For those who might be interested, I recently wrote an essay about editing the English-language translation of The Legend of the Wandering King by Laura Gallego Garcia, and you can read it here. This was one of those manuscripts I just fell more and more in love with the more I worked on it, so I get a little carried away at the end, but it truly is an amazing book -- history, fantasy, and philosophy of life all rolled up in one beautiful, fabulous (in the sense of fable-like) package. I am proud of it.
A note on when I refer to something as "my book": The books I edit are not really *my* books -- books belong to their authors, and they're mine only insofar as the author trusts me to help him/her achieve his/her vision and share it with readers. But I love all the books I work on quite passionately, so I feel both the reader's love for a great story and the artist's pleasure in taking part in the creation of something new and wonderful; and thus often I slip and call the books "mine."
BMG Music Service called tonight and seduced me back into joining with a "Buy 1 CD, Get 5 Free" offer. The first CD had to be ordered on the phone, so I asked about, in order, Dar Williams (whose "Out There Live" seems to be my album of the summer); Modest Mouse, pre-"Good News for People Who Love Bad News"; the Beatles (not carried by BMG); Al Green (because I need more funk in my life); and finally Mary Chapin Carpenter, whose "Between Here and Gone" I settled on at last. So now I have to buy one CD and I get four more free ones . . . I need more Cassandra Wilson, definitely, and maybe I will get that Modest Mouse, or some Nina Simone at last. Suggestions and recommendations are gratefully appreciated.
Thus goes everyone to the world but I, and I am sunburnt.* I may sit in a corner and cry heigh-ho for a husband.**
* Truly -- the one negative effect of my weekend of Harry Potter / Fourth of July decadence. Aloe vera gel, anyone?
** Ten points to the first non-Katy reader who recognizes the reference. :-)
A note on when I refer to something as "my book": The books I edit are not really *my* books -- books belong to their authors, and they're mine only insofar as the author trusts me to help him/her achieve his/her vision and share it with readers. But I love all the books I work on quite passionately, so I feel both the reader's love for a great story and the artist's pleasure in taking part in the creation of something new and wonderful; and thus often I slip and call the books "mine."
BMG Music Service called tonight and seduced me back into joining with a "Buy 1 CD, Get 5 Free" offer. The first CD had to be ordered on the phone, so I asked about, in order, Dar Williams (whose "Out There Live" seems to be my album of the summer); Modest Mouse, pre-"Good News for People Who Love Bad News"; the Beatles (not carried by BMG); Al Green (because I need more funk in my life); and finally Mary Chapin Carpenter, whose "Between Here and Gone" I settled on at last. So now I have to buy one CD and I get four more free ones . . . I need more Cassandra Wilson, definitely, and maybe I will get that Modest Mouse, or some Nina Simone at last. Suggestions and recommendations are gratefully appreciated.
Thus goes everyone to the world but I, and I am sunburnt.* I may sit in a corner and cry heigh-ho for a husband.**
* Truly -- the one negative effect of my weekend of Harry Potter / Fourth of July decadence. Aloe vera gel, anyone?
** Ten points to the first non-Katy reader who recognizes the reference. :-)