Mercury Radio Arts and Simon & Schuster extend and expand publishing deal

Glenn Beck's multi-media production company Mercury Radio Arts and Simon and Schuster, Inc., are are extending their global multi-book, multi-imprint co-publishing agreement. The renewal builds on the incredible success and many milestones the two companies have enjoyed since the 2003 publication of THE REAL AMERICA, including Beck's joining the select group of authors who have placed #1 New York Times bestsellers on both the fiction and non-fiction lists.

Beck, the author of seven consecutive #1 bestsellers spanning multiple genres and formats-- including fiction, non-fiction, self-help, and children's picture books, trade paperback and audio originals-- will continue to write numerous books every year. As in the past, Beck and Mercury's focus will be on creating a robust publishing program that offers readers a broad selection of titles in a wide range of categories. The first title under the renewed agreement, a trade paperback non-fiction title, The Original Argument: The Federalists' Case for the Constitution, Adapted for the 21st Century, goes on sale June 14, 2011. A new novel by Beck, THE SNOW ANGEL, will be published in October.

Beck's titles will continue to be published internationally by Simon and Schuster's publishing companies in the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia, and in audio from Simon and Schuster Audio.

Mercury is also launching Mercury Ink, a new division that will discover, publish and promote books and authors that Glenn is passionate about across a variety of genres. The division will be run by Kevin Balfe, Mercury's SVP of Publishing, who will acquire titles for the imprint. Mercury Ink titles will be co-published with Simon & Schuster.

Mercury Ink's first title is Michael Vey: The Prisoner of Cell 25, a young adult novel by #1 New York Timesbestselling author Richard Paul Evans.

Brighton Publishing acquires "Jest" manuscript from author David Warren

Brighton Publishing announced the signing of author David Warren for his new book "Jest."

Writing in a style reminiscent of the early Stephen King masterpieces, David Warren establishes his own unique voice and striking originality, giving Mr. King a worthy competitor. As the story builds, it takes a number of sharp turns, heading off in unexpected and fearsome directions. Providing old-fashioned page turning suspense, and concluding with a totally unexpected ending, it doles out fear in ample portions.

The story is about Nicole Carzon who is an average, young college student, trying to cope with everyday life and an alcoholic father. Her life has not been easy since her mother left; in reality, it was the source of the problem. Nevertheless, everything changed the day she received the letter. Her grandfather, having been estranged with his own son for years, shocks everyone when he bypasses her father and names Nicole as heir to his castle in England.

With an angry father and the summer off, Nicole and her friends decide now is the perfect time to fly overseas and visit the castle. Once they arrive, they are overwhelmed with the history and nostalgia pulsating from the 600-year-old Bodlum Castle. However, as Nicole and her friends soon come to realize, this castle has an ancient occupant. One that has been lying dormant and patiently waiting for hundreds of years…but waits no longer.

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt to Publish Early Life Memoir of Late Nobel Prize Winning Author José Saramago

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt's Trade and Reference Division will publish Small Memories, the early life memoir of the late José Saramago, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998. The book comes out just a month before the one-year anniversary of the author's death.

The Independent (UK) praises Saramago's memoir of his early life, calling it an "homage to [his] family and homeland, but also…the endlessly renewable life of the mind." The Business Post (Ireland) calls the book, "Small memories, perhaps, but a small masterpiece, too."

Born in Portugal in 1922 in the tiny village of Azinhaga, Saramago was only eighteen months old when he moved with his father and mother to live in a series of cramped lodgings in a working-class neighborhood of Lisbon. He returned to Azinhaga throughout his youth to stay with his illiterate but world-wise grandparents.

Shifting back and forth between the village and the city, Small Memories is a mosaic of Saramago's family memories and earliest encounters with literature--from the tragic death of his older brother at the age of four, to the first novel that made an impression on him, the melodramatic Maria, Fairy of the Forest. Small Memories traces the formation of an individual who emerged, against all odds, from a car mechanic in Lisbon to one of the world's most respected writers.

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is also offering The Collected Novels of José Saramago exclusively in e-book form. This collection, which includes twelve novels and one novella along with an introductory essay by Ursula K. Le Guin, showcases the range and depth of Saramago's career.

José Saramago was the author of many novels, among them Blindness, All the Names, Baltasar and Blimunda, and The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis. He died at his home in the Canary Islands in 2010.