LAPD detective Will Beall sold the film rights to his novel LA Rex to Scott Rudin, in a deal put together by by Shari Smiley at CAA on behalf of Marc Gerald at The Agency Group...Also from Publishers Lunch: LAT op-ed columnist and New Republic senior editor Jonathan Chait sold How Washington Lost Its Mind: The Strange Triumph of Right-Wing Economic Hucksters, to Houghton Mifflin for publication in 2007, and out in the Valley (via Harvard's JFK School of Government) Andrei Cherny has sold Candy Bombers: The Untold Story of the Berlin Airlift to Putnam...Wednesday's LAT food section had a piece by Regina Schrambling on the popularity of books about food and the culinary life...And local ad copywriter and creative director Rich Siegel's book Tuesday's With Mantu: My Adventures with a Nigerian Con Artist is billed as a "non-fictional work of fiction" about Nigerian email scammers.