primary means of transportation.

Andrea Sutcliffe has written 9 books since 1994, with all but two still in print. Her last book, Steam (Palgrave, 2004) received favorable reviews in The Wall Street Journal, the Dallas Morning News, Book Page, PW, the Journal of the Early Republic, Harvard’s Business History Review, and elsewhere. Her other books include The New York Public Library Writer’s Guide to Style and Usage (1994), now in its tenth printing, and Numbers: How Many, How Long, How Far, How Much (1996). She has successfully promoted her books through Internet marketing, public speaking engagements, TV and radio interviews, and print media features. To promote Steam, she successfully pitched a panel discussion to the Virginia Festival of the Book, which drew a large audience and was shown on C-SPAN’s "BookTV." (Proposal and sample chapters available.)

IT’S DARK AS A DUNGEON: The Bloody History of American Mining
By William Weir
Fall 2008 (Ms. Delivery)

America’s industrial strength was founded on its mines. Mines produced the coal needed to run its machines and the raw materials for both its most important products and for the machines that made them. Yet, the history of American mining has been largely neglected, although that history is the most violent and bloody of any American industry. IT’S DARK AS DUNGEON (90,000-100,000 words plus 20-25 illustrations) by Bill Weir recounts this dramatic and often tragic history from its origins to the present.

Mining itself is totally unlike any other way of earning a living. For most of the industry’s history, miners worked in dungeon-like darkness, sometimes waist-deep in water. Their risk of sudden death far exceeded that of workers in what are considered more dangerous professions – high-iron construction workers, auto-racing drivers, police officers or fire fighters. The dark history of mining comes from two elements – natural disasters and conflicts among people whose lives depend on the mines. Cave-ins and fires have killed thousands of men in the mines and have even destroyed towns on the surface above them. Less bloody but more horrifying are the arsons, abductions, murders and massacres resulting from disputes between miners and mine operators. Violence and treachery have been constant themes in the mining industry.

American mining history has more than its share of colorful and unsavory characters. Among those who appear in IT'S DARK AS A DUNGEON are: Allan Pinkerton, a former Chartist rioter, considered a dangerous radical in his native Scotland, who became an icon of capitalist repression; James McParlan (later McParland), the real-life detective who met the fictional Sherlock Holmes in the writings of Conan Doyle; William Borah, the senator who may have seduced a president’s daughter and who crossed swords with Clarence Darrow over the fate of the IWW’s Big Bill Hayward. Then there was John L. Lewis, who became the country’s most powerful (and hated) labor leader; Mary Harris "Mother" Jones, who combined the looks of a sweet old grandmother with the tongue of mule skinner and occasionally allied herself with both sides of the same dispute; Charlie Siringo, the "cowboy detective," who assisted McParlan. A few books, such as J. Anthony Lukas’s Big Trouble, have explored a single strike or episode in America’s mining history, yet no recent book has covered the entire violent history of mining in America. The history of mine violence is not a series of isolated incidents, but a single, continuing story worthy of a book that traces it from start to finish.

Bill Weir has written some 50 magazine articles and 9 books: Written With Lead (Archon, 1992, reprinted by Cooper Square Press, 2003); Fatal Victories (Archon, 1993, reprinted by Avon, 1995); In the Shadow of the Dope Fiend (Archon, 1995); A Well Regulated Militia (Archon, 1997); 50 Battles that Changed the World (Career Press, 2001, reprinted in paperback, 2004); Soldiers in the Shadows (Career Press, 2002); The Encyclopedia of African American Military History (Prometheus, 2004); 50 Weapons that Changed Military History (Career Press, 2005); and Turning Points in Military History (Citadel, 2005). (Proposal and sample chapters available).

SEA LION: Hitler's Aborted Invasion of England, 1940
By Ronald E. Powaski, Ph.D.
Fall 2008 (Ms. Delivery)

SEA LION is a fast-paced narrative history (150,000 words) of the dramatic events and personalities involved in Hitler's unsuccessful attempt to invade England in the summer of 1940 – arguably the four most fateful months in world history and Britain’s "finest hour." The book answers such questions as: Why did Hitler feel compelled to invade England that summer? Why did he cancel the invasion attempt? What were the consequences of his inability to knock England out of the war? What was it like to be bombed night after night for months? Confronted with terror attacks for months on end, how were Londoners able to preserve?

Historian Ron Powaski tells the story from the perspective of the lower echelon military personnel as well as from the vantage point of their political and military leaders. Not only was the campaign against Britain a struggle between Churchill and Hitler—as well as between Hermann Göring, the corpulent Luftwaffe chief, and Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding, the head of RAF Fighter Command—it was a story of countless acts of valor by Britain's airmen, battling in the skies over England, and their support personnel on the ground. But often downplayed in the story of the Battle of Britain are the roles played by the British Army and the Royal Navy. The tale also includes many examples of individual acts of valor—as well as incompetence—on the German side of the battle.

Ultimately, Powaski says, the failure to defeat Britain was Hitler's fault. The Luftwaffe had the RAF on the ropes when the Führer decided to shift its attacks from the RAF's air bases and production facilities to London and other British cities. As SEA LION demonstrates, Hitler really did not want to invade England. He preferred to reach an understanding with the British, one that would permit Germany to attack the Soviet Union, a country whose destruction was his real obsession. Ultimately, after Britain refused to succumb to German terror attacks during the summer of 1940, the Führer was compelled to turn his Wehrmacht eastward against the Soviet Union in June 1941. In the end, it would take America's entrance into the war to bring about Hitler's defeat. Although FDR initially wondered about Britain’s staying power, he never wavered in his determination to keep the British in the war against Hitler. By doing so, Roosevelt played a vital role in checkmating Hitler’s plan for world domination.

Many books have been written on the Battle of Britain, but nearly all concentrate exclusively on the air battle and very few look at the German side of the campaign in any depth. No published book gives a comprehensive account of the entire German campaign against Britain during 1940. Thus SEA LION is a book that even the most avid WW II and military history buff will find fresh and informative. The broad audience for tautly written narrative history will find that the tight timeframe of four tension-filled months along with the author’s story-telling skills makes this a dramatic and compelling read.

Powaski is the author of seven books – most recently Lightning War: Blitzkrieg in the West, 1940 (Wiley, 2003). He frequently publishes articles in magazines such as America, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and World War II. Professor Powaski is now semi-retired after teaching history for many years at Ohio’s Cleveland State University. He still teaches part-time there and at the Chautauqua Institution. (Proposal and sample chapters available).

Literature

JUVENAL’S SATIRES OF ANCIENT ROME: A Modern Translation
By Stephen Bertman, Ph.D.
Spring 2008 (Ms. Delivery)

When asked why he wrote satires, the ancient Roman poet Juvenal replied: "Do I have a choice? Look at the world we live in!" Juvenal’s era – the First Century C.E. – was an age of savage despotism and gladiatorial slaughter, an age of "bread and circuses," free handouts of food to urban masses to win their votes and free entertainment to keep their minds off the hijacking of democracy. Juvenal chronicled it all, but most of all the downhill slide of a once great nation into a cesspool of greed and sexual perversion.

Americans have always been fascinated by the excesses of ancient Rome that led to its decline and fall. What better guide to have than Juvenal, a poet with a keen ear for gossip, a jaundiced eye, a razor-sharp tongue, and a nose for the smell of a rotting city. His incisive profiles of a degenerate political system and society are the precursors of the satiric monologues and sketches on television today, modern commentaries inspired by the very same absurdities that provoked the moral outrage of Juvenal 2000 years ago.

Why another translation of Juvenal? The three now in print (Oxford, 1991), (Penguin, 1967), and (Indiana University Press, 1958) do not do Juvenal justice because of their often stodgy, upper-crust British style and their dated language. What is needed is a fresh, vigorous, and entertaining translation accessible and inviting to a contemporary American audience. Steve Bertman is ideal author to produce just such a translation.

As a teacher, writer, and speaker to high-powered business audiences, Stephen Bertman has devoted his life to bridging the worlds of the past and the present, and envisioning the landscape of the future. He is Professor Emeritus of Classical Studies at Canada’s University of Windsor, where he received his school’s Alumni Award for Excellence in University Teaching. A graduate in Classics from New York University, he also holds graduate degrees from Brandeis and Columbia Universities. His books on ancient civilization include Art and the Romans (Coronado); Doorways Through Time: The Romance of Archaeology (Tarcher/Putnam); Handbook to Life in Ancient Mesopotamia (Facts On File; Oxford University Press); Climbing Olympus: What You Can Learn from Greek Myth and Wisdom (Sourcebooks); and, most recently, Erotic Love Poems of Greece and Rome (Penguin/NAL). This 2005 anthology has been praised by Lionel Casson, Professor Emeritus of Classics at New York University, as "a gifted translation in fluent contemporary idiom." Significantly, Bertman has also explored the challenges of contemporary society. His many speeches on social issues have been reprinted in Vital Speeches of the Day, and he has been a frequent guest on radio programs, including call-in shows and NPR.

The work will consist of new translations of Juvenal’s sixteen surviving satires, accompanied by a historical, biographical, and literary introduction, a glossary, and a concise bibliography. Juvenal’s collected poems consist of 3,837 verses in Latin, yielding approximately 33,000 words in English translation. The complete manuscript will total some 40,000 words. (Proposal and sample translations available.)

Quotation Books

OSCAR WILDE: A Life in Quotes
By Barry Day
Spring 2008 (Ms. Delivery)

Reference

THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ANCIENT EGYPT
By Holly Schanz-Pederzoli, Ph. D.
Fall 2008 (Ms. Delivery)

The book is a one-volume reference that covers material the general reader might want to look up. Entries include place names such as Giza; personal names like Nefertiti; topics including furniture, law, medicine, music, and animals; and Egyptian words in transliteration such as Ka, Ba, serekh, serdab and serdab. Entries are at present arranged alphabetically following a series of introductory chapters that trace the main currents and developments of Egyptian history from prehistory to the Roman conquest.

Holly Schanz-Pederzole received her Ph.D. from Harvard in Classical Archaeology and is an Associate Fellow of the American School of Classical Studies in Athens. She was an Assistant Professor of (Classical) Archaeology at Brown University, Smith College, and the University of Missouri at Columbia. She is adjunct faculty at Connecticut College and a lecturer at the Metropolitan Museum Center for Old World Archaeology.

Dr. Schanz-Pederzole has authored Greek Sculptural Groups (Garland Press) and is at work on studies of Greek grave stelai and classical garden design. She is a consultant to Prentice-Hall. (Proposal and full manuscript available.)

COMPANION TO CLASSICAL DRAMA
By Stephen Bertman, Ph.D.
Fall 2008 (Ms. Delivery)

This book will be the only work in print that surveys the dramatic masterpieces of Greece and Rome in encyclopedic form. Arranged alphabetically for easy reference and written in an accessible style, the 500 or so entries – 90,000 to 100,000 words – will discuss the lives and careers of all the major Classical playwrights and will describe the historical circumstances that shaped their compositions. Almost one hundred ancient plays will be summarized in articles that do not merely detail characters and plot, but fully explore the universal human themes that propel the action and explain the plays’ enduring power. Special entries will examine "lost" plays, and "lost" playwrights, those whose works have never been found but who won prizes in their day. Additional entries will trace the origin and development of tragedy and comedy; the physical evolution of the theater and scenic design; costuming, choreography, and music; the profession of acting; dramatic festivals and ancient "Oscars"; and the influence of Classical drama on theater from Shakespeare to Broadway and Hollywood.

In hardcover, the book will be a "must purchase" for a wide range of libraries, teachers on the secondary and college level who teach courses in drama and Classical literature, and students majoring in these subjects at the college and graduate level. In a trade paperback edition, this handy one-volume work with user-friendly format and inviting style will attract general readers with a serious interest in the classics and the Ancient World and undergraduate students and readers with an appreciation of theater and the Classical world. There is no direct competition in print.

Stephen Bertman, Ph.D., is Professor Emeritus of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at Canada’s University of Windsor, where he won the Alumni Award for Excellence in University Teaching. He holds degrees in Classics from New York University and from Columbia University, where he earned his doctorate. He has numerous articles and books on ancient civilization to his credit, including Art and the Romans, The Conflict of Generations in Ancient Greece and Rome and Doorways Through Time: The Romance of Archaeology. His most recent books are Handbook to Life in Ancient Mesopotamia (Facts On File, 2003), a History Book Club and Discovery Channel Book Club selection, and Climbing Olympus: What You Can Learn from Greek Myth and Wisdom (Sourcebooks, 2003). Publishers Weekly described Climbing Olympus as "an engaging review of major mythological figures and a valuable reminder that the pillars of ancient Greece remain relevant to contemporary realities." Dr. Bertman has given over 50 interviews on radio and television, including call-in shows and NPR. His extensive contacts within the academic community will also aid in giving visibility to his book. (Proposal and sample text available.)

Religion

FULFILL YOUR PROMISE: Carry out God’s Purpose for Your Life Using the Power of the Human Trinity
By Dick Lyles & Martha Lyles
Winter 2007/08 (Ms. Delivery)

FULFILL YOUR PROMISE is the Roman Catholic equivalent to The Purpose-Driven Life. Rick Warren’s book has enjoyed phenomenal success in large measure because many Christians are searching for ways to integrate their spiritual and temporal lives in a more meaningful way.  Yet, most Catholics have shied away Warren’s book because they are not comfortable with its evangelical Protestant approach.  FULFILL YOUR PROMISE (46,000 words) presents a completely new and unique paradigm Catholics can use to bridge this gap between their faith and their everyday lives the way Warren’s book did for Protestants. The authors call this the “Human Trinity,” which in no way diminishes the devotion Catholics have toward the Holy Trinity. In fact, it builds on the concept of the Holy Trinity in a very practical way. In its simplest terms the Human Trinity defines a three-in-one model for looking at human fulfillment. We each have a unique set of natural gifts. We have available to us God’s supernatural grace. We also each have a unique life’s purpose. The first part of the book is devoted to those factors at work in our daily lives to separate us from God’s grace. The second part addresses factors that cause us to lose touch with our natural gifts. The third part shows how readers can overcome all these issues, identify their own life’s purpose, and then fulfill that purpose.

Dick Lyles is the former CEO of Relevant Radio™, the nation’s largest Catholic Radio Network, where he hosted his own weekly two-hour radio program. Dick’s speaking credits include more than 2,000 engagements at banquets, conferences, and conventions as well as more than 100 appearances on TV and radio talk shows. Dozens of articles have been written about his work in The National Catholic Register, Legatus Magazine, Catholic Exchange, Catholic Online, Catholic News Notes, Catholic Business Journal.com as well as in such secular publications as Inc. Magazine, Investor’s Business Daily, Industry Week, Human Resource Executive, Executive Excellence, and Training Magazine. He has also co-developed a curriculum used to teach leadership to Catholic priests nationally through the Catholic Leadership Institute. He is a prominent member of Legatus, an international organization of Catholic CEOs and spouses, and of the Knights of Columbus. He is the author or co-author of 6 books, most recently Winning Ways:  Four Secrets for Getting Great Results by Working Well With People (Putnam, 2000); Winning Habits: Four Secrets that Will Change the Rest of Your Life FT/Prentice Hall, 2004; Good Leaders Good Shepherds, with Tim Flanagan, Drea Zigarmi, and Susan Fowler (Ascension Press, 2007) and Achieve Leadership Genius, with Zigarmi and Fowler (FT/Prentice Hall, 2007).

Martha Lyles is also well known and respected in the Catholic community and has been involved in Religious Education for 25 years. She was a Catechist for 18 years ((1981-1999) and served as Director of Religious Education for St. Gabriel’s parish in Poway, CA from 1999 until 2006.  She currently serves as Director of Development for St. Gabriel’s. (Proposal and sample text available.)

Science

THE ROAD TO EUREKA
By Stephen Bertman, Ph.D.
Spring 2008 (Ms. Delivery)

The true inventors of science are echoed in the names of its branches: from physics to biology, from mechanics to psychology – all Greek in origin.  But the Greeks did not merely bequeath us words; we inherited their inquiring mind that hungered to understand the natural world and find man’s place within it.  Like their epic hero Ulysses, the Greeks dared to go where no man had gone before. Their discoveries laid the intellectual foundations of modern science.

In ROAD TO EUREKA: How the Greeks Invented Science and Changed Our World, Professor Stephen Bertman examines the evolution of science from its primitive origins in the ancient Near East to its flowering in the Hellenic world.  An authoritative but accessible tale told with dramatic sweep, it sets the story of scientific discovery against the background of Greek civilization’s character and history, explaining both the “what” and the “why” of ancient Greek science.  Focusing on a dozen different branches of science, the book shows why the Greeks were fascinated by each science and goes on to explain the theories they developed, the experiments they did, the practical applications of their discoveries in ancient times, and the influence these discoveries have had on modern science and technology.

ROAD TO EUREKA: (100,000 words) will attract a wide audience among all those fascinated by the history of science and the mysteries of the ancient world, including the millions who watch programs on these subjects on Nova, the History Channel and the Discovery Channel and read magazines such as Discover and Smithsonian. The competition is meager. Most available books on the subject are dryly academic and seriously out of date. The best recent book, T.E. Rihill’s Greek Science (OUP, 1999), has only 138 pages of text and touches upon only a half dozen scientific specialties.

Bertman, a specialist in Classical literature and archaeology, received his doctorate in Greek and Latin from Columbia and is Professor Emeritus of Classics at Canada’s University of Windsor.  While teaching at Michigan’s Lawrence Technological University in 2004, he developed a unique course in ancient engineering that won funding from a national foundation and garnered international publicity. Bertman has explored ancient Mediterranean civilizations in such books as Doorways Through Time: The Romance of Archaeology (Tarcher/Putnam, featured by the Natural Science Book Club), Climbing Olympus: What You Can Learn from Greek Myth and Wisdom (Sourcebooks/Barnes & Noble), Handbook to Life in Ancient Mesopotamia (Facts On File/OUP, featured by the History Channel and Discovery Channel Book Clubs) and Erotic Love Poems of Greece and Rome (Penguin).  He has been an invited lecturer on many college campuses and a frequent guest on radio call-in and interview programs, including NPR. Archaeologist Cyrus Gordon has described Bertman as “responsible in regard to factual details and at the same time a lucid writer, whose scholarship has not stifled the poet within him.” (Proposal and sample chapters available.)

Travel & Leisure

THE LIFE SWAPPERS
By Mary and Wayne Christensen
Spring 2008 (Ms. Delivery)

This year the first Baby Boomers turn 60, and the Census Bureau estimates 7,918 Americans will reach this milestone every day in 2006. THE LIFE SWAPPERS has been written to appeal directly to this burgeoning Baby Boomer market. To celebrate their 50^th birthdays, Mary and Wayne Christensen walked away from high-powered jobs to start a new life as roaming house sitters and began a madcap journey that took them around the world. This book is an hilarious account of what happens to a couple who swap a life of routines, deadlines and schedules for an uncertain and vagabond life caring for other people’s houses, pets, plants and plumbing. From luxury homes in Los Angeles, New York, London and Paris, to a Presbyterian Church manse, a Napa Valley vineyard and farms in Vermont and Australia, they lurched from chaos to crisis with each assignment. Their exploits will inspire everyone who dreams of escape.

THE LIFE SWAPPERS fits a unique niche within the travel book sector. Millions of people purchase travel books, but no personal stories have been published on house sitters or house swappers. Lighthearted and humorous, the 55,000-word book will be the first travel title on the adventures of house sitters. It will appeal to Baby Boomers approaching retirement, sophisticated and armchair travelers, budget-conscious travelers, and aspiring house sitters and swappers. Many travel-loving Boomers will reach retirement age looking for an affordable way to travel the world; house-sitting is an attractive and very cost-effective way to do it. The rapid growth of house sitting is attracting media attention. An article in Time last September detailed the current boom. Caretakers Gazette, an on-line magazine for people offering and seeking house sitting opportunities, claims 10,000 paid subscribers, 75% aged 50-plus, and a growing number of Internet sites link people around the world wishing to house sit or swap.

Wayne and Mary are published authors and experienced marketing pros. Mary was a CEO and Wayne an award-winning creative director before they stepped off the corporate treadmill to become roving house sitters. Together they wrote Make Your First Million In Network Marketing (Adams Media, 2001), which sold 20,000+ copies. The authors are prepared to go anywhere, anytime, and address any audience to promote the book. Both are polished, entertaining speakers. Mary has made hundreds of paid presentations across America and internationally. Wayne is a national public speaking champion. The authors will commit to purchase 2,000 books in the first year to sell at personal appearances. They will also secure coverage in the form of a review or, if necessary a paid ad, in Caretakers Gazette. The website www.thelifeswappers.com is registered. Once a pub date is set, it will be activated to promote the book. They will also write a Blog on their on-going house sitting adventures beginning just before publication. The authors have compiled a list of almost 100 people across America who have agreed to host in-home launch events for the book. These will provide sales, lead to further such events, and increase word of mouth and momentum for the book. The authors are experienced in being interviewed by all media. Both have appeared on radio and television, and Mary has hosted a radio show. (Proposal and sample chapters available.)

AMERICA'S MOST INFAMOUS CRIME AND PUNISHMENT SITES
By B.J. Welborn
Fall 2008 (Ms. Delivery)

True crime and history buffs won’t be able to resist this guide to the sites associated with America’s most notorious crimes and criminals. A number of sites – the 6th floor of the Texas School Depository in Dallas – are now museums; others – the sidewalk where John Lennon was killed – are semi shrines; many -- the California bank robbed by Patty Hearst or Columbine High School – have barely changed since the day of the crime. Many of these crimes remain embedded in our collective memory, history lessons and culture: the Rosenbergs' treason, the Lindbergh kidnapping, the Manson murders, the beating death of Emmett Till, the "In Cold Blood" murders in Kansas., the Zodiac killings, the Nicole Simpson stabbing death, the Unabomber, or the terrorism at the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City and the World Trade Center. These crime scenes draw history buffs, curious travelers and pilgrims -- when they know where to find them. This guide will help actual and vicarious travelers explore the scenes of 75-100 of our most sensational crimes. Prisons are also part of the story and many historic prisons survive across the country. Among those offering tours and museums are the Revolutionary War prison in Charleston, the dungeons for accused "witches" in Salem, the abandoned copper mine Connecticut turned into a prison in 1790, the Civil War prison in Andersonville, Alcatraz in San Francisco Bay, and Sing-Sing Prison museum in New York.

The book will be written with a reporter’s eye for detail and scene, relaying the most exciting observations, anecdotes, and facts to readers -- the things you could learn only from visiting the scene. The 100,000-word text will be organized state-by-state in eight regional sections, each with sidebars, maps, illustrations and photographs.

Americans are fascinated by crime. We devour facts about crimes in books, magazines and newspapers, flock to movies about murder and mayhem, and monitor the latest dirty deed on the evening news. Many of today’s top-rated television shows focus on crime, and an entire cable television channel, Court TV, devotes itself to crime. Crime-related web sites are wildly popular: Bill Bixley's Online Crime/Punishment Newsletter claims 21 million hits per month. Yet, this will be the first travel guide to focus on crime sites.

B.J. Welborn is the author of America's Best Historic Sites: 101 Terrific Places to Take the Family (Chicago Review Press 1998) and Traveling Literary America (Jefferson Press, Fall 2004). Her first book, garnered many positive reviews and coverage. Publications and shows that featured the book and/or interviews with Welborn include: Woman's Day, USA Today, Bottom Line, The Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, San Antonio Express, The Denver Post, United Airlines Magazine, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Historic Traveler, Idaho Press-Tribune, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Library Journal, The Star, Abilene Reporter-News, Baltimore Sun, Mothering, The Oregonian, Copley News Service, The Connection on NPR and NBC Nightside News, "America's Dining and Traveling Guide" on Business News Network, "Pack Your Bags" (KKOV Denver), as well as a host of other radio talk shows around the country. Her 25 year career as a journalist, publicist and author has included work as an editor and reporter for several newspapers. (Proposal and sample chapters available.)

Writing and Word Books

HOW TO SUCCEED AS A TECHNICAL WRITER: The Tools, Techniques and Tricks You Need to Know to Master the Craft
By Shira Block
Winter 2007/08 (Ms. Delivery)

HOW TO SUCCEED AS A TECHNICAL WRITER (65,000 words) provides both a comprehensive course in technical writing and a step-by-step guide for beginning or advancing a career in the field. Unlike most books on the subject, this is not a dreary manual, but rather a lively self-study course with practical tips and advice, designed so the reader can immediately put the information to use. Author and writing teacher Shira Block gives readers the in-depth knowledge of business writing standards, formats, and rules to improve the quality of writing in their current jobs or to launch a new career. After covering the technical writing skills, the book walks the reader through the next step of creating an impressive portfolio to land a job. Each lesson is emphasized with exercises and summaries that bring theory into practical application. This book will not bore the reader with techno-babble. It uses plain language and easy-to-remember examples that will resonate with a wide range of people.

The target market includes aspiring writers and career changers, technical and business writers, students taking relevant courses at the community college, university and graduate school levels, managers required to write in their jobs, and IT professionals. Many books are available on general business writing, but relatively few on technical writing. None focuses on what it means to be a technical writer, including both hard and soft skills. Few address how to find opportunities in technical writing. Most assume the reader is already a technical writer, ignoring the needs of those trying to break into the field.

Since 1990, Shira Block has had the opportunity to teach thousands the art of effective writing, communicating, and time management.  Her client list includes corporate giants such as Merrill Lynch, St. Paul Travelers, Spalding Sports Worldwide, AAA, The Hartford Insurance Company, ConEdison, and Cigna, as well as actors, musicians, doctors, flight attendants, socialites, therapists, students, artists, and prison inmates. For the past 6 years Shira has been teaching 40-45 technical and business writing workshops per year. She also teaches business writing to all incoming interns at The Hartford Insurance Company and has just signed on to teach all project managers in training at St. Paul Travelers Insurance. Since she will make the book part of the class material for all future writing workshops, she will be buying back hundreds of books year after year to use in her classes.

Shira has published two books: The Way Home (Mantic Arts, 2000) and Step-by-Step Miracles: A Practical Guide to Achieving Your Dreams (Kensington, 1995). She has been a guest on over 100 radio shows and has written for popular publications such as Glamour, Marie Claire, and Options of London. (Proposal and sample chapters available.)

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