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The Penguin employee book club read  Rooftops of Tehran by Mahbod Seraji and submitted these questions to the author. The resulting Q&A is here:

Is this book published in other countries, or will it be in the future?

Yes, as of today, Rooftops is being translated into Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish, Hebrew, Persian, Korean and Icelandic. We're expecting offers from other countries as well.

What is the layout of an alley in Tehran? Is it similar to the cul-de-sac of suburban America?

I tried to bury the layout of the alley in different chapters, e.g. The Width of the Alley, My Friends, My Family and My Alley. It would have been odd for a 17-year-old narrator to describe the alley in much detail in a single chapter. Here's what we learn throughout:

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My wife and I got married right out of college, in 1978. We were young and naïve and unashamedly idealistic, and we decided to make our first home in a utopian environmentalist community in New York State. For seven years we lived quite contentedly in circumstances that would strike most Americans as austere in the extreme: our living space measured just seven hundred square feet, and we didn't have a lawn, a clothes drier, or a car. We did our grocery shopping on foot, and when we needed to travel longer distances we used public transportation. Because space at home was scarce, we seldom acquired new possessions of significant size. Our electric bill worked out to about a dollar a day.

The utopian community was Manhattan. Most Americans, including most New Yorkers, think of New York City as an ecological nightmare, a wasteland of concrete and garbage and diesel fumes and traffic jams, but in comparison with the rest of America it's a model of environmental responsibility. In fact, by the most significant measures, New York is the greenest community in the United States. The average Manhattanite consumes gasoline at a rate that the country as a whole hasn't matched since the mid-1920s, when the most widely owned car in the United States was the Ford Model T. Eighty-two percent of employed Manhattan residents travel to work by public transit, by bicycle, or on foot. That's ten times the rate for Americans in general, and eight times the rate for workers in Los Angeles County.  New York City is more populous than all but eleven states; if it were granted statehood, it would rank fifty-first in per-capita energy use. The average New Yorker (if one takes into consideration all five boroughs of the city) annually generates 7.1 metric tons of greenhouse gases, a lower rate than that of residents of any other American city, and less than 30 percent of the national average, which is 24.5 metric tons; Manhattanites generate even less.

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Berkley/NAL Dominates the New York Times Bestseller List, with Both Christine Feehan and Patricia Cornwell Hitting #1, and Berkley/NAL Titles Occupying Nearly 50% of the Mass Market List

Berkley has another exceptional week on the New York Times bestseller list for the week of September 20th, with two titles hitting #1: Dark Slayer by Christine Feehan debuts at #1 on the hardcover fiction list, while Scarpetta by Patricia Cornwell hits #1 on the mass market list.

Berkley/NAL continues to dominate the mass market list week to week, and this week is no exception. In addition to holding the #1 slot, Berkley/NAL also has two new debuts, Storm of Shadows by Christina Dodd (Signet) and Rough Weather by Robert B. Parker (Berkley). All combined, Berkley/NAL owns nine slots on this week's list, nearly 50%! For over three months, Berkley/NAL has consistently had seven or more titles on the mass market list. Congratulations to all involved in accomplishing such an impressive feat!

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Gotham Author Michael Gates Gill Strikes a Positive Chord at Freshman Convocation

Michael Gates Gill, the son of a famous journalist (Brendan Gill of New Yorker fame), had it all: a beautiful family, a high-powered, high-paying Ad-Exec job, a mansion in the suburbs, perfect health, and a six-figure salary. At age 63, he then lost it all: he was divorced from his wife, estranged from his kids, downsized from his job, and even diagnosed with a brain tumor. His bestselling Gotham book, How Starbucks Saved My Life, talks about what happened next: he got a job at Starbucks. Being a barista gave him a new perspective on life in every way possible, and taught him a lesson that’s all too easily forgotten: one can always begin anew.

Recently Gill spoke about How Starbucks Saved My Life at Middle Tennessee State University, where his book was selected as assigned summer reading for the incoming class of nearly 4,000 freshmen. Speaking to about 5,000 new undergrads overall at convocation, Gill found his book practically everywhere on campus: on T-shirts, posters, and more. Above all, though, Gill enjoyed hearing feedback straight from fans of all ages: from teenagers, to fathers and sons, to entire families (one family remarked that it was their “summer read” for the beach).

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Penguin to Become the First English Language Trade Publisher to Publish Classics in Portuguese in Brazil

Penguin has reached an exclusive agreement with Companhia das Letras to publish the Penguin Classics in Brazil. Penguin Classics is the largest and most comprehensive publisher of classic literature in the world. Companhia das Letras is one of the most prestigious publishing houses in Brazil, internationally renowned for its commitment to publishing the best in Brazilian and foreign literature. This new partnership makes history as Penguin becomes the first English language publisher to publish classics in Portuguese. The initial list of titles will launch in 2010.

The new imprint under Companhia das Letras will be called Penguin Companhia Classicos, and will also include an accompanying line called Penguin Companhia. Some of Companhia’s most renowned authors and masterworks of Portuguese history and fiction will be published under both imprints.

The classic titles published in this joint partnership will carry the world famous Penguin Classics livery with Portuguese text. The books will include Portuguese translations of existing Penguin Classics editions along with translations into Portuguese of additional titles commissioned by Companhia das Letras. The books will uphold Penguin Classics’ established standards of excellence and will be accompanied by introductions, notes, and other scholarly apparatus.

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Two PGI Authors Shortlisted for 2009 Man Booker Prize for Fiction

Two Penguin Group (USA) authors are on the 2009 Man Booker Prize for Fiction shortlist, which was announced this week: Viking/Penguin author J.M. Coetzee for Summertime, which will be published in hardcover in December 2009 by Viking, and Riverhead author Sarah Waters for The Little Stranger, published this Spring. Having previously won in 1999 with Disgrace, and in 1983 with Life & Times of Michael K, South African writer J.M. Coetzee would be the first author to win the Man Booker Prize three times if successful this year. Sarah Waters has been shortlisted twice: for Fingersmith (2002) and The Night Watch (2006). The winner will be announced at a ceremony in London on October 6th.

To read the full press release, click here.

Read the first chapter of The Little Stranger.