Book Deals: Week of March 11, 2019

From Publisher’s Weekly:

Alice Mayhew, v-p and editorial director of Simon & Schuster, signed a deal with ICM’s Rafe Sagalyn for U.K., Canadian, and open market rights for Thorpe, a biography of Jim Thorpe by David Maraniss, the Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and author of When Pride Still Mattered, a biography of Vince Lombardi. Thorpe was a multitalented sports legend who played professional baseball and was the first Native American to win an Olympic gold medal. But he is best known for his gridiron greatness. “There is a direct line from Vince Lombardi to Jim Thorpe,” Maraniss said. “Lombardi was a larger-than-life figure who made pro football the American obsession. Thorpe was central in the foundation myth of the sport itself.”