At least two Food Network TV stars are convinced that the nation’s lowcarbohydrate obsession isn’t over yet. Chef Bobby Flay is following up his grilling book “Boy Gets Grill”with a title called “Good Carb Grilling”for Scribner.

Meanwhile, Rachael Ray, creator of the bestselling 30-Minute Meals cookbooks, is writing a book targeted at the “low-carb frustrated” in a new multibook agreement with Clarkson Potter. Ms. Ray has published her books through small publisher/book producer Lake Isle Press.

For another author, though, nothing beats fried. Judy Connor published her memoir “Southern Fried Divorce” through a small press, too, Light of New Orleans,and the book became a regional bestseller. Ms. Connor follows in the successful footsteps of her younger sister Jill Connor Browne, author of the cult-bestselling Sweet Potato Queens books.

Now Gotham Books has pre-empted rights to Ms. Connor’s book and will republish it as a hardcover in January 2005. They also got rights to a second book, “Southern Fried Secrets.”

For secrets of a different kind, readers can turn to Chris Miller’s forthcoming “Animal House: The Memoir.” Mr. Miller’s “National Lampoon” short stories “served as the basis” for the screenplay of the movie “Animal House,” and he promises to reveal “the truth about the Dartmouth fraternity in the early 1960s that inspired the movie.”

Little, Brown paid low-to-mid six figures for rights to the book and an untitled short story collection.

Finally, movie fans can glean details of a different sort from Atlantic Monthly writer Kenneth Brower’s just-signed “Keiko: The Amazing Story of the Famous Killer Whale.”

Combining science with biography, Mr. Brower will tell the story of the whale who starred in the “Free Willy” movies and drew the attention of environmentalists, who agitated for his release. Gotham Books claimed this one, too, again in a pre-emptive bid.