But will they serve bangers and mash in the new Random House cafeteria?
The American book trade, confronting a potentially disastrous downturn with the onset of the war in Iraq , has lately gotten a shot in the arm from an unexpected ally: the British publishing biz.
Several British publishers, including Picador, Canongate, Bloomsbury and, most recently, Hodder Headline, have established successful toeholds in New York.
Britain's biggest newspaper and book retailer, WH Smith, also has emerged as a serious contender in the auction for AOL's book division, which includes Warner Books and Little, Brown. Conglom could merge the AOL divisions with its existing publishing business, Hodder, to create a London-based, transatlantic book powerhouse.
At the same time, a briny wave of British fiction has washed ashore in Hollywood, helping to keep alive the town's interest in serious reading material.
Yann Martel's Book Prize winner, "Life of Pi," Louisa and Isabelle Young's kids book series, "Lionboy," Michael Faber's Victorian novel, "The Crimson Petal and the White," and Michael Moorcock's multi-volume Tolkienesque book series, "The Elric Saga," have all recently been put under option by studios.
Publishers, agents and scouts have braved the looming war with Iraq to descend on the London Book Fair -- a three-day rights bazaar that ended Tuesday -- in record numbers. This year's fair was the biggest in the event's 33-year history, with 1,600 exhibitors and more than 10,000 visitors.
The London Book Fair invariably generates New York publishing heat for several new U.K. titles, and this year was no different. Villard just paid more than $500,000 for U.K. TV writer David Nicholls' novel, "Starter For Ten," about a working-class student who stumbles romantically and academically through his first year at a fancy private university; and Bloomsbury USA just acquired "Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell," Susanna Clarke's 1,000-page novel about two magicians in Napoleonic England.
It may seem an odd time for the Brits to lend a hand to their struggling American publishing brethren. British publishers have their own woes these days: the usual war fears, and tiny profit margins eroding in the face of sluggish book sales and price-slashing at U.K. supermarkets like Saintsbury and Tescoe.
Under normal circumstances, the U.S. market for British fiction ebbs and flows, though one can often rely upon New York publishers and Hollywood development execs' abiding fondness for British culture to generate hoopla around the latest British literary sensations.
"I tend to look upon (book sales) as a non-geographic phenomenon," Random House spokesman Stuart Applebaum said. "I think the consumer book buyer doesn't really care if their purveyor is British or American. They just want to read something that's enlightening or great entertainment."
But in Hollywood, the phenomenon owes something to the rampant success of "Harry Potter" and "The Lord of the Rings."
Studios have franchise fever nowadays, and advances in special effects have made it possible to mount large-scale productions of fantasy fiction -- a genre that's been a British specialty since C.S. Lewis.
This interest in British fiction also comes as U.K. publishers are thinking in increasingly global terms.
"America has the largest market share, and it makes more sense economically to publish into that market than simply license the rights to particular titles to other publishers," Bloomsbury USA editorial director Colin Dickerman said.
"When we decide to do something with our London office, the book gets a true world English publication -- meaning we publish in the U.S., in the U.K., Canada and Australia, as well as exporting the book throughout the world. It also allows us to print together, and to coordinate publicity and promotion."
"For decades, American publishers like Random House have established publishing beachheads in the U.K.," Applebaum said. "It's only appropriate that our British friends get an opportunity to bring their efforts to the U.S.,"
Even at Random House, however, Anglophilia may have its limits.
"I'm not aware of our cafeteria selling kippers and Yorkshire pudding," Applebaum said. "But I don't rule it out."
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