Observer » Tina Bennett

‘All the Single Ladies’ Author Kate Bolick Lands High Six-Figure Book Deal

Kat Stoeffel — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 11:29:52 -0400

Kate Bolick's November Atlantic cover story, All the Single Ladies, will be extended into a book that was bought by Crown's Molly Stern at auction last week, Publisher's Marketplace reports.

Janklow & Nesbit's Tina Bennett represented the book, called Among the Suitors: Single Women I Have Loved. It develops a "sly blend of autobiography and literary portraiture to question the conventional marriage trajectory," according to the announcement.

The original piece--which people are capable of talking about indefinitely--has already been optioned for a scripted television series by Josh Berman and Sony Television.

The story elicited one faux marriage proposal, Ms. Bolick told The Hairpin, "from a friend who wants me to try to sell this as a book for the big bucks as he thinks it'll be his only chance to marry rich."

The gold digger had a good eye: Publisher's Marketplace said the book sold in a "major" deal, $500,000 or more.

Penguin Nabs Pricey Mothering Memoir

Molly Fischer — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 19:28:30 -0400

Yale Law professor Amy Chua's first two books--World on Fire and Day of Empire--concerned international policy. Her third, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, will take a turn for the domestic: it's a parenting memoir.

The book, which generated heated interest in the days leading up to its sale, sold at auction to Ann Godoff of Penguin Press. According to an editor at a major New York publishing house, the final price was in the high six figures.

Godoff declined to comment, as did Chua's agent, Tina Bennett of Janklow and Nesbit.

The book describes Chua's decision to raise her third-generation, half-Jewish daughters in a super-traditional Chinese style: no praise, no sleepovers, no B-pluses, lots of piano practice. Chua lays out a working definition of "the Chinese mother" and becomes one by choice.

This is not the precious navel-gazing of the world's Ayelet Waldmans (No home-baked bread! Bad mother!)--this is a chronicle of X-treme parenting.

Future required reading for Park Slope naptimes?

Monkey See, Monkey You

Leon Neyfakh — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 23:06:15 -0400

Last week, Tina Bennett of Janklow & Nesbit sold a book called Zoobiquity, about heretofore unrecognized similarities between animal and human pathologies, by UCLA cardiologist Barbara Natterson-Horowitz and Kathryn Bowers. The prevailing bidder on the book was Knopf, where it will be edited by Jordan Pavlin. According to Ms. Pavlin, the project came out of Ms. Natterson Horowitz’s work at the Los Angeles Zoo, where she served as a consultant in an effort to help a tamarin monkey suffering from heart failure. Ms. Natterson-Horowitz came away from that experience wondering what other conditions typically associated with humans show up in the animal kingdom. In the course of her research, she found cases of breast cancer in jaguars, self-mutilation among horses, substance abuse among birds addicted to narcotic berries and brain cancer in a variety of primates. Two sources said the book sold in the high six figures.

Book on Harry Houdini Sold to Crown, Advance in the High Six Figures

Leon Neyfakh — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 21:28:21 -0400

Crown has acquired a non-fiction book by screenwriter David Jehar about the magician Harry Houdini, for an advance that Mr. Jehar said was in the “high six figures.”

Mr. Jehar, who was represented by literary agent Tina Bennett of Janklow & Nesbit, said his book will tell the story of Houdini’s campaign to discredit Margery Crandon, who made the front page of the New York Times in the 1920s as the first spiritual medium whose abilities had been verified by science.

The book, entitled The Witch of Lime Street, will be out in early 2010, Mr. Jehar said.

Crown editor Rick Horgan, who nabbed the book in a preempt, declined to comment.

Scribner Will Publish Joanna Smith Rakoff’s Debut Novel Brooklyn

Leon Neyfakh — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 22:21:23 -0400

Poet and freelance magazine journalist Joanna Smith Rakoff has sold her debut novel--said to be similar in spirit and subject matter to Mary McCarthy's The Group-- to Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. The acquiring editor was Alexis Garagliano.

Ms. Rakoff confirmed the deal, which was brokered by literary agent Tina Bennett of Janklow & Nesbit, in an e-mail.

Joanna Smith Rakoff Close to a Deal On Debut Novel Brooklyn

Leon Neyfakh — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 18:35:26 -0400

A novel called Brooklyn, by poet and freelance magazine journalist Joanna Smith Rakoff, will soon have a publisher, according to literary agent Tina Bennett, who is representing the book at auction.

The novel, Ms. Rakoff's first, is said to be a contemporary take on Mary McCarthy's The Group, which follows eight Vassar girls as they set out on their adult lives.

Ms. Bennett, a top agent at Janklow & Nesbitt, declined to discuss the book in any detail, but said she expects the auction to be over by tomorrow.