(a story in a single part)

(photo ganked from Vera, because I don't currently have a working camera in the office)

So you know what the #2 best part of my job is? 

Getting new books in! 

First Second works on an early schedule where we get books in advance so People of Importance (read: select booksellers, media, librarians; also the author) can see them and get excited about them and then get other people excited about them and then the whole world thinks they are awesome. 

What that means is that one day, long before the books come out, they show up in our office!  And we get to work and there are boxes of things there that turn out to be books!  And we get to see them before anyone else in the world!*

And then the books lounge around looking very pretty, because we put out very pretty books. 

So we got in our first round of books that are coming out in Spring 2010 last week, and you would think the excitement would've worn off by now, but it hasn't, so I therefore had to share. (And also Vera posted the excellent above picture, which means I had something to illustrate the whole sense of excitement with, always a useful thing.)

*Not actually true, because the printers of course look at them to make sure that they are not printing upside-down and things.  But they are in China, so we are at least seeing them before anyone else in the entire country, which is almost-but-not-quite as exciting.