James Baldwin

Fresh from selling film rights to Scott Rudin and signing a $2m publishing deal in the US, the novelist Garth Risk Hallberg has struck a "substantial" six-figure deal with Jonathan Cape in the UK for his 900-page debut novel, City on Fire.

As the scramble for rights continues around the world, publishers are lining up to salute a book which his lucky UK editor described as "the best American novel I've ever read on submission". But the 34-year-old Hallberg is no literary ingenue.

The Progressive magazine has opened a line of digital books, collecting stories from a century’s worth of articles. The books were created with support from Middleton-based August Publications.

Quoth the release:

    Newly digitized and fully searchable, The Progressive archives are a treasure trove of progressive history, beginning with the magazine’s founding in 1909 by Fighting Bob La Follette … In its early years, it joined the cause of women’s suffrage under the leadership of Belle Case La Follette, Fighting Bob’s wife.