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TOMES OF THE BRAVE The ratings success of HBO's Band of Brothers series has shown that interest in narrative histories of World War II remains strong. William Shinker, head of a new nonfiction imprint at Penguin Putnam, has paid $400,000 for Just Americans, the story of the Japanese-American 442nd Regiment, many of whose soldiers came out of internment camps to fight in the south of France. Publishing veteran Bob Asahina, a nephew of a regiment member -- and a former editor in chief of Broadway Books when Shinker was its publisher -- will write the book. ''It's both stressful and flattering,'' says Asahina about working with his former boss....Random House has just bought Working Fire, a memoir by Oakland, Calif., firefighter Zac Unger, which started out last spring as an online diary. ''It's about the world of the fireman, the science of fires, the community of [firefighters],'' says senior editor Scott Moyers.
SEX SURROGATE The show will soon return to its fourth season, and the single girls of Sex and the City are ready for their very own authorized companion. But first, of course, they've got to shop around -- and they won't come cheap. ''It could be a very expensive project,'' says a publisher who met with the show's star, Sarah Jessica Parker, book packager Charles Melcher, and representatives of HBO. According to insiders, the book -- called The Joy of Sex and the City -- will be written by sex columnist Amy Sohn under a pen name and will include ''segment-by-segment synopses, interviews with the actors, and a paean to their beloved New York, which they view as a major character in the story.'' And in the spirit of Manolo Blahnik-loving Carrie Bradshaw, the lavishly illustrated hardcover might even come packaged in a shoebox. ''We are doing a Sex and the City companion that will be the definitive place for fans to get behind-the-scenes information they can't get anywhere else,''confirms an HBO spokesperson, adding that she could not comment on who the writer would be.
NEW in Paperback
GHOSTWRITTEN David Mitchell (Vintage, $14, 1999) Characters from Okinawa, Tokyo, Hong Kong, London, and New York gracefully intersect in a novel that maps out the range of human experience.
THE LAST AMATEURS John Feinstein (Little, Brown, $14.95, 2000) The best-selling sportswriter follows a Division I basketball team for one season, providing a window into the high drama of college athletics.
THE GREEN SUIT Dwight Allen (Plume, $13, 2000) A drifter comes to terms with both himself and the eccentric Kentucky family he left behind.
