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Noted historian and biographer Ramachandra Guha has, in a significant move, tied up with Penguin Books India to publish seven books over the next four years. The first, The Makers of Modern India, will trace the evolution of modern India through the lives and works of the country’s most influential political thinkers and will be out in 2010. The Past and Future of Indian Democracy, on issues and individuals who define, champion or challenge the idea of democracy in free India, will be published in 2011. The next will be a two-volume biography of Mahatma Gandhi, which will also be a portrait of India and South Africa in his lifetime and an examination of his contemporaries in the struggles he led. These will be published in 2012 and 2015 respectively. Three of Guha’s previous works — Savaging the Civilized, Environmentalism: A Global History and The States of Indian Cricket — will be reissued in 2011. Guha’s move to Penguin is among the biggest events in the Indian publishing industry in recent years.
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She’s been a Republican all her life – after all her dad is Sen. John McCain, the GOP’s Presidential candidate not so long ago – but Meghan McCain doesn’t always see eye to eye with the party. She campaigned for her father and recorded her impressions of the trail at McCainBlogette.com. She’s been writing for The Daily Beast since January 2009 and has already been embroiled in a war of words with conservative talk show host Laura Ingham. Now McCain’s clinched a deal to write a book. According to Hyperion, which sealed the deal, the book will look at what it means to “love the Republican party, while not always fitting in”. Her earlier book was My Dad John McCain.
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Kurt Vonnegut may have died in 2007 but fans can look forward to more of his writing, which was a blend of social commentary, science fiction, autobiography and black humour. Delacorte Press recently announced the publication of Look at the Birdie, a posthumous collection of short stories in November. Vonnegut’s previous works like Mother Night, The Sirens of Titan, Galapagos and Slaughterhouse-Five will also be reissued. Last year more of Vonnegut’s unpublished stories saw light of day in Armageddon in Retrospect. Another collection of unpublished writings and a book of letters is also to be published soon.
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Another author whose works will be seen posthumously is Michael Crichton best known for Jurassic Park. Two novels – one completed before his death last November and another to be completed based on notes and files he had collected – are to be released in November and late next year respectively. Pirates’ Latitude, set in Jamaica of 1665, will be out later this year since it was completed by Crichton before he succumbed to cancer. The other, a sci-tech thriller, will be done once the writer is finalised.
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Scott Turow’s bestseller Presumed Innocent was made into a film starring Harrison Ford and Greta Scacchi. Now Turow has announced a sequel, Innocent, to be released in May 2010 by Grand Central Publishing, a division of the Hachette Book Group (USA). This also marks his move from his regular publisher Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
Farrar earlier lost Tom Wolfe again to Hatchette ending a 40-year association. Wolfe’s next Back to Blood is to be published by Little, Brown and Co. Hatchette also publishes the extremely popular Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer.
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