Modern families, joy and koalas: latest nonfiction acquisitions

A new acquisition at NewSouth Publishing offers a ‘meticulously researched and highly accessible deep-dive’ into 21st-century families. The publisher has acquired ANZ rights to Kin: Family in the 21st century by journalist Marina Kamenev (2022) via Melanie Ostell Literary, which will investigate how traditional ideas of family are changing, by exploring ‘childless couples, single-parent families, rainbow families, adoptions, surrogacy, IVF, freezing eggs, sperm donors, embryonic rights, “designer babies” created with CRISPR technology, and more’.

This Is Not A Book About Benedict Cumberbatch is pitched as an ‘irrepressibly clever and uplifting book about the role of joy in women’s lives’ by journalist Tabitha Carvan, who draws on her experience of unexpectedly falling for British actor Cumberbatch to explore ‘what happens to women’s passions after we leave adolescence’. HarperCollins Australia has acquired ANZ rights in a deal brokered by Catherine Drayton of Inkwell Management, with acquiring publisher Catherine Milne drawing comparisons to the writing of Jon Ronson, Caitlin Moran and Lisa Taddeo.

Black Inc. has acquired world rights to biologist and natural history author Danielle Clode’s new book on ‘the hidden life of koalas’, via Jenny Darling & Associates. Black Inc. publisher Sophy Williams said she’s ‘tremendously excited to work with Danielle on this groundbreaking book on the koala’, adding that the book is pitched at readers of Helen Macdonald, Sy Montgomery and Peter Wohlleben.

Pictured: Marina Kamenev

Category: Think Australian rights