(A late-night update specifically for Katy, because she was complaining, not that that's unusual. ;-) )
- I'm delighted to report that Arthur A. Levine Books has won the 2006 Mildred L. Batchelder Award for An Innocent Soldier, by Josef Holub, translated by Michael Hofmann, and edited by my friend Janna Morishima. Yay us, Josef, Michael, and Janna!
- And I'm even more proud to say that two of my babies were named to the ALA Notable Books list: Stanford Wong Flunks Big-Time, by girl genius Scholastic star Lisa Yee, and The Legend of the Wandering King by Laura Gallego Garcia, translated by Dan Bellm. Yay Lisa, Laura, and Dan!
- We also had two books on the Best Books for Young Adults list: Absolutely Positively Not, by the tall, hilarious, and Minnesotan David LaRochelle, and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, which was written by a woman from England. (An interesting thing about Harry: The books used to make both the Notables and the BBYA lists, but as Harry has aged, he seems to have moved solely into BBYA territory . . . or else the Notables committee has just started taking the books' quality for granted. (Or they didn't like it or found it flawed, I suppose, but surely that's not really possible -- ?)) Anyway, yay David and Jo!
- I moved offices this week, so I now have a space in which I can't touch opposite walls when I extend my arms; another bookcase and file cabinet, which I hadn't realized how much I needed; and a lovely little reading corner with a comfy chair, where I hope to spend many happy hours with manuscripts. I need to hang my posters, get a plant, and retrain my instincts to remember the book files are in the bottom drawer, the working files in the top one over; but it's already starting to feel like home.
- "Tristan and Isolde" is a thoroughly obvious, ridiculous, and enjoyably snarkable film; if you go see it, try to count how many different facial expressions James Franco has. (I think I came up with five.) "The World's Fastest Indian" is a sweet movie my grandmother would have appreciated, despite the fact it is about motorcycles, partly because it is about old age as well, and partly because it stars Anthony Hopkins (who -- name-drop/bragging alert -- was at the screening I attended, courtesy of the ever-generous Jeff). And "Cosi Fan Tutte" at the Met tonight was brilliant -- my first-ever Mozart opera: angelic music, witty libretto, and the endearingly dorky James Levine conducting. (His hair . . . Oh my. I would call it a white man's 'fro, except then there's that sweet little bald patch in front, which makes it a white man's 'fro with an unintentional partial reverse Mohawk. Every time I see him, I just want to give him a hug.)
- Maundering maundering maundering on. Stopping now.