Coming down the pike

New nonfiction deals, from "Lunch Weekly":

Pulitzer Prize-winning Oscar Hijuelos's memoir, THOUGHTS WITHOUT CIGARETTES, which includes his experiences with musicians such as Ruben Blades and Lou Reed, to Bill Shinker at Gotham, for publication in 2010, by Jennifer Lyons at the Jennifer Lyons Literary Agency.

 

If it worked for Elizabeth Gilbert.... 

Melanie Gideon's THE SLIPPERY YEAR, pitched as similar to Elizabeth Gilbert and Nora Ephron, a bittersweet and wise month-by-month account of the year in her life during which, upon turning 43 and confronted with her own mortality, she chooses to wake herself up, embrace the passage of time, identify what matters (and what does not) -- and "finally decide to live," to Jordan Pavlin at Knopf, in a pre-empt, by Elizabeth Sheinkman at Curtis Brown UK (NA).

Justine van der Leun's GOODBYE, COLLELUNGO, about leaving her job with a major NY-based magazine to move to Collelungo, Italy, population: 200, where she sets up house with a handsome Italian gardener she'd met on vacation and discovers that village life and love are radically different than anything she might have imagined, to Shannon Welch at Modern Times, by Patricia van der Leun (World).

Amanda Pressner, Jennifer Baggett and Holly Corbett's THE LOST GIRLS, about three 20-something women who quit their Manhattan media jobs and traveled around the world with backpacks and on a budget in search of answers, inspiration and enlightenment, to Serena Jones at Collins, in a pre-empt, by Kenneth Wright at Writers House (NA).

And in other nonfiction....

Ilana Ozernoy's ON PATRIARCHS' PONDS, a chronicle of the interior lives of ordinary Russians in the Putin era intertwined with the author's personal story as the daughter of Soviet dissidents, presenting a portrait of modern Russia - a country that has tasted and lost new freedoms, but that wants to reclaim its status as a world superpower and may be willing to sacrifice personal freedom in order to do so, to Supurna Banerjee at Holt, by Robert Guinsler at Sterling Lord Literistic

Washington Post South America bureau chief Monte Reel's THE LAST OF THE TRIBE, a non-fiction account of the race by Indiana Jones-like cultural anthropologists in Brazil to save an indigenous Indian, the last living member of his tribe, before he's murdered by ranchers, exploring the conflict between preservation and development, the cultural and environmental impact of deforestation, and the mystery and allure of one man surviving alone on the brink of extinction, to Samantha Martin at Scribner, by Larry Weissman at Larry Weissman Literary (World English).

NYT deputy editor Francis Flaherty's THE ELEMENTS OF STORY, a Strunk & White-like manual/memoir for writing narrative, rather than for grammar and usage, that lays out 50-odd insightful principles, along with illuminating examples derived from the author's years of wor