Brad and Angelina are shown on 5/20/09 in Cannes. Credit: WENN.com

Tuesday night, Brangelina left the kids at home and went out for an adults-only evening. First, they went for a “romantic dinner date” at Cecconi’s, an Italian restaurant in Hollywood. Eyewitness accounts have them holding hands and looking “as if they were having plenty of fun throughout their romantic date.” X17 seems to be the only agency with photos of the date night. They both look nice. And both are in shades of black and maybe navy (hey, it‘s a start). And Brad left his fedoras and newsboy caps at home! Hurray!

After dinner, it seems Brad and Angelina stopped by a book party for Nicholas Kristof’s (and his co-author Sheryl WuDunn’s) Half the Sky: Turning Oppression Into Opportunity For Women Worldwide. Kristof is more Angelina’s friend than Brad‘s. Kristof is a columnist for the New York Times, and he spends a lot of his time working on and writing about many of the subjects Angelina is involved with – refugees, poverty, education, women’s rights internationally, human rights, et cetera. Jolie and Kristof have done appearances together on behalf of the Council on Foreign Relations (of which they are both members), and it was after a CFR panel discussion that Kristof took to his NYT blog to defend Angelina against what he saw as an unfairly snarky Daily Beast column. Here’s more about the book:

From two of our most fiercely moral voices, a passionate call to arms against our era’s most pervasive human rights violation: the oppression of women and girls in the developing world.

With Pulitzer Prize winners Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn as our guides, we undertake an odyssey through Africa and Asia to meet the extraordinary women struggling there, among them a Cambodian teenager sold into sex slavery and an Ethiopian woman who suffered devastating injuries in childbirth. Drawing on the breadth of their combined reporting experience, Kristof and WuDunn depict our world with anger, sadness, clarity, and, ultimately, hope.

They show how a little help can transform the lives of women and girls abroad. That Cambodian girl eventually escaped from her brothel and, with assistance from an aid group, built a thriving retail business that supports her family. The Ethiopian woman had her injuries repaired and in time became a surgeon. A Zimbabwean mother of five, counseled to return to school, earned her doctorate and became an expert on AIDS.

Through these stories, Kristof and WuDunn help us see that the key to economic progress lies in unleashing women’s potential. They make clear how so many people have helped to do just that, and how we can each do our part. Throughout much of the world, the greatest unexploited economic resource is the female half of the population. Countries such as China have prospered precisely because they emancipated women and brought them into the formal economy. Unleashing that process globally is not only the right thing to do; it’s also the best strategy for fighting poverty.

Deeply felt, pragmatic, and inspirational, Half the Sky is essential reading for every global citizen.

[From Random House]

So, anyway, Angelina and Brad stopped by the book party and once again it seems like X17 was the only agency to get pics. The party was at the Pacific Design Center, which I can only suspect is how Angelina got Brad to come. “Hey, baby, you can look at pretty architecture pictures while I pose for pictures with important people.” And pose she did – she held the book with its cover out (as she’s done before) like a game show hostess (seriously). Then she gave a good quote to help Kristof move some copies: “For female readers it gives a new sense of what it is to be a woman. For husbands sons and fathers, it will infuriate and astound you. You will not want to put it down.” Thank you, Angelina Epic-Soundbyte. Kristof seemed pleased with the added coverage his book got. He tweeted this morning “Drinks with Angelina Jolie last night, and I’m stunned by the celebrity websites today.”

As for all of the other stuff about Angelina Jolie and the books coming out about her, Lainey at LaineyGossip summed it up better than I could.

UPDATE: Life & Style has an exclusive statement from Andrew Morton about the book he’s writing on Angelina. He denies the tabloid claims that he will report that a 16-year-old (or younger) Angelina had a sexual relationship with her mother’s adult boyfriend. The story was first reported months ago in Star Magazine, but has gotten some kind of second wind in the tabloid and legitimate press in the past few weeks because both the Morton and the Ian Halperin books allegedly deal with this statutory rape/“seduction” issue. Morton says the story is “about as true as I’m sitting on this horse.” Which, I suppose, we’re supposed to know that he’s not sitting on a horse? I guess. My other guess is that this story was started, promoted and distributed by Ian Halperin, who is an established hack and fraud.

Brad and Angelina are shown on 5/20/09 in Cannes. Credit: WENN.com