By Richard and Rob Sands. With Paul Chutkow. Published in 2008 by Val de Grâce Books. The inside story of an incredible business success: How a small, struggling family wine business in upstate New York grew into the largest wine company in the world.
		The inside story of the credit card revolution and its impact on consumers, businesses, and international finance. Published by Harcourt and distributed worldwide.         The memoirs of Robert Mondavi, the Napa Valley pioneer and American icon. Published by Harcourt and now the basis for a new documentary film on Mondavi.         An intimate look at a great artist and how he works. Published by Alfred Knopf. The book was a bestseller in France and Kirkus Reviews here said it was "among the finest books ever written about film acting."         A fun large-format book tracing the fascinating history of France's popular bottled water and how it was launched in America. Striking in its design, the book is now considered a collector's item.         This is the story of MAP, a simple, proven system that can help you transform your business and your life. It features illuminating profiles of people from different walks of life who have used the MAP system to achieve professional success and personal fulfilment. Written with Lee Froschheiser. To be published in October 2006 by Jossey Bass.   Right here I want to give special thanks to my agent, Amy Rennert. Amy set in motion Harvests of Joy, back in 1996, and she has been a marvelous guide and shepherd ever since. Handling cranky and demanding writers like me is no easy task; Amy does it with skill, patience and grace. Lucky me! For queries, please email Amy at: queries@amyrennert.com For all other emails, please use: amy@amyrennert.com

	Reaching For The Stars marks the beginning of an exciting new step: the launch of my own book imprint, Val de Grâce Books. My aim for the imprint is simple: to create, produce and distribute books of the highest possible quality in terms of both content and visual beauty. I have several more books in the works, predominantly about business, culture and wine. The team that came together to create Reaching For The Stars was a publishing dream team: the legendary Milton Glaser as designer, my longtime colleague Matthew Klein as photographer, and Japan's Toppan Printing as our printer. I had worked with Matthew and Toppan on the Visa book, and Milton and his team brought the new book together in an elegant and exciting way. This collaboration, I hope, will be the first of many. The watchword of Val de Grâce Books is "creative." I do NOT want to produce books that are mundane or uninspiring. To the contrary, I want to create books that are exciting to read, lovely to look at, and certain to become a treasured keepsake in your library. The books we did on Perrier and Visa – corporate books with credibility and a long shelf-life – were strong first steps; Reaching For The Stars goes much further. It's a business story, a family story, a book of wine history, and also the story of how American taste in wine and food has dramatically evolved over the past century. In a similar way, Visa, The Power of An Idea captured not just the history of Visa cards but the full story of how Visa and plastic money have transformed our world. Both books grew, organically, out of my journalistic experience and my special passion: writing insightful, compelling profiles. In my 20-plus years as a reporter, I found I had a knack for getting people to open up and talk freely. And I had a knack for weaving their words and life stories into an accurate, compelling profile. From there, it was a natural step to write the biography of Gerard Depardieu, the gifted French actor, and the memoirs of Robert Mondavi, the Napa Valley pioneer. With the launch of Val de Grâce Books, I can bring other passions to the fore: working with gifted designers and photographers, combing through photo archives looking for just the right background visuals, and working side-by-side with top-quality printers to make sure that the final book meets and exceeds our highest expectations. For me, it is no longer enough just to research and write interesting books; I want to manage the process the entire way, to make sure that we achieve something special with every book we do. Paul Chutkow