That, ladies and gentlemen, is the Dutch cover for Looking for Alaska. (If you want to see a better quality image, believe me, you are not alone. But after careful examination, the cover appears to depict a cigarette unrolling in the air and turning into a dove's wing, which has lipstick marks. I love this cover. I love the Dutch. They still roll their own, you know.)

In Dutch, the book is called Het Grote Misschien, which means The Great Perhaps. I wanted to find out what my Dutch publisher had to say about Het Grote Misschien, but unfortunately, everything they write about it is in Dutch. (The only English words in the description are Catcher in the Rye and Dead Poets' Society. One could be in worse company.)

So I got the bright idea to turn to my old friend babelfish, the handy web site that takes text from other languages and turns them into hilarious English. Witness, for instance, my Dutch biography translated, by Babelfish, into English:

John green (Orlando, 1977) went on fifteen-year-old age to a cost school in
Birmingham. He studied English and religion sciences and decided that he priest
wants become in the Anglican church. There he decided that he a book wants write concerning people who must learn life with the death of someone which they had. Nowadays and makes he reviews green for Booklist radio programmes. Large perhaps its debuut is. See also http://www.sparksflyup.com/

I particularly like the parts where babelfish claims I attended a "cost school," and the part where decided that I priest wanted to become in the Anglican church. And the part where I review green for Booklist radio programmes. God, I love reviewing green for Booklist radio programmes.

And now, for something entirely different. I've gotten a few emails the past couple weeks (john@sparksflyup.com, y'all) asking if there are any YA books I'd recommend. So some quick recommendations:

Marcus Zusak's I Am the Messenger: Any book that stars the kind of kids who mouth off to bank robbers in the first scene is my kind of book. I had my doubts when I heard the premise, but I Am the Messenger is the kind of book that transcends any description of its plot.

E. Lockhart's The Boyfriend List: Footnotes? A list of exes? Be still my beating heart. I hope no one accuses me of stealing from The Boyfriend List in Katherines, but there are worse books to be compared to.

Amy Stolls' Palms to the Ground: A funny-as-hell and utterly charming story of neurosis. Let's hope she keeps writing YA.

And finally a few non-YA books that are just plain wonderful and deserve attention. I loved The Untelling by Tayari Jones so much that I can't even tell you; Daniel Alarcon's book of short stories War by Candlelight is going to light the world on fire; and I've just gotten around to reading Politics, by Hendrik Hertzberg, who I'd be if I could write that well and think that clearly. Mr. Hertzberg, incidentally, played a significant role in a proposal I recently made. (More on that another time.)