Drum roll please....today is my 1,000th post. It all started way back on a cold winter's day in January 2005. I received my first year of Typepad as a Christmas gift from my sister. I barely knew what a blog was, and when I saw the Typepad email in my inbox I deleted it thinking it was spam. Once we got it all cleared up and sorted out, I thought I was saddled with the strangest sort of gift, and what on earth was I possibly going to do with a blog? And a whole year's subscription? At the time I was reading a little, doing paper arts a lot, and working on my needlework even less. So my initial posts were a combination of these things. Later that year I started discovering book blogs, and A Work in Progress morphed into a mostly book blog, too--for me, it's a sort of online reading journal. And somewhere along the way I became addicted to it all, which I sometimes wonder if that's a good thing or not (but I think it mostly is). I think I have probably posted nearly every day since my very first post, and I occasionally toy with changing my routine, but as long as it works for me I'll stick with it.
So, in celebration of my 1,000th post I thought it would be fun to give a few books away as a thank you to all the kind people who stop by and leave the occasional comment. I think if it weren't for the virtual conversations it wouldn't be as fun for me as it is, and I probably wouldn't do it. I wish I could have you all over for cake and ice cream, and maybe some apple cider, but it might get kind of crowded in my dining room. Besides books are calorie free and you can get many more hours of enjoyment out of them. I stopped by the bookstore last night after work and left with these three books:
The Best American Essays 2007, edited by David Foster Wallace -- which includes essays by Jo Ann Beard, Mark Danner, Malcolm Gladwell, Garret Keizer, Louis Menand, Cynthia Ozick, Molly Peacock, Marilynne Robinson, Richard Rodriguez, Peter Singer, Edward O. Wilson and others...
The Best American Travel Writing 2007, edited by Susan Orlean -- which included pieces by Rick Bass, Ian Frazier, Elizabeth Gilbert, David Halberstam, Peter Hessler, Edward Hoagland, Ann Patchett, George Saunders, Gary Shteyngart, Andrew Solomon, Cynthia Zarin and others...
Best American Short Stories 2007, edited by Stephen King -- which includes stories by Ann Beattie, T.C. Boyle, William Gay, Mary Gordon, Stellar Kim, Aryn Kyle, Bruce McAllister, Karen Russell, Richard Russo, Jim Shepard, Kate Walbert and others...
Just leave a comment telling me the book you are interested in. And I am happy to mail overseas, so don't be shy if you don't live in the US. If you want to leave me the title of your favorite short story anthology, or book of essays or travel book, I would be happy to add it to my wishlist of books! I'll drop everyone's name into bowls for the book you're interested in, and draw out the winners next Saturday morning. In the interim, I might just take a peek at these books...they look pretty tempting. Thanks again everyone for stopping by and making this such an enjoyable experience!