The inside scoop on the book world

FOOD SLIGHT: Silver Palate coauthor Sheila Lukins is one of Workman Publishing’s biggest breadwinners, but the company may have bitten off more than it could chew in feting her latest effort — a celebration of our nation’s bounty entitled U.S.A. Cookbook. Fireworks and porkpie hats at Manhattan’s tony Water Club proved little consolation for hungry Workman employees, who encountered rapidly diminishing hors d’oeuvres (520 guests showed up instead of the expected 300). ”They don’t want me to eat; they told me not to eat,” anguished one attendee. ”They,” it turned out, meant company prez Peter Workman. A spokeswoman for the publisher later denied any shortages.

FLY GIRL: Lieut. Kelly Flinn may have a book in the works: Industry sources report that agent Andrew Wylie has been shopping the life story of the nation’s first female B-52 pilot.

OH, BROTHER: The success of Frank McCourt’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Angela’s Ashes seems to have helped his younger sib Malachy, an actor. Last year Malachy made a reported $100,000 deal with Marlowe & Co., a small New York City house, to write his own memoir. Now that the McCourt name is suddenly more bankable, Malachy and Marlowe have decided to sell the book, A Monk Swimming, to a major publisher. Agent David Chalfant will send out a proposal this week for the book, which does not overlap with brother Frank’s story.

KISS AND SELL: Avon Books has paid $550,000 for paperback rights to Kathryn Harrison’s The Kiss. Though the memoir about the author’s consensual affair with her father has already sold more than 100,000 hardcover copies, Avon editor Rachel Klayman says, ”There are people who weren’t prepared to spring for the hardcover who will be curious to pick up the paperback.”