This entry may be later than it should, but then I was intimately involved in National Book Awards Week last week and then hosted and attended a couple of book parties the day after the National Book Awards themselves so I spent the weekend just reading for pleasure (Richard Powers' previous novel The Time of Our Singing and a fascinating book on bookselling, Laura J. Miller's Reluctant Capitalists).



National Book Awards Week was tiring but fun. On Monday the 13th we had the first "5 Under 35" at the Paula Cooper Gallery on West 21st Street. Five former National Book Awards Finalists--Adam Haslett, Edward P. Jones, Joan Silber, Christopher Sorrentino and Rene Steinke (sorry Rene, I can't get this program to insert diacritics)--selected one writer each under the age of 35, with one book to his or her credit, Amity Gaige, Samantha Hunt, Bret Anthony Johnston, Ratawut Lapcharoensap, and ZZ Packer. After drinks and lots of indie rock (I confess a soft spot, if that's what it's called, for Ratatat, though Death Cab for Cutie is more my taste), the five former Finalists each introduced his or her under-35, who then read for a few minutes. Then back to indie rock and drinks. It was quite a departure for the National Book Foundation. One long-time supporter came in and said he couldn't believe it was a National Book Foundation event. "It's too hip," he said. Well, hipness not being my strong point, I'll have to give the credit to Foundation staffers Leslie Shipman, Sherrie Young, Adah Nuchi, Rebecca Keith, Evan Glasson and Nina Porzucki.



The following morning the five 2006 National Book Awards Finalists in Young People's Literature--M.T. Anderson, Martine Leavitt, Patricia McCormick, Nancy Werlin, and Gene Yang--had a press conference with 250 teenagers from New York schools, with amazing press materials designed by Erica Hart for Mindbolt in Alabama. Gene's book is a graphic novel so he had the kids yell out the sound effects in the comic panels. Then that evening the private medal ceremony at The New School introduced by Dean Linda Dunne and yours truly, followed by a reading by all 20 (yes, all 20) National Book Awards Finalists for this year, introduced by that most eloquent of hosts, New School Writing Program Director Robert Polito (himself a winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award a few years back) and emcee'd by Nicole Krauss, one of the best young novelists in America with her most recent The History of Love.



By the time the Awards themselves rolled around on Wednesday, we had been through four events and the big one was still to come. It was all writers: even the background dinner music was recordings of writers covering rock and blues songs from Stranger than Fiction, released by Don't Quit Your Day Job Records (e.g., Stephen King covering "Stand By Me", Norman Mailer singing "Alimony Blues" and Amy Tan doing "Jungle Hop"). Fran Lebowitz was hilarious as the emcee, mocking my obsession with making sure we were finished by 9:45 (we weren't, but she was so funny, who cared?). Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters recipient Adrienne Rich was absolutely astounding on the politics of poetry and I'm hoping we can re-print her remarks. Winners were: Young People's Literature--M.T. Anderson for The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing; Poetry--Nathaniel Mackey for Splay Anthem; Nonfiction--Timothy Egan for The Worst Hard Time; and Fiction--Richard Powers for The Echo Maker.



Then, at the invitation of Grove/Atlantic president Morgan Entrekin about 60 of us headed to the Half King, Sebastian Junger's place on 23rd Street, for a loud aftermath. David Steinberger (of Perseus Books) and I couldn't get a cab so we ended up in a pedi-cab from the Marriott. NBA Judge (and uber-novelist) Jonathan Lethem, Hyperion Editor in Chief Will Schwalbe, Borders PR chief Ann Binkley, NBA Fiction Finalist Jess Walter, and a bunch of others joined us.



The following evening found me at Barnes & Noble Borough Hall in Brooklyn hosting the students of my best buddy writer Terry Quinn and his students for the publication party of From the Heart of Brooklyn, a wonderful student anthology Terry put together and Vivisphere published. You might want to catch me as Vladimir Nabokov at St. Francis College on December 16th in Terry's play "Dear Bunny, Dear Volodya: The Friendship and the Feud" opposite Wilson biographer Lewis Dabney. Except for missing a few inches in height, with thinning hair, incipient jowls and far-sightedness, I'm beginning to look a bit like Nabokov. Now if I could only write so well.