Rick Lax's Las Vegas memoir Fool's Paradise, an investigation into the meaning of honesty and deception, from discussing epistemology with his philosophy professor to ingratiating himself with the impersonators and illusionists who populate America's Sin City, all to find out if his own life is just one big lie, again to David Moldawer at St. Martin's Press.

Pacific College of Oriental Medicine professors Yuan Wang and Warren Sheir and health writer Mika Ono Benedyk's Ancient Wisdom, Modern Kitchen: Recipes from the East for Health, Healing and Long Life, bringing ancient Asian practices of cooking with healing herbs and other therapeutic foods to Western palates and kitchens, at auction to Renée Sedliar at Da Capo Lifelong Books/Perseus Books.

Associate Director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School Paul Epstein M.D. and science journalist Dan Ferber's Changing Planet, Changing Health, examining the full range of global warming's damaging health effects and proposing a comprehensive array of innovative measures to ease them, in a preempt to Philip Turner at Union Square Press/Sterling.

Film rights to Pulitzer-finalists Steve Suo and Erin Hoover Barnett's Drug of Choice, based on their Oregonian newspaper series on the meth epidemic, intertwining stories of a DEA bureaucrat's solitary attempt to halt the spread of meth, the pharma lobbyists and politicians who undermined his effort, the traffickers who continue to feed this global problem, and the impact on one family that has lived out the consequences, to HBO for Michael DeLuca Productions.

Reno, Nevada schoolteacher Tierney Cahill and Linden Gross' Ms. Cahill for Congress, the inspirational story of a teacher and single mother who ran for Congress on a dare from her sixth grade students and won the primary election (the basis for the forthcoming movie "Class Act" starring Halle Berry), in a three-day auction to Julia Cheiffetz at Random House Ballantine.

Personal branding expert Peter Montoya and Tim Vandehey's The Brand Called You, originally self-published to sales of more than 65,000 copies worldwide, with a revised and expanded four-step Personal Branding program for self-employed professionals and entrepreneurs, at auction to Lauren Lynch at McGraw-Hill.

Stanford mathematician and NPR's "Math Guy," Keith Devlin, Ph.D.'s The Unfinished Game: Pascal, Fermat and the Birth of Probability Theory, about the 1654 letter from French mathematician Blaise Pascal to his colleague and countryman Pierre De Fermat, which outlined the basic principles of probability theory and would forever change business, politics, warfare, science, engineering, medicine, sport, and many other aspects of everyday life, in a preempt to Bill Frucht at Basic Books/Perseus for the Basic Ideas series.

Chef Laura Stec and San Jose State University meteorology professor Eugene Cordero Ph.D.'s The Global Warming Diet: Cool Recipes for a Hot Planet, mixing scientific fact and culinary art to help home cooks make smart food choices in key areas that effect climate change, in a pre-empt to Gibbs Smith at Gibbs Smith Publishers.

Former L.A. Times and St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Kristina Sauerwein's Invisible Chains: Shawn Hornbeck and the Kidnapping Case that Shook the Nation, the intertwined stories of kidnapper Michael Devlin, Shawn Hornbeck, the boy he kept captive in plain sight for four years, and Ben Ownby, whose brief kidnapping this year led to Devlin's capture, including analysis of the psychological and sociological influences that compelled Hornbeck to avoid rescue, to Globe Pequot/Lyons Press.

UC Berkeley geographer and artist Trevor Paglen's Blank Spots on a Map: State Secrets, Hidden Landscapes, and the Pentagon's Black World, a globe trotting investigation of the Black Empire of secrecy run by the U.S. military, other agencies and private companies, tracing its growth from the Manhattan Project through the current War on Terror, interviewing people inside these blank patches of Google Earth, and showing how it threatens the democracy it purports to defend, in a pre-empt to Stephen Morrow at Dutton/Penguin.

The first two 826 Valencia Guides on Writing Memoir and Writing Fiction, edited by Jenny Traig, with an introduction by Dave Eggers, and featuring contributions from Anthony Swofford, Caroline Kraus, Elizabeth Gilbert, James McManus, Jonathan Ames, Paul Collins, Phillip Lopate, Rebecca Walker, Rich Cohen, Steve Almond, Tobias Wolff and many more, at auction to Sarah Knight at Henry Holt & Co.

Internet sensation Jessica Hagy's whimsical, insightful graphs, charts, and diagrams of everyday life, Indexed: Cramming Life Into Neat Little Boxes, in a pre-empt to Jeff Galas at Viking Studio/Penguin.